Last time I checked, Massachusetts had a large Catholic population, but for some reason that didn’t present any problems when RomneyCare required that religious institutions in the state offer contraceptives on their health care plans.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said that his health care reform law in Massachusetts included birth control in insurance coverage but he opposed it in President Barack Obama’s law because only states should be able to grant those rights to women.
On Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace pointed out to Romney that Massachusetts’ so-called Romneycare law included the type of birth control mandate that was now being opposed in the United States Supreme Court by Little Sisters of the Poor and other Catholic groups. But Romney’s law differed from the Affordable Care in that it did not even offer a waiver for those non-profit organizations seeking an exemption.
“This was not an issue in our state,” Romney explained. “We didn’t have the Catholic church come to us and say, ‘Look, we’ve got a problem here with the type of legislation you’ve put in place.’ But frankly, Chris, whatever mistakes that were made in Massachusetts, those are mistakes that can be dealt with at the state level.”
It simply never occurred to the Catholic Church to oppose health care plans that offer contraceptive coverage until opposing the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act became a priority for the Republican Party.
In fact, until the contraceptive requirement became an issue in the 2012 campaign, numerous Catholic organizations and universities offered health plans that covered contraception. Even in the states that required such coverage, the mandate could have been avoided by self-insuring or offering plans without prescription drug coverage.
So, why did the Catholic Church allow themselves to become captured by the Republicans’ obstructionist agenda?
