WASHINGTON, D.C. – Montana’s Congressman, Denny Rehberg, today sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urging her to abandon plans under President Obama’s new health care law to force organizations that offer health insurance to their employees to provide coverage for contraceptives contrary to deeply-held religious beliefs.

“President Obama’s health care law continues to eliminate choices for American consumers,” said Rehberg, who is the Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.  “In some cases, the lack of choice is driving up health insurance premiums.  In others, it’s forcing people out of their existing health plans despite promises that they could keep them if they wanted.  Now, we’ve got out-of-touch federal bureaucrats trying to force people to violate their religious convictions.  Enough is enough.  This top-down, government-knows-best approach is not the American way.”

Secretary Sebelius recently announced that as of 2013, any organization offering health insurance to its employees would have to cover contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients. This policy was made despite vocal public concern.  In fact, HHS received more than 200,000 comments on the rule, many of which made strong objections to the one-size-fits-all mandate.

The rule includes a narrowly tailored “religious exemption,” that fails to cover religious-affiliated organizations like schools, hospitals, and charities.  This lead Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to say, “Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

“Once again, we see an excellent reason to completely repeal this unpopular law and start over from scratch,” said Rehberg.  “We can and we must do better.”

The full letter is below:

Dear Secretary Sebelius:

I am writing to express my strong opposition to your recent dictate that nearly all organizations that offer health insurance to their employees must provide coverage, without co-pay, for certain contraceptives even if paying for such coverage is contrary to their deeply-held religious beliefs. This order is government intrusion into the private lives of Americans under the guise of health care reform and infringes on the religious liberty of women and men of faith in direct opposition to the religious freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The exceedingly narrow “religious exemption” you crafted for certain religious organizations, excludes a whole host of religious-affiliated organizations, such as faith-based hospitals, charities and schools, which are not covered under this definition.  Your order leaves these faith-based organizations with an impossible choice either to violate their consciences or drop health care coverage for their employees and face ruinous fines from the federal government.

Furthermore, the federal government has no business dictating to private employers what their private insurance companies should and should not cover.  Although HHS claims that contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients will be “free” and voluntarily selected by plan participants, the truth is this decision will lead to higher premiums for Americans who purchase private health insurance plans.

As Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, I urge you to reverse this unprecedented and dangerous decision.

Sincerely,