Every president’s goal when in office is to do something “big” so that they will be remembered in the history books. President Obama’s “big” thing is his health care bill, which passed March 2010. The debate over the bill was one of the most intense ever in Congress and everyday Americans flooded the town halls of their congressmen to make their opinion heard. One part of “Obamacare” includes that private institutions must provide contraceptives to their employees. This is by far one of the most controversial parts of the already controversial bill. Frankly it is a terrible bill and violates the constitution by forcing employers to pay for contraceptives in insurance plans.
Where in the Constitution does it say that businesses and institutions must pay for birth control? It doesn’t. The Obama health care referendum is a violation of the Constitution and therefore our rights as Americans.
Health care should be provided by businesses, not the government. There are countless health insurance companies for a reason, to create competition. The United States got to where it is today with the idea of competition, it lowers prices and limits monopolies.
One thing President Obama fails to understand is that his health care bill will sky rocket our national debt even further than it already is. In the eight years that he was in office, President George W. Bush raised the federal debt a little over $4 trillion. In less than four years in office, Obama has raised the deficit over $6 trillion.
With the health care bill signed into law, some experts say it will increase the federal deficit beyond repair so it must be stopped. In just the last few weeks, the CBO reassessed the cost of the bill. Originally it was thought that the bill would cost $900 billion in the first ten years. Now it is believed that from now to 2022, Obamacare will cost $1.76 trillion.
Obviously the Catholic Church does not approve of contraceptives. Being a Catholic institution, I thought that Marquette University wouldn’t have an insurance plan that offered contraceptives to its employees, but it turns out that contraceptives are covered. Brian Dorrington, Senior Director of University Communication at Marquette, said that Marquette offers contraceptives to its employees but it requires a co-pay in addition to their normal health benefits.
This surprised me because generally speaking, Catholics do not approve of any form of birth control, but Dorrington pointed out that Marquette realizes that not all of its employees are Catholic, so accommodations have been made to satisfy those people—one of them being birth control.
Although Marquette already offers contraceptives to its employees, it is not right of the Obama administration to force institutions to do so. Marquette is a business and it should be able to do what it wants with its money and employees. If they want to offer birth control to their employees, so-be-it, but it should not be forced. It is a violation of our rights as free citizens to be dictated to by the government.
Just because Marquette offers contraceptive benefits to its employees does not mean that all schools or businesses must do so. The Obama Administration is forcing businesses to spend money that don’t want to or can afford.
The Constitution doesn’t authorize the government to take people’s money and redistribute it to pay for universal health insurance or contraceptives. President Obama and Congress are in direct violation of the law of the land, the Constitution, by the passage and implementation of Obamacare. Marquette, or any other business or institution, should pay for its employee’s health insurance on its own terms, not the government’s. This law needs to be repealed now or we will have set the precedent that an individual’s God-given liberty lies in the hands of the government. And with that precedent set, it only begs the question: what’s next?
