Walker's budget removes insurance requirement to cover birth control

Gov. Scott Walker wants to again give insurance companies discretion over whether they will cover contraception.

His budget, released Tuesday, proposes the elimination of a recently passed law that requires insurance plans that cover prescription drugs to also include coverage for prescription birth control. Walker’s budget summary says the requirement is an “unacceptable government mandate on employers with moral objections to these services,” and that it “increases the cost of health insurance for all payers.”

The law was included in the 2009 budget signed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle [a "Catholic"]and first went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. For Rep. Terese Berceau, in particular, it was a long time in coming. The Democrat from Madison first introduced such a bill in 1999, saying that “access to affordable and quality health care for women should no longer be a luxury.” And she has long argued that allowing insurance companies to consider contraception “optional care” places “excessive financial burdens upon women of reproductive age.”

Anti-abortion activists and the Catholic Diocese of Madison have opposed attempts to pass the mandate. But with support from public health and family planning groups, a Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2009 finally passed the measure. [jammed it down everybody's throats]

The rest at Cap Times

Would be nice to see a WCC statement supporting this measure.....   or the "Wisconsin Catholic Sisters" maybe?  Yes, they will be out to show their support, I'm sure of this!   It will say, "Women have a right to know natural methods of spacing children.  Women should not be preyed upon by Big Pharma like sacks of meat they can get rich off of.  Women have a right to know of the major health risks associated with chemical contraception and abortifacient."  And all the sisters will sign it twice!

HT V
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Update: the WCC statement I linked to above was in regards to WCC's decision not to oppose a bill that would require all hospitals, including Catholic health facilities, to distribute emergency contraceptives to female victims of rape. (later Bps Listecki and Morlino would dissent from the WCC's position)

As Kat pointed out below, they did oppose the mandated contraception coverage for employers in the Madison Catholic Herald.