The central issue of the public debate over the Obama
administration’s contraception mandate, which of course requires
all manner of religious and secular entities to fund
sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortifacients, has been its
brazen disregard of basic liberties guaranteed by the First
Amendment. That the focus has been on this aspect of the mandate is
hardly surprising. The cavalier manner with which HHS imposed it on
Catholic hospitals, universities, and private businesses whose
owners object on religious grounds is unprecedented.
And, if the string of legal setbacks suffered by the
administration in the lawsuits filed by various plaintiffs pursuant
to the HHS edict is any indication, the courts are also uneasy with
the
mandate: “In the cases involving business owners, judges have
granted temporary injunctions to businesses in nine of 14 cases
they’ve heard.” In December alone, 5 out of 6 rulings went against
HHS in cases involving both non-profit and for-profit entities. Its
only “win” was a predictable ruling by an Obama appointee to the
Supreme Court.
Nonetheless, despite Justice Sotomayor’s refusal to enjoin
enforcement of the mandate against Hobby Lobby, it is virtually
certain that at least one of the many legal challenges to the HHS
rule will reach the Supreme Court. And this suggests a question:
Why would the Obama administration, having won the legislative
struggle to get Obamacare passed and fought a brutal legal battle
to prevent it from being overturned by the Supreme Court, risk
another visit to that fickle tribunal by insisting on this
egregious mandate?
An answer is suggested by the President’s recent
nomination of William B. Schultz to head the legal team at
Health & Human Services. Never heard of Mr. Schultz? He is an
attorney and long-time lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. He
has been acting general counsel for HHS since last year. What has
this to do with the contraception mandate? Well, as Tim Carney of
the Washington Examiner has pointed out, Schultz’s
biggest client was “Barr Laboratories, maker of the
morning-after contraception pill known as Plan B.”
Contraception is big business, and the HHS mandate promises to
turn it into a cash cow for companies like Barr Laboratories. How?
Avik Roy
explains: “Under the current system, drug companies have an
incentive to compete on price.… Under the new mandate, this price
incentive disappears.” Insurance policies that covered
contraception prior to the mandate encouraged patients to forego
pricey products by charging higher co-pays than for generic
equivalents. The HHS mandate forbids such co-pays, so there is no
incentive to choose “Brand X.”
Roy goes on as follows: “Drug companies will be able to market
‘branded’ contraceptives at premium prices, knowing that women are
free to choose the most expensive, designer product because it will
cost them the same as the cheapest generic.” In other words, the
contraception mandate is a license to steal for Big Pharma. Does
that explain why President Obama and his Commissar of HHS, Kathleen
Sebelius, are willing to endure another round of legal battles?
Yep. The fix was obviously in at least as far back as 2009.
This is why the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America (PhRMA) backed “health reform” by bankrolling a
Democrat-designed propaganda campaign. The Wall Street
Journal
reported last summer that PhRMA and other industry lobbying
groups coordinated with the White House to produce a multi-million
dollar advertising blitz to promote Obamacare. “In particular, the
drug lobby would spend $70 million on two 501(c)(4) front groups
called Healthy Economy Now and Americans for Stable Quality
Care.”
Moreover, as Peter Schweizer has
reported, “[A]mong President Obama’s biggest financial backers
are precisely the Big Pharma companies who benefit from the
mandate.” And they go well beyond William Schultz and Barr
Laboratories. Schweizer elaborates as follows: “Sally Sussman, head
of government affairs for Pfizer, is one of [Obama’s] biggest
campaign bundlers … Pfizer sells numerous contraceptives that now
must be covered by health-care plans. Obama’s financial ties to the
pharmaceutical industry run deep.”
All of which suggests that the HHS contraception mandate is just
another Chicago-style payback scheme designed to reward one of the
President’s most reliable financial backers. And, unlike the
feckless AMA, Big Pharma isn’t about to be fobbed off with empty
promises. That’s why William B. Schultz has been nominated by Obama
to be General Counsel at HHS. This promises to be a pivotal year in
the legal war over the egregious anti-conscience mandate and Big
Pharma has no intention of sitting on the sidelines as a
spectator.
So, while the most important issues at stake here involve
religious liberty, only one side of the public debate and legal
battle really cares about that. For Obama, Sebelius, Schultz, and
their myriad cronies, this is all about the Benjamins. They’re
looking for a payday and will cheerfully trash the First Amendment
to get it. Thus far they aren’t doing so well in court, but we’ve
been here before. When the anti-conscience mandate finally arrives
at the Supreme Court, we’ll find out which matters more, the
Constitution or cash.
