This appears to be exactly the middle finger that the Bishops deserve:
On a conference call with reporters Friday, a senior administration official announced that the White House will move the onus to provide women free contraceptive services to insurance companies if their religiously-affiliated employers object to providing insurance coverage that covers birth control.
“All women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services,” the official said. “The insurance company will be required to reach out directly and offer her contraceptive coverage free of charge,” if the employer objects to providing that coverage in its benefit package.
In other words, if you offer your employees a health benefit package, your female employees are going to get free contraceptive coverage regardless of whether or not you directly authorize it. It can be part of your benefits package, or not. The result will be the same.
Hopefully, this rule will be implemented immediately, obviating the need for a year-long grace period for religious institutions to implement the previous rule. Also, this will hopefully be applied even to the churches that were previously exempted. If so, all the Bishops got for their disingenuous hissy-fit is a lesson in STFU.
