Friday, August 05, 2011

It's Official-Pregnancy is now a Disease

In the new Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines for health insurance plans, HHS took the extraordinary step of putting the guidelines into effect immediately so that college students could have free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients by the 2012-2013 school year.

“The Obama Administration apparently believes that ensuring contraceptives for students’ premarital exploits is reason enough to forego public comment before making these rules effective,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “That is social engineering at its worst.”

According to the proposed rule submitted to the Office of the Federal Register:

“The July 19, 2010 interim final rules indicated that HRSA expected to issue guidelines by August 1, 2011. After considering public comments raising the issue addressed in these amendments, however, the Departments determined that HRSA should be granted the discretion to address the commenter concerns at issue prior to issuing guidelines under section 2713(a)(4). Many college student policy years begin in August and an estimated 1.5 million young adults are estimated to be covered by such policies.5 Providing an opportunity for public comment as described above would mean that the guidelines could not be issued until after August of 2011. This delay would mean that many students could not benefit from the new prevention coverage without cost-sharing following from the issuance of the guidelines until the 2013-14 school year, as opposed to the 2012-13 school year. Similarly, 2008 data from the Department of Labor indicate that over 4 million Americans have ERISA group health plan coverage that starts in August or September; they too would experience over a year’s delay in the receipt of the new benefit if the public comment period delayed the issuance of the guidance for over a month. The Departments have determined that such a delay in implementation of the statutory requirement that women receive vital preventive services without cost-sharing would be contrary to the public interest because it could result in adverse health consequences
that may not otherwise have occurred.”(emphasis added)

Yes pregnancy has to be prevented because it could result in adverse health consequences - you know, like a baby.


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