Don't believe the rhetoric you'll hear that the Obama Administration is "caving" or "walking back" its decision to require Catholic employers to provide insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. The so-called "accommodation" would simply require that the insurance companies provide these services to the employees of religious-based employers for "free," under the erroneous assumption that the Catholic Church's opposition to these services is that that they have to pay for them. (No. The opposition is that the Church will not and cannot be a party to any contract under which such services can be provided, whatever the cost.)
But this is the type of abstract thinking that comes out of an administration populated by people who have never run a business. An insurance company doesn't provide services for free. They can't; they're a business, and such services cost money. Instead, what will happen is the insurance company will simply raise the price of the insurance and say (read: pretend) that part of the price isn't going to be amortized to pay for the provision of the offending services. It's magic! Or, it's stupid, depending on your point-of-view.
The Catholic Church doesn't pretend about Life. The Church and its affiliated organizations simply cannot provide insurance coverages to their employees that provide, in any way, for services that are contrary to the Church's most basic moral teachings.
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UPDATE: Funny line over in the comments on Ace of Spades. "Obama thinks he can just decree that money isn't fungible."
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