Climbdown or no climbdown, whatever the disposition of the religious exemption to Obamacare's birth control rules, I think Obama won this one.
The battle over whether Catholic-affiliated employers should be required to provide free birth control isn't about birth control, Catholics, or religious freedom.
It's about making people wonder why their stuff isn't free. The reductio ad absurdam coming from some on the Right, e.g. asking why tattoo removal isn't free under Obamacare, is exactly the conversation Obama wants us to have. It's the politics of envy: "I have a co-pay for all of my healthcare, why are they getting stuff for free?"
Now every interest group is going to mobilize and demand its free stuff. Somewhere, Obama is smiling.
The next step will be for the Left to acknowledge the unfairness of giving free healthcare only to some people in some circumstances, and gradually expand the number of services that are required to be provided free of charge until eventually we end up with a single-payer system like Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
I heard Margaret Thatcher once said that she was unable to mirror Ronald Reagan's great reforms in Britain because of the NHS. Once a benefit system that all-encompassing becomes entrenched, and people get used to healthcare that is "free" at point of purchase, it is nearly impossible to get them to relinquish their dependence on government.
We are frogs in the pot, and Obama is turning up the heat. Are we going to have the sense to come together and jump out in November?
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