"Women's Preventive Health" We've Gone Too Far

Even though I didn’t agree with the overall concept from the beginning, I’ve tried to be a supporter of the Affordable Care Act. Since its passage in March, 2010 I’ve been a passive supporter- but an avid advocate for overall change in our health care relationships. I never did understand why the primary focus of the Affordable Care Act was to first get everyone insured (see previous blogs going back to 2009). I understand the theory of it- but getting more people into a broken system without focusing on what was broken made no sense. We should have learned a lesson from Massachusetts. However, the Affordable Care Act was the law we enacted, I was ready to get on-board to help make it work.

In the beginning, I respected Obama for using so much of his political capital to finally address a crisis that is coming (and is still coming) in health care. He’s certainly paying for it now.

I followed all of the legal challenges, watched as stakeholders grumbled, tolerated the huge government bureaucracy being created, and listened to the political rhetoric both for and against the legislation. All the while, I tried to continue to see the positives associated with what we had to do to address the crisis at hand.

And then the rules for “women’s preventive health” were released. Here again, I tried to look at the "bigger picture." I certainly understood the need for prevention and the use of our health care system to address broader social issues. I agree with the focus of the Affordable Care Act to address prevention as opposed to sickness.

But the legislation crossed the line for me with these new rules as it now infringes upon the fundamental religious beliefs and practices of others.

The idea of providing contraceptive resources to prevent unplanned or unwanted pregnancy certainly makes sense given the world we live in today. This is a huge cost to our society in many areas. However, to require religious organizations to now compromise their beliefs to comply with a government-mandated law is simply not who we are as a country.

The intent of the Affordable Care Act is to fix a major economic problem our country is facing. I had hoped, despite all of the complaints and criticisms, the Act could provide the framework from which to work. I tolerated all of the government rules and regulations as a necessary evil to incent stakeholders to finally begin work in different ways. I supported the cause because I know that change is necessary.

However, when the Act now is requiring individual citizens to compromise their religious beliefs for rules established by the government, it’s time for me to get off the bandwagon. The government has simply gone too far. I hope our legislative process is able to correct what I believe is a fundamental infringement on our personal rights. Until it does, the Affordable Care Act has one less supporter than it did before- and from the sounds of it, it can't afford to lose many more.