Chart by Guttmacher Institute
Politico
notes that there's been next to no reaction from fire-breathing, anti-health care reform Republicans over the new rules issued last week to require insurance companies participating in the exchanges and issuing new policies to cover contraception and other women's health services without co-pays.
The new standards are a piece of the law Republicans might predictably oppose: a coverage mandate at the intersection of Americans’ most personal lives.
But a week after the rules were announced, most Republicans have stayed mum, with Hill leaders laying off press releases and declining to comment when asked directly.
“Republicans don’t want to be portrayed as anti-woman, and the way these stories tend to get written, that’s how it gets spun,” said Tevi Troy, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served as deputy Health and Human Services secretary for part of the George W. Bush administration. Plus, Troy noted: “Who wants to be on the side of big co-pays?”
Gee, why would anyone think that the Republicans are anti-woman? Or that they have put a huge target on women's reproductive rights?
Here's another potential fault line for the Republicans: the tea party faction, represented in this case by the insane Rep. Steve King, hates this rule. King says it will make us a "dying civilization," has put family planning on their hit list. Consider Rep. Michele Bachmann, who justifies her holy war against Planned Parenthood by saying "an arrogant corrupt Washington elite" has "declared war on marriage, on families, on fertility, and on faith."
This isn't a fight the more establishment Republicans want to take on, since more than 99 percent of American women who are sexually active have used some form of contraception. That's a lot of women to further alienate.