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The Obama administration announced what it saw as a new accommodations on the controversial contraception mandate that obliged Catholic organisations to provide contraceptive health care coverage.
Under attack from the US Catholic Bishops, Catholic hospitals and other institutions, the proposal seeks to shift the cost of providing birth control coverage onto insurance companies and prohibiting insurers from passing additional costs onto employees.
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the government would guarantee women access to contraceptives “while accommodating religious liberty interests.”
The announcement is the second such conciliatory modification from the Obama administration and follows the US Bishops dialing back its opposition to the administration with a statement released at the end of a two-day meeting of the bishops’ administrative committee.
The bishop’s statement declared the conference is “strongly unified and intensely focused” and vowed to continue their defense of religious liberty in the courts, Congress and the White House, however it lacked much of the inflammatory rhetoric that has characterized the debate between the bishops and the administration in recent weeks.
The bishops expressed their gratitude to all those who are standing with them in “this unjust and illegal mandate”.
Stephen Schneck, a political scientist at The Catholic University of America, who advised Obama on how to reach out to the church says in his view “this definitely moves things forward toward”.
He hopes the accommodation is something the American bishops might be more willing to consider.
However Michael O’Dea, executive director of the Christus Medicus Foundation, which promotes Christian healthcare labelled the accommodation as “bogus”.
“This does nothing,” he said.
The announcement follows weeks of quiet negotiations between the officials from the Church, insurance companies and Obama administration.
The policy comes into force for religious employers on August 1, 2013.
Sources
- US Catholic Bishops
- NY Times
- Chicago Tribune
- Washington Post
- New Orleans LA News
- NCR
- Image: Red Dog Report
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- HHS announces comment period on mandate accommodation
News category: World.
