[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2033]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  0910
                               HHS RULING

  (Mr. BENISHEK asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. BENISHEK. Madam Speaker, from the 1099 provision, to IPAB, to the 
hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, it's clear that 
President Obama's health care law is bad medicine for America. But the 
recent ruling by the Department of Health and Human Services is the 
most egregious example of Federal intrusion to date.
  Soon after the ruling was announced, I began hearing from citizens 
across Michigan's First District. Letters and emails came in by the 
hundreds, with the vast majority in opposition to the administration's 
position. It is evident from this correspondence that many northern 
Michiganders are deservedly upset about the administration's blatant 
attack on our religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment.
  The opposition to this law is not about access to contraception, as 
my friends on the other side of the aisle would have you believe. Women 
and men can already access contraception at very low cost. The debate 
is over the fact that the administration's new rule strikes at the 
fundamental beliefs of our democracy.
  The concept that the Federal Government can force people to pay for 
actions that violate the teachings of their faith goes against two 
centuries of American religious freedom. This action represents the 
very government overreach that the Framers of our Nation fought against 
and the reason the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution.
  Madam Speaker, like most northern Michigan citizens, I see the right 
to practice one's religion as a fundamental liberty, and I intend to 
fight this action forever.

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