Overstated and Calculated Fear Mongering Towards Women Voters

There is a bipartisan bill currently in the U.S. Senate that Scott Brown and I both support which provides a conscience exemption from the federal government health care mandate in the news lately. That mandate requires that religious institutions, in their private health care plans, must offer products or services that go against their moral teachings or religious doctrine.

The proposed bill would simply restore the relevant laws on conscience protection, (also supported by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy) that existed before Obamacare was implemented and took them out.

Critics would have you believe we would be turning back to the Middle Ages where sinister D.C. politicians could somehow deny contraception for women.  In fact, what we are seeing is nothing more than a political red herring that appeals to the worse in public discourse: Overstated and calculated fear mongering towards women voters in an election year.  

In fact, if the bill removing Obama’s health care mandate passes, we would simply be returning to the way things were in 2010.

As my Mother’s son and a product of that single family upbringing (along with my two adopted sisters), I believe that health insurance companies should have to cover services that women want and rely on. But I also recognize that there are some people who, based on their moral and religious convictions, don’t agree with the President or MA liberals regarding some of those services. My view is that we need to respect their rights too.

This latest mandate under government-controlled health care is one reason why I do not support Obamacare, nor do I believe Massachusetts should somehow convert to a Canadian-style Medicare-for-all system.

Both of these health care models, supported by Sudbury and Acton’s state legislators, operate by broad dictation from Washington or Beacon Hill, showing little flexibility for the judgment, needs or consumer choice of individual Americans.

I agree with U.S. Sen Scott Brown when he says: “Republicans and Democrats don’t come together nearly enough these days, and when we do it’s usually because of something we all recognize as clearly out of line. It takes a really bad idea to reveal our shared convictions on issues bigger than politics.”

This is one of those instances.

Brown is correct when he asserts that it is possible to provide women with access to the health care they want, while at the same time protecting the rights of Americans to follow their religious beliefs, just as we did before Obamacare.

The bill he and the late Sen. Kennedy support is a matter of fundamental fairness – and a right to be protected for all religious faiths.

 

Dean Cavaretta