After a week of white-hot controversy that cable news bookers have thoroughly enjoyed, President Obama announced on Friday that his administration was offering a compromise (which critics call an accommodation) on offering employees of Catholic hospitals, universities and service agencies contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans, saying the insurance companies, and not the institutions, would pay for that coverage.
But Friday night the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops rejected the compromise, as did every Republican who graced the airwaves on Sunday morning public affairs programming.
And now there's legislation sponsored by Missouri Republican U.S. Senator Roy Blunt that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in its health insurance plan, a move that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports.
"If we end up having to try to overcome the president’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said Sunday on CBS's Face The Nation. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2012.