Do the Catholic bishops know that Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) covers contraception, which all of their church members are paying for with their tax dollars? Do they know that many of the Catholic institutions that provide health care for their workers do so with insurers that provide contraceptive coverage? And therefore their money is supporting contraceptive care?

This seems a poor argument to get into: contraceptive care is part of basic health coverage for women, and any attack on it is easily seen as an attack on basic women’s health and reproductive choices. It’s amazing to me that in this century there is still a group that feels that contraceptive care is a bad thing, but it’s less surprising when you note the source: an organization that for hundreds of years hasn’t felt that women are good enough to serve as leaders in the first place. I sense a theme.

I’ll note that the opponents of the new compromise (which has been deemed reasonable and appropriate by the President of the Catholic Health Association) don’t seem to be offering any solution that would guarantee full health care coverage for those who the Catholic Church would deny it to, they only seem to want to remove coverage. Rep. Boehner says he wants to push to repeat the rule completely, thereby eliminating reproductive health care for everyone covered. Does he offer an alternative that would allow for this basic care for anyone at all, regardless of religious belief? No, of course not: maybe he, as his friend Ron Paul seems to believe, thinks that if you can’t afford health care you should rely on the charity of your local Church to… oh wait.