So..Obama, health care and Catholics. Did he blow it?

[Grace62]

This is interesting. Many Catholic organizations already cover contraceptives in their health plans because they recognize that it is what their female employees want and need. Just a couple of examples:

"Boston College, the six former Caritas Christi Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts, and other Catholic organizations that are located in one of the 28 states that already require employers to provide contraception benefits could have self-insured or stopped offering prescription drug coverage to avoid the mandate — but didn’t do so. Instead, they — like many Catholic hospitals and health care insurers around the country — chose to meet the needs of the overwhelming majority of Catholic women and offer these much needed services."

And, 98% of Catholic women in the US use birth control.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/...nce-plans/

So once again, we have to fabricate a social issue so that Republicans can get outraged about something. Why does it so often have to be women's health? Pick on something else.

[Grace62]

This is interesting too. You get similar results on issues like gay marriage. Catholic leadership is frequently not representative of what adherents think and believe on social issues.
You can see who Republicans are pandering to here. Not a majority, not a winning issue.

[August West]

Is there a link to that study, Grace. I'd be interested in looking at their descriptions of the categories listed. Specifically, I was wondering if "unaffiliated" means moderately of strongly religious.

[mattkime]

Lets be clear about something. the question isn't "did he blow it?"

its

"did he throw Catholics under the bus?"

[Grace62]

mattkime wrote:
Lets be clear about something. the question isn't "did he blow it?"

its

"did he throw Catholics under the bus?"

The Bishops are throwing Catholic women under the bus. The Obama administration is trying to pull them out.

[Grace62]

August West wrote:
Is there a link to that study, Grace. I'd be interested in looking at their descriptions of the categories listed. Specifically, I was wondering if "unaffiliated" means moderately of strongly religious.

http://publicreligion.org/research/2012/...poll-2012/

I think they mean religious but not affiliated with a particular organized religion. But it's not entirely clear.

[August West]

I think they mean religious but not affiliated with a particular organized religion. But it's not entirely clear.

I agree, they are entirely unclear. Their methodology is sound (it was conducted by a professional polling organization), but there does not appear to be any qualifying questions in the survey to control for religious propensity. Yet they report the results as "Among other religious Americans, 61% of religiously unaffiliated Americans..."

I don't see how they detect the religious from a representative sample of the American population.

[beagledave]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72595.html

The WH is floating a trial balloon of "easy now, we're open to compromise on this thing".

Axelrod signaled — in sharper terms than senior administration officials had previously — that a compromise may be in the offing.
“I heard earlier Joe [Scarborough] say, ‘Well, there may be compromises that can be reached,’” Axelrod said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We certainly don’t want to abridge anyone’s religious freedoms, so we’re going to look for a way to move forward that both provides women with the preventive care that they need and respects the prerogatives of religious institutions.”

I suspect some version of the Hawaiian compromise will be looked at.

[Grace62]

The White House move starts to look more calculated in terms of messing with Mitt Romney, who has a contradictory record on this contraception and religious organizations issue. Played really well to Rick Santorum.

[Trouble]

beagledave wrote:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72595.html

The WH is floating a trial balloon of "easy now, we're open to compromise on this thing".

They have had a year to compromise on this. Obama stepped in it big time and this won't the last thing either.