J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leading a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.
The Senate rejected the Republican effort to scale back President Obama's birth control mandate today by a narrow margin.
Outgoing Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, who announced plans to retire earlier this week, voted with Democrats to kill the Blunt Amendment, 51-48.
Three Democrats also strayed from party lines, voted in favor of limiting Obama’s contraception policy: Senators Bob Casey, Joe Manchin and Ben Nelson. Both Casey and Manchin are up for re-election, and this vote will likely serve as a litmus test for Dems and Republicans this fall.
The measure would have allowed employers and health plans to opt out of paying for medical services based on religious beliefs or moral objections.
Democrats argued this proposal went too far, and could leave the door open to employers blocking other kinds of coverage on a whim. Republicans said the Obama administration's contraception rule under the new health care law violates religious freedoms.
"This is an important victory," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "Today's vote says that your boss won't be able to decide which prescriptions you can get filled and which medical procedures you can have."
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That's good news. However, these three Dems don't deserve their label.
Just found this joke on the Internet and thought I share it here:
Q: How many US conservatives does it take to change a light bulb?
A: I don't know, but they are all convinced that Obama broke it.
An alternative answer of my own (honest!):
It's never been determined. They've always been in the dark...
"Outgoing Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, who announced plans to retire earlier this week, voted with Democrats to kill the Blunt Amendment, 51-48."
Thank you Senator Olympia Snowe....
This is ultra stupid... I don't see how any Republican or even Nelson and Munchkin or whatever and Casey can ever expect to get a woman vote again... This is more than stupid, it's insane... We're coming up on burning at the stake and full blown witch hunts... This throwback mentality scares the hell out of me...
the Senators from PA - Casey and Toomey have woefully underestimated the women of PA
we will not allow the repeal of the 20th century and women's rights
I think we miss the point when we focus on this as a "Republican effort to scale back President Obama's birth control mandate". Certainly it was initiated by some sort of concern of the Catholic Bishops in the USA (Note that here in Germany this does not seem to be a problem with the Catholic church, as an employer they pick up 50% of the health insurance that their employees choose and the Germany government requires contraceptives to be covered by all health insurance. I guess the USA bishops are more pious than the German ones).
It seems to me that the Blunt amendment goes much further. In the short term, it was an attack on the ability of the government to set minimum specifications for health insurance. Longer term, it would have provided (and for many may still provide) an intellectual basis for tearing down any regulation on business. What cann't an employer have a moral objection to.
Republicans have time and time again showed themselves to be particularly adept at making structural changes to get their way. Having trouble getting older and poor to vote for you, voter id laws will eliminate a percentage of that problem. Don't hold a majority to get something done, use the debt ceiling to blackmail the other side into accepting what you want. Cannot stop abortions, pass laws to make it difficult or humiliating for a woman to get one. You can easily go on.
This use of separation of church and state and trying to extend it to any "moral" objection is, I think, simply a continuation of this pattern. It has little or nothing to do about religion, morality, or contraception. It has to do with the stripping of the ability of government to regulate.
How stupid can some of these people be. An employer can opt put of paying for medical expenses for moral or religious reasons. Suppose the employer is the US government and they tell you we are not going to pay for your prostate cancer treatment? Mr. Blunt, what are are going to tell your employer the government if it came to that sort of situation? It is my understanding this is not only for women, it is for anyone they feel it will be against their moral and religious reasons. It is your bill and do you not see what you are promoting but all you want is to target women. Thank goodness this stupid bill went down the drain.
It would have been placed in POTUS circular file if it would have made it to his desk regardless of the fact. These republicans make me want to throw up on my sweater vest...
Regards
I am not against contraceptives...I support their use. I am against having to pay for some one else's use of contraceptives. Everytime I turn around my wallet keeps getting skinnier because of laws and policies enacted that create further entitlements such as this. I work too hard for my money to support MY family...I don't need to spend anymore to help support other families. It seems to me that at some point the Govt will enact policies and laws that will take all the money I earn and then give me and my family the entitlement programs we will need to house, feed, clothe, and take care of our medical needs. Didn't another country try that experirement...memory serves me right...it was the USSR. How did that turn out?
I'm afraid I don't understand this last comment. We were talking about insurance coverage that these people are paying for either directly out of pocket or as compensation for their or their family's efforts at work. They want this coverage. Insurance is willing to provide it.
But the Blunt amendment says that employers that organized the health care plans can insert themselves into this by claiming their moral objection under the false assumption that employers are paying. No, it is the employee paying. It is their compensation. The only reason employers are involved is that they are able to create a group to to help control the price of insurance.
Obviously, more and more employers are dropping their coverage (and often pocking the savings, essentially reducing the employee's compensation for their work). And this is why health care reform was needed. And this may be where the stated concern is coming from. But this in not what Blunt was about. And it is a misplaced concern unless you are also willing to change laws to require doctors and hospitals to refuse treatment unless payment can be assured. Now we really are talking about something that I and many others (including the doctors, i would hope) would find morally reprehensible.
@rockhound...
Oh Boo-Friggin-Hoo; Cry me a river!
Who in the hell do you think subsidizes YOUR insurance premiums, the streets you drive on, the clean air you breath, the employer you work for, and on and on? Only a moron thinks that the world revolves around their own pocket book.
Why isn't anybody on the Left declaring loudly and strongly how these mandated sonograms, whether abdominal or intervaginal/transvaginal, especially ones that are not medically necessary and are counter to the patient's physician's judgement, are patently, obviously, egregiously and hypocritically a Republican instigated government takeover of healthcare?