As we know, Scott Brown has spent the last couple of days desperately trying to explain why he’s backing Roy Blunt’s crazy health care amendment. What he hasn’t explained – because, so far, there’s been no mainstream media coverage of it that I’ve seen – is why, in 2002, he voted for a state mandate requiring health care plans to provide coverage for “hormone replacement therapy for peri and post menopausal women and for outpatient prescription contraceptive drugs or devices.” There is a “conscience” exemption in that law, but it is basically limited to churches and church-run elementary and secondary schools. It notably does not include church-affiliated universities or hospitals. And there is absolutely no exemption for someone’s “moral convictions.” ThinkProgress first reported the flip-flop yesterday.
So to review: in Massachusetts, under the law that Scott Brown voted for, religiously-affiliated employers like hospitals and universities must offer health care that covers prescription contraceptives on the same terms as other prescription drugs. When President Obama tried to impose that rule nationally, the uproar was such that he backed off, engineering a clever compromise that prevents employers from having to pay for something to which they object – and major Catholic employers like Catholic Charities USA and the hospital-affiliated Catholic Health Association have said they are pleased with the compromise (though the bishops of course are not). And yet, Scott Brown now claims that the Obama compromise isn’t good enough – even though he voted for a law that goes further. ???
The Massachusetts law was not without controversy at the time it was passed. The Globe reported (paywall) as follows:
The House vote, taken after nearly three hours of debate, would make Massachusetts the 18th state in the nation and the last in New England to require insurers to cover birth control and hormone replacement therapy for women to the same extent that their policies cover other prescription drugs….
The Catholic Conference of Massachusetts, the lobbying arm of the Archdiocese of Boston, have long fought the bill, and legislative opponents fought hard yesterday to include an amendment exempting organizations that are affiliated with the Catholic church or have a moral objection to contraception.
Federal law already excludes organizations directly controlled by the church from the requirement, but the proposed amendment would have allowed affiliated institutions such as hospitals, universities, and nursing homes to deny their employees coverage.
In a strong endorsement of the bill’s original language, the amendment failed, 106 to 49, paving the way for its landslide victory, 140 to 16.
Interestingly, among those 16 voting “no” was then-Speaker Thomas Finneran (well known for his socially conservative views) and 14 other Democrats. Only one of the 22 Republicans, Rep. Poirier, voted “no.” All the others, including Scott Brown, voted “yes” on final passage.
So what’s the story, Scott? By voting “yes” in 2002, you must have “assumed the mantle of oppressor,” right? Why weren’t you “dictating to Catholics and other people of faith that they must do as they are told when it comes to health care or face the consequences, regardless of their personal religious beliefs,” as you now claim the opponents of the Blunt amendment are doing?
Here’s hoping someone asks Scott Brown those questions.
(3) Definitions
(A) For purposes of this subsection, the term “church” means a church, a convention or association of churches, or an elementary or secondary school which is controlled, operated, or principally supported by a church or by a convention or association of churches.
(B) For purposes of this subsection, the term “qualified church-controlled organization” means any church-controlled tax-exempt organization described in section 501 (c)(3), other than an organization which—
(i) offers goods, services, or facilities for sale, other than on an incidental basis, to the general public, other than goods, services, or facilities which are sold at a nominal charge which is substantially less than the cost of providing such goods, services, or facilities; and
(ii) normally receives more than 25 percent of its support from either
(I) governmental sources, or
(II) receipts from admissions, sales of merchandise, performance of services, or furnishing of facilities, in activities which are not unrelated trades or businesses, or both.
In attempting to explain himself on NECN last evening, Senator Brown repeatedly invokved Senator Ted Kennedy as a fellow defender of the right of employers to deny coverage for treatments they object to on the basis of “moral conviction.”
Wrong.
Senator Kennedy’s health care legislation did allow health care workers to decline to perform certain procedures if the basis for their objection was religious belief or moral conviction. Massachusetts law similarly allows physicians to decline to perform abortions or sterlizations if they object to doing so on moral or religious grounds.
Allowing an individual doctor to refuse to perform a certain procedure on the basis of moral conviction, which Senator Kennedy approved of, is far different from allowing an employer to refuse to provide any access whatsoever to the procedure, the position that Senator Brown has now — rather astonishingly — embraced.
(Wonks – Thomas links expire quickly, so I did not include a link to Senator Kennedy’s bill. If you want to look it up, it’s Senate 2296 in the 103rd Congress, http://www.thomas.gov.)
To be clear Charley, Christopher, and I have been arguing for the past two weeks that the Obama administration overreached up on the original exemption, we all agree the compromise made a ton of sense and most of our opponents did as well. This is clearly an overreach in the other direction. It is one thing for the government to be telling Catholic institutions to fund contraception, their employees know they are working for religious institutions, and the compromise protected both interests beautifully. This however, has nothing to do with religious liberty and everything to do with giving employers, including non-religious ones, carte blanche to impose their views-no matter how extreme or eccentric-on their employees and even to dictate the medical care they receive. It goes far beyond a reasonable conscience clause exemption into an entirely different realm where employers are given a massive amount of influence and power they shouldn’t have. Shame on the bishops for joining in this overreach, and shame on Senator Brown for lumping it in with the entirely different and truly laudable conscience clauses Senator Kennedy protected.