Blunt Amendment News of the Day: The Senate voted today to reject legislation authored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that aimed to offset President Obama’s health care mandate requiring employers to provide contraception coverage to female employees.
The legislation would have given employers the right to refuse any medical coverage they were religiously or morally opposed to.
Lawmakers in the Democrat-led Senate tabled the Blunt amendment along party lines, with 48 voting in favor, and 51 voting against. Outgoing Republican Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) joined Democrats in defeating the transportation bill amendment.
The junior Senator from Maine, Susan Collins, did not side with her colleague out of concern that self-insured health plans of faith-based organizations would not be allowed an exemption from the mandate.
“This issue will not go away unless the administration takes it away by giving people of faith those First Amendment protections” to refuse coverage on religious grounds, said Sen. Blunt.
Democrats objected to providing employers with the say-so on their employees’ birth control use.
“Imagine that, your boss will decide whether you’re acting morally,” Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said before the vote. “It’s appalling we’re having this debate in the 21st century.”
[politico.]
God, I will miss Olympia Snowe when she’s gone.