[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 1043-1045]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              HHS MANDATE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, throughout my Senate career I have 
spent a lot of time defending the first amendment. Most of it I spent 
defending one particular clause of that amendment, the one relating to 
the right of free speech, but recent events have shown quite 
unexpectedly the urgent need to defend another clause in the first 
amendment. I am referring, of course, to the right of free exercise of 
religion.
  Make no mistake, the Obama administration's decision to force 
religious hospitals, charities, and schools to comply with a mandate 
that violates their religious views is abhorrent to the foundational 
principles of our Nation. No one in the United States--no one--should 
ever be compelled by their government to choose between violating their 
religious beliefs and being penalized for refusing. Yet that is 
precisely what this mandate would do.
  One out of six patients in America is treated at a Catholic hospital. 
Catholic Charities is the largest provider of social services to poor 
children, families, and individuals in America. The Catholic Church 
runs the largest network of private schools in this country. These 
institutions have thrived because they have been allowed to freely 
pursue their religious convictions in a country that, until now, 
respected their constitutional right to do so. But this ruling should 
send a chill up the spine of people of all religious faiths and even of 
those with no faith at all because if the state--in this case, the 
Federal Government--is allowed to violate the religious rights of one 
religion, then surely it can violate those of others. If the rights of 
some are not protected, the rights of all are in danger. Isn't that 
what history clearly teaches? Isn't that what the Constitution is all 
about?
  The Obama administration has crossed a dangerous line. The Founders 
knew that the right of religious belief is inviolable. They gave this 
God-given right the pride of place they knew it deserved, right there 
in the first amendment, so that Americans would never have to fear its 
loss. Unfortunately, because of the actions of this administration, 
Americans now do.
  This is a huge mistake that I hope the administration is currently 
reconsidering, and if they do not, Congress will act. The first 
amendment rights of the American people must be protected. Those of us 
who recognize the fundamental importance of religious freedom to our 
Nation will see to it that it is respected by this government and 
restored in full.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I want to talk about this recent HHS 
directive to faith-based organizations on

[[Page 1044]]

health care and suggest that it is exactly the kind of problem many of 
us were concerned would develop when the government said it was going 
to take a greater role in deciding what health care would be like and 
who would make health care decisions. In this case, what kind of 
insurance could an employer give its employees if it is a religious 
organization?
  There are several pieces of legislation that might deal with this 
issue. My guess is there will be several more unless the administration 
deals with it quickly and withdraws the position they have taken, which 
is that faith-based institutions would have to offer health insurance 
policies that violated their faith principles. It is a fundamental 
first amendment right of Americans to have the ability to pursue their 
faith-based principles.
  In the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, passed by a 
Congress with a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate and 
signed by President Clinton, it appears to be clear that this is an 
incursion that the law itself, as well as the Constitution, does not 
allow. One of the most objectionable issues about the White House 
position--the administration's position--is that we want you to change 
your principles, and we are going to give you a year to accommodate 
that change.
  Principles based on faith cannot be accommodated in a year. In fact, 
they should not be accommodated in a lifetime. They are exactly that; 
they are principles based on faith. This is about institutions that run 
hospitals, schools, daycare centers, all sorts of things under the 
umbrella of the mission of who they are. This is about how their 
employees relate to them as providers of health care insurance and the 
kind of insurance they provide. This is not about just anybody you 
might run into; this is someone who has chosen to work for one of these 
institutions. This is someone who has chosen to affiliate themselves 
with one of these faith-based organizations.
  Clearly, the Catholic bishops are outraged. I have a letter here from 
Bishop Carlson in St. Louis that was read in Missouri churches last 
week talking about this, and it says: In so ruling, the administration 
has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental 
freedom, that of religious liberty. As a result, unless the rule is 
overturned, we Catholics will be compelled either to violate our 
consciences or to drop health coverage for our employees and suffer the 
penalties for doing so. The administration's sole concession was to 
give nonprofit employers, like hospitals and universities, which do not 
currently provide such coverage--the coverage which the administration 
was demanding--one year in which to comply.
  I have another report from the chief of the Catholic military 
chaplains who wanted to send a letter to be read and which the military 
initially said could not be read. The U.S. Army said that the letter 
written and sent by the archbishop in charge of Catholic military 
chaplains could not be read in services. And after a discussion with 
the Secretary of the Army, that was changed but apparently only if some 
of the letter would be taken out.
  This is way over the line of where the government should be. 
Unfortunately, it is exactly the line that many of us feared would be 
crossed whenever the government begins to think that the government is 
the person to make health care decisions, whether that is a decision 
that you and your doctor should be making between the two of you or the 
kind of insurance you and your family choose to have or, in this case, 
the kind of insurance you and the institution you represent chooses to 
offer to the people who are working there. This is wrong. I think 
people know it is wrong. This is something that cannot be allowed to 
stand, and I wish to turn to my friend from New Hampshire to talk about 
this with me for a little bit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Ms. AYOTTE. Madam President, I certainly share the concerns of my 
colleague from Missouri, and I share the concerns of my constituents in 
New Hampshire and citizens across this Nation who see the recent rule 
issued by the administration for what it is, an unprecedented, 
unnecessary affront to religious liberty in our country.
  I wish to say at the outset that this issue is not limited to the 
Catholic Church. The administration's new health care mandates on 
religious institutions impact all religions. Religious freedom is a 
foundational American right enshrined in our Bill of Rights. The first 
amendment to our Constitution makes clear that Congress shall make no 
law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof.
  Unfortunately, I see the administration chipping away at these 
bedrock freedoms as it engages in a troubling pattern here with respect 
to this rule, and I think we saw that the President's new mandate on 
religious institutions highlights the deep flaws in the health care 
bill.
  This unconstitutional law was moved through Congress and signed by 
the President 2 years ago without the type of due consideration, 
transparency, or accountability we would all expect, and we have been 
suffering the consequences since. It is highlighted with what we see 
with these recent mandates from Health and Human Services.
  I wish to share some of the concerns my constituents have raised 
about these mandates that were recently issued by Health and Human 
Services. There is a letter I received this week from William Edmund 
Fahey, who is the president of Thomas More College in Merrimack, NH, 
and he says: To condition the availability of medical benefits upon a 
community's willingness to violate a cardinal teaching of its faith 
effectively prevents the full practice of its religion; and thus, 
again, violates the free exercise of a constitutional liberty.
  He pleaded with our delegation, the New Hampshire congressional 
delegation, and he said: I hope you will see that the mandate 
undermines the Constitution, compromises the integrity of the 
government and abuses the foundational principle that free associations 
form an essential part of the social fabric of the United States.
  We are fortunate in New Hampshire to have a number of very effective 
Catholic institutions and organizations. We have the Catholic Medical 
Center in Manchester which serves so many in the Manchester community 
and surrounding areas. The Catholic Medical Center has also expressed 
concerns about the mandate, saying: It would force us to offer services 
that were against our ethical and religious directive or force us not 
to offer insurance altogether.
  They added: Neither are acceptable options.
  The president of one of our great colleges in New Hampshire, Saint 
Anselm College, President Jonathan DeFelice, said: In a country and a 
State that values and respects individuals' rights to exercise their 
religious beliefs and live according to their conscience's best light, 
it is simply appalling to think that this mandate is anything other 
than an unprecedented incursion into freedom of conscience.
  I have heard many concerns from my constituents, and I would hope 
that Health and Human Services would stop what it is doing right now, 
this mandate that places religious institutions in this impossible 
position, with this impossible choice of violating their core beliefs 
in order to comply with a mandate or dropping employee insurance 
coverage altogether. We should not be putting these organizations that 
do great work throughout this country in that position. And, again, 
this is not an issue that just applies to the Catholic Church; this 
applies to all religious institutions.
  I would ask my colleague from the State of Missouri: As a result of 
our concerns about the actions of the administration, we have offered 
legislation to address this, and what does that legislation do in order 
to make sure that this mandate does not go forward?
  Mr. BLUNT. That is a good point. I wish also to say that this is not 
about just about one set of religious beliefs. The current discussion 
is about specific items in a health care plan, but there

[[Page 1045]]

are lots of faith-based groups with different views of how you deliver 
health services that have been working on these issues for some time 
now, and I met with a lot of these groups. This is an issue of 
conscience, whether it is the Catholic Church, the Christian Science 
Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Baptist Church that I am 
a member of. There may be different views of this, but the views are 
not views that can be put forth by the government, and that becomes the 
government view.
  There was a recent Supreme Court case, Hosanna Tabor Lutheran 
Evangelical Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission, where the Court voted 9 to 0 that faith-based institutions 
have privileges that others do not have because that is what makes them 
faith-based institutions. The hiring decisions, the firing decisions, 
the workplace decisions are different because if they are not 
different, it is just another school or another hospital that might 
happen to have a theology department or might happen to have a chapel 
once a week. That is what it is.
  Senator Ayotte, Senator Rubio, and I have worked on various ways to 
approach this. We offered a bill some weeks ago on these issues of 
conscience that would create a respect for rights of conscience. The 
Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which was drafted early last 
year, has the full support of the major groups that are concerned about 
these conscience issues. The Christian Medical Association, the Becket 
Fund, and others have said that we need to be concerned about these 
issues, whether it is a hiring decision now or a health care decision, 
and what do we do to protect health care providers and insurers, 
including purchasers, from being forced to violate their own principles 
by buying a policy or offering a policy that provides things they don't 
believe in their faith group are the right things to offer.
  I saw one of the President's advisers early this morning beginning to 
back away from this and say: Suddenly this one year has become--we are 
just seeking information during this year. That is not what they were 
doing at all. What they are doing is saying, you are going to comply 
with this rule and we are going to give you a year to figure out how to 
compromise your principles in a way that applies, and that is the wrong 
thing to do. Whether it is the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act or 
other legislation, if the administration doesn't take care of this 
administratively, I believe it will be taken care of legislatively.
  When you have bishops, church leaders, and people who have spent 
their lives dedicated to hospitals, schools, and other institutions 
that reflect their faith principles, you cannot suddenly decide that 
those don't matter or they can be changed in a year. They also will 
need to have some legal cause of action to pursue this, just like the 
Religious Freedom Act in 1993 created cause of action. One cannot go in 
and have an unreasonable incursion on the faith beliefs of people under 
the first amendment. No matter how good you think the cause might be, 
it is not good enough to violate that fundamental principle.
  Senator Ayotte has had lots of contact--I think many of us have. If 
you were in a military service last week, you might have heard one of 
these letters read. I saw the line that had to be taken out of the 
letter apparently that the Army wouldn't otherwise--was standing in 
front of, but was read in the other services, which was the line that 
said: We cannot, we will not comply with this unjust law.
  When the government begins to tell people to do things that violate 
their faith principles, the government has gone too far.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. BLUNT. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Madam President, what is the parliamentary situation?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority controls the time until 6 p.m., 
and Senators are limited to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

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