How The GOP May Have Just Lost Women For Good

The reality is that at some point in their lives, about 98% of American women will use birth control.  This fight was settled long ago, and by dredging it back up as their new crusade against women, the Republicans have all but lost 51% of the voters.  Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress:

Earlier [Friday], in response to criticism from Catholic groups, the White House altered its regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide no-cost contraception coverage as part of their health care plans. Churches and religious nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith are still exempt from the requirement, but now religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals that wish to avoid providing birth control can do so. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer.

But Republicans and some conservative Catholic groups are not satisfied with the accommodation and hope to use their false claim of “religious persecution” to deny women access to preventive health services. Despite Obama’s decision to shield nonprofit religious institutions from offering birth control benefits, next week Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is expected to offer an amendment that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it.

Now the game becomes what will the GOP attach the Blount Amendment to?  A cursory examination indicates with the deadline for the payroll tax cut expiration on February 29, Republicans will insist on this poison pill and then blame the President for "raising taxes on tens of millions of working class American families" or leaving him to rightfully suffer being torn apart by his base.  The GOP believe either way, they have won it all.

They couldn't be more wrong.  Scott Lemieux:

As of now, employees will be entitled to exactly the same substantive benefits they were last week, and there’s no reason for insurance companies to object because covering contraception actually saves them money. Nor is true that refusing to make these symbolic non-concessions would somehow make it less likely that the policy will be changed for the worse in the future. Precedents created by Obama will mean less than nothing to President Mittens or President Zombie-Eyed Granny Starver. The only way to preserve political gains going forward is to create powerful allies, and to the extent that they matter today’s changes are a net positive: they created new allies among Catholic health care providers without giving up anything, they didn’t create any new opponents, and they politically undermined the remaining opponents, forcing them to fight on political terrain that is extremely inhospitable.

And the Blount Amendment would allow employers to opt out of covering anything they "object" to.  It's a plan to pit Americans against each other in a race to the bottom where we all lose.  Voters will see that and they will turn on the GOP like lightning.

I can't wait for this to come up.  It's political suicide for them and they know it.