The Wall Street Journal Has My Back

With regard to Obama's "compromise" with religious institutions on just how much he's going to subjugate them, I wrote last night:

In the rule announced by his administration a week ago "the church" would be forced to provide employees with insurance coverage that includes aborticides and contraceptives.

In Obama's revised rule those churches would be forced to provide employees with insurance coverage that includes aborticides and contraceptives.

The Wall Street Journal, in an editorial this morning, has the same take:

Under the original Health and Human Services regulation, all religious institutions except for houses of worship would be required to cover birth control, including hospitals, schools and charities. Under the new rule, which the White House stresses is "an accommodation" and not a compromise, nonprofit religious organizations won't have to directly cover birth control and can opt out. But the insurers they hire to cover their employees can't opt out. If that sounds like a distinction without a difference, odds are you're a rational person.

The faithful for whom birth control is a matter of religious conviction haven't been accommodated at all. They'll merely have to keep two sets of accounting books.

As I wrote last night, Obama approached his "accommodation" with The Church thinking the dispute was over cost as opposed to conscience (which is understandable since he has no familiarity with the prior concept).  His compromise is the end result.

Obama thought he was being clever with his misdirection.  In truth his actions were pathetic.

The Journal takes the critique a step further:

"Yesterday's new adventure in damage control and bureaucratic improvisation makes the compliance problem much worse. There is simply no precedent for the government ordering private companies to offer a product for free, even if they recoup the costs indirectly. Why not do that with all health benefits and "bend the cost curve" to zero?"

In Fantasy Land Obama can do just that.  Which is where his "it's all free!" decision resides.

ObamaCare was never a serious undertaking.  It was legislating on a whim.

The mess Obama and his crew have left us with is proof of that.