Mitt Romney Says Birth Control Should Only be Covered by States, Not Obamacare (Video)Health
Politics
Mitt Romney Birth Control
Former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney attacked Obamacare today for providing birth control coverage to women because it's a federal law, not a state law.
RawStory.com reports that Romney and Fox News host Chris Wallace were discussing a Catholic organization, Little Sisters of the Poor, which is challenging the birth control mandate of Obamacare in the US Supreme Court (video below).
In 2002, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a law that required employers, who offered health insurance, to include "outpatient contraceptive services under the same terms and conditions as for such other outpatient services."
Governor Swift's law provided an exemption for religious employers that met the definition of a "church or qualified church-controlled organization" under federal law.
The Little Sisters of the Poor meet the same exemption under Obamacare, but they are refusing to accept the exemption, and instead are challenging Obamacare in court.
“This was not an issue in our state,” said Romney. “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.”
“That’s why it was at the heart of my plan for health care in America, and I think the heart of the Republican plan for health care in replacing Obamacare, is to say, look, let’s let states put in place their own plans that make sense for their people,” stated Romney. “We can have federal guidelines saying you need to get people covered, you need to deal with pre-existing conditions.”
However, Romney failed to mention that Obamacare does allow states to come up with their own plans.
According to ObamaCareFacts.com, "By 2017, states will be able to get a waiver to set up their own approved health care solution, as long as it meets the standards of Obamacare."
Obamacare also banned discrimination of health care per "pre-existing conditions."
Romney also failed to mention that Republicans have had decades to set up new health care systems in their states, but most have chosen not to. Instead, Romney attacked the GOP's favorite bogeyman, the "federal government."
“But don’t have the federal government take over health care, tell the American people precisely what type of coverage they have to have, have the federal government telling doctors what kinds of procedures are authorized and not," Romney continued. "That is just not the way to go. Let states and individuals have the powers that the Constitution intended them to have.”
Sources: Mass.gov, RawStory.com, ObamaCareFacts.com
1 Reported by Opposing Views 18 hours ago.