Delayed Reaction

The storm created by President Obama’s mandate requiring religious institutions that employ women to provide for contraceptive care is old news now that the President has modified the plan. But I couldn’t help thinking of it this morning when I read a summary of the Dordt College board of trustees meeting presented by President Carl Zylstra. He reports that the board received updates on public policy decisions being made regarding the health care mandates of the federal government and their impact on Dordt College and its health plan coverage.

I thought, “Aha! The contraceptive care issue.” But then I realized it couldn’t be that issue since the state of Iowa has had a contraceptive care requirement that goes farther than President Obama’s original proposal, and it has been in place since the year 2000. Iowa requires all businesses, even churches and religious organizations, to provide birth control options for their employees.

Two Observations:
1. I did not know of Iowa’s plan until the recent discussion of Obama’s plan revealed that 28 states already had similar plans in place, Iowa being one of them. Was it only I who was asleep or were most concerned Iowans unaware of it? And if we didn’t know, whose fault is it? It seems to me that often something has to become a national issue before it makes its way into our consciousness.
2. I wonder, sometimes, if there is an eagerness among some people to jump on the anti-Obama bandwagon, an eagerness so powerful that they can hurl invective at him for a policy that they have blithely lived with for over ten years.

Comments

  1. John RMarch 6, 2012 at 11:51 AM

    Dave (I responded to your Michael Lewis book post just now, below)
    About 1 above, it may be a case of "don't know, don't care", UNTIL somebody casts the question as the existing health care law attacks religion, which breeds a public fight which is interesting (cf. Fox News, and makes political hay, as you note in 2, against the President. Somewhat similarly, when gas prices were low(er)who cared that much about bad behavior by Iran's leader(s), or way out-of-whack crude futures until gas went to $4/gallon?
    About contraception and people who hold that churches are right to be against it (and not provide insurance to cover it), my doc friend Marcus, as he gave me a physical last week, posed this question to Newt Gingrich, "When you, a married person, were having your seven year affair, did your partner use contraceptives?"
    Keep writing, dude. Peace. John

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