If Catholics don't have to pay for complete coverage for their female employees, can Christ Scientists just forgo health insurance for their employees altogether?

Catholic Bishops live in the fourth century and expect us to join them. Ha! Bunch of old women hating closet cases should go live at the Vatican insane asylum.

The Obama Administration is responding to pressure from their Public, from Women.
Re the recent firestorm about Komen and Planned Parenthood;
Re the recent unfavorable response to the administration rule denying the "morning after pill" to teens without a hard-to-get-in-a-few-hours prescription.
They are also starting to respond to there being such a thing as the Occupy Movement.
Just keep up the pressure! We may be in for some {pleasant!} surprises, at least on domestic and women's and LGBT issues, in an Obama second term. Makes it even more worthwhile to VOTE....

Good point, #1, about the Christian Scientists!

Re: Catholic Bishops-

Hmmmm...

...contraception, wrong.

...pedophilia, ok.

I get it...t's a recruiting issue!

@4 "The Obama Administration is responding to pressure from their Public, from Women."

Huh? Did you go w/Gingrich to the Moon or something?

Obama and Murray cave to the Catholic hierarchy and you think it signals responsiveness to women?

Guess this will have to go in the file with the 53% of liberal Dems supporting Obama's drone program.

I recommend you read the comments on this NYTimes column for reality check on how women and their supporters view this Obama debacle. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/health…

What about my religion "Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster"? Will Obama exempt me from the obligation to pay for my meatballs?

@1 - I don't think the Christian Scientists have a lot of church-related institutions (schools, hospitals, etc) the way the Catholic church and some Protestant denominations do. And churches themselves are exempt from the rule.

What’s to prevent any employer (religious, or not) from jumping on this and deflecting contraception costs to the insurer? Other than bad PR of course.

Even the Catholic Church bends on this issue. For example, Provident (Catholic) just took over, or merged with, Swedish Hospital. Yet Swedish gets to maintain their medical practices and keep its former insurance deals. Good for female employees at Swedish; tough luck for female employees at Provident.

@10, the Affordable Care Act requires existing insurance to cover contraception without deductibles or co-pays beginning in Aug. 2012.

There aren't really any increased costs to shift and insurance companies themselves aren't squawking about this because, duh, contraception is CHEAPER than pregnancy, parturition, and neonatal care.

@10, re deflecting costs to the insurer, that's kind of what insurance is for.

Well played, sir.

I thought that the administration could have won this debate within the context of religious liberty, by basically saying they were weighing the value of the religious liberty of the Catholic church as an institution against the religious liberty of the individual women workers who could benefit from full reproductive health service coverage (Catholic or not), but this is actually an interesting alternative.

Though of course, now the right will just attack him for mandating insurance companies do something...

Nicely handled, Mr. President.

Very smooth move. The purity trolls will hate it, but they hate everything.

@7: It's actually 77% of self identified liberal Democrats that support drone attacks. 53% support keeping Guantanamo open. Oh, but I'm being a "purity troll" aren't I.

@16: "The purity trolls will hate it, but they hate everything."

true, true;
and the Catholic Bishops will hate it too because, well, they hate women.