Sen. Roy Blunt. Liar.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), author of the
far-reaching amendment to allow
any employer to deny health insurance coverage to
any employee for
any reason deemed against his or her "moral conviction," doesn't want his constituents to know what his bill does.
In an op-ed he wrote this weekend, Blunt says it's all about the "religious freedom." Let's count the ways in which he lies. Or just a few of the most egregious ones, anyway.
This is not about one group, one health care requirement, or one set of beliefs. It's about protecting Americans' fundamental religious freedom—a freedom that has been guaranteed for more than 220 years since the ratification of the Bill of Rights. [...]
Unfortunately, the current administration has taken a very different approach to this fundamental freedom, most recently with the Department of Health and Human Services' misguided attempt to force insurance companies and employers to cover contraception and controversial abortion drugs.
This provision is a direct result of President Obama's deeply flawed health care law—the first federal health care law that doesn't honor religious beliefs. [...]
Instead of addressing Americans' very valid concerns, the president simply reissued the same rule it already had unveiled with a vague promise to protect faith communities from the cost of the regulation in the coming months.
What President Obama doesn't seem to understand is that this debate is not about cost. It's not about contraception. It's about the Constitution. It's about faith and who controls the religious views of faith-based institutions. [...]
The "controversial abortion drugs" are neither controversial nor abortion drugs. Contraception is not abortion, though the forced-birthers are doing their damnedest to make that new definition stick.
Blunt also blatantly lies in saying that the law doesn't honor religious beliefs. The accommodation President Obama arrived at was accepted by the Catholic Health Association, the trade association representing Catholic hospitals. If the hospitals believe it honors religious beliefs, it does.
The biggest lie, however, is in saying that his amendment isn't about cost. Of course, it's about cost—the cost to employers and insurers for covering a broad range of services for employees. Give employers an out on the basis of "moral convictions" and they can start denying (and stop paying for) any number of services, from health care screenings to cancer treatments.
In fact, that's the only truth Blunt tells, when he says this isn't about contraception. It's not about contraception because it's about any kind of health care coverage, and about an employer's ability to yank it away from you.
Of course, it's also not about the Constitution or religious freedom. It's about dismantling any part of the Affordable Care Act they can get their hands on in service to their Chamber of Commerce masters, and it's about riling up the base.