Trump and the GOP launch a religious attack on birth control benefits

[rug]

Michael Hiltzik
May 5, 2017

On the very same day that they celebrated House passage of a bill that could deprive more than 24 million Americans of their health coverage, President Trump and his administration started gunning for women’s contraceptive benefits.

An executive order Trump signed Thursday purportedly designed to promote “religious liberty” takes direct aim at the Affordable Care Act’s provision of contraceptives without co-pays or deductibles. The order directs the secretaries of Health and Human Services, Treasury and Labor to “consider issuing amended regulations … to address conscience-based objections to the preventive-care mandate” of the ACA.

Lest anyone be misled or confused by the elliptical language in the order, the Department of Health and Human Services promptly issued a news release declaring that HHS Secretary Tom Price “welcomes the opportunity to reexamine [the] contraception mandate.” It quoted Price as stating that the agency “will be taking action in short order to follow the President’s instruction to safeguard the deeply held religious beliefs of Americans who provide health insurance to their employees.”

If those sound like the words of a pastor rather than a physician responsible for overseeing healthcare and health insurance rights for millions of Americans, so be it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gop-contraceptives-20170505-story.html

[Bretton Garcia]

1. Trump is desperate. His own ideas failed.

The new budget doesn't even fund his Wall.

So he's asking Republicans for any issues that can get any kind of traction.

And he's done a lot of Executive Orders. Which he can do all by himself, without working with, getting approval from, others. Though fortunately those orders have limited power. And often run into firm laws.

The religious freedom order for instance, runs straight against the Johnson law. So his wording starts out vague. We must "reconsider" the matter of religious freedom.

Where these vague leanings have some immediate force, is among Trump's immediate employees, flunkies and stooges. Like Price.

But? Now Price himself is going out on a limb, when he extends the order past "reconsideration," to deciding firmly.

Price thereby may end up breaking a rather firm US law passed by congress; very soon in fact. For which he could go to jail.

So these executive actions are dramatic. But often less powerful than you might think.

Though some do have some power, to do some damage, at times.