While GOP senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has pledged to fight the Obama’s administration’s modified regulation requiring health insurers and busnisses to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, the revised rule “appears to have won over” two of the five Republican women senators.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME) — both of whom have sponsored legislation requiring insurers to offer contraception benefits in all health plans — are in favor of the new compromise, which would allow religiously affiliated colleges, universities, and hospitals to avoid providing birth control. Their employees will still receive contraception coverage at no additional cost sharing directly from the insurer:

“It appears that changes have been made that provide women’s health services without compelling Catholic organizations in particular to violate the beliefs and tenets of their faith,” Snowe said in a statement. “According to the Catholic Health Association, the administration ‘responded to the issues [they] identified that needed to be fixed,’ which is what I urged the president to do in addressing this situation.

“While I will carefully review the details of the president’s revised proposal, it appears to be a step in the right direction,” Collins said in a statement. “The administration’s original plan was deeply flawed and clearly would have posed a threat to religious freedom. It presented the Catholic Church with its wide-ranging social, educational, and health care services, and many other faith-based organizations, with an impossible choice between violating their religious beliefs or violating federal regulations. The administration has finally listened to the concerns raised by many and appears to be seeking to avoid the threat to religious liberties posed by its original plan.”

Republicans in the senate seem determined to oppose the compromise and have introduced legislation that would allow employers or individuals to opt out of any benefit that undermines their moral beliefs. “They don’t have the authority under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to tell someone in this country or some organization in this country what their religious beliefs are,” McConnell told “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “This issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down,” he said.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who led the GOP’s opposition to the original rule, has yet to issue a statement on the measure and did not respond to ThinkProgress’ query about her position. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also did not respond. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) co-sponsored a 1999 bill requiring contraception equity in insurance coverage and has not yet to weigh in on the current debate.

Republicans have gone to war against President Obama’s regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage, portraying the measure as a “government takeover” of health care and pledging to repeal the rule in Congress. The measure, which is part of the Affordable Care Act, says that companies offering coverage must also provide birth control insurance (but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits primarily employing and serving those of the same faith).

The Obama measure closely resembles state laws providing equity in insurance coverage for contraception in six states and actually offers far more conscience protections than previous Congressional efforts to expand women’s access to birth control. For instance, a 2001 bill co-sponsored by Republicans Sens. Olympia Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Lincoln Chafee (RI), Gordon Smith (OR), John Warner (VA), Arlen Specter (PA) — S. 104 — sought to establish parity for contraceptive prescriptions within the context of coverage already guaranteed by insurance plans, but offered no opt-out clause for religious groups who opposed contraception:

SEC. 714. STANDARDS RELATING TO BENEFITS FOR CONTRACEPTIVES.

`(a) REQUIREMENTS FOR COVERAGE- A group health plan, and a health insurance issuer providing health insurance coverage in connection with a group health plan, may not–

`(1) exclude or restrict benefits for prescription contraceptive drugs or devices approved by the Food and Drug Administration, or generic equivalents approved as substitutable by the Food and Drug Administration, if such plan provides benefits for other outpatient prescription drugs or devices; or

`(2) exclude or restrict benefits for outpatient contraceptive services if such plan provides benefits.

“Women shouldn’t be held hostage by virtue of where they live,” Snowe told a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in September of 2001. “It simply is not fair.” “All we’re saying in this legislation is that if health insurance plans provide coverage for prescription drugs that that coverage has to extend to FDA-approved prescription contraceptives. It’s that simple.”

At the time, religious groups also raised concerns about the measure and Snowe promised to add a “conscience clause” that is similar to the exemption included in Maine’s law. Incidentally, that language is very similar to the conscience protections included in Obama’s regulation.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who is up for re-election in 2012, did not endorse a Republican proposal to increase the Medicare eligibility age and block grant the Medicaid program, Politico’s Matt DoBias notices. “Snowe was one of two GOP committee members who didn’t sign onto the Finance Committee Republican recommendations to the deficit supercommittee. The other was Jon Kyl of Arizona, and his absence was less notable because he’s a member of the debt panel”:

It was Snowe’s concerns over the potential for block grants, stricter Medicare enrollment requirements and possibility for cuts to Social Security benefits — and not the threat of repealing the reform law — that precluded her from signing onto the committee’s proposals.

“I spent a great deal of time reviewing the proposals and agree with many of them,” Snowe said in a written statement supplied by her office.

There were other areas of disagreement, too. Snowe wanted to require pharmaceutical companies to discount drugs used by some of Medicare’s costliest patients. Her Republican colleagues have been cool to idea.

Some of the committee’s health savings proposals are far from controversial and have been included in President Obama’s deficit reduction plan and the fiscal commission’s report. But the Medicare eligibility and Medicaid block grant restructuring are big stumbling blocks for election wary politicians because they are unpopular and face political opposition from within the Republican party. As Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) recently explained at the unveiling of the Republican Governors Association’s health policy report, “not all Republican governors may want a block grant. … It’s up to the states to decide.” Governors fear that converting the existing matching rate formula into a block grant would provide states with less money that they would have otherwise received and force local governments to cut eligibility to the program.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted over the summer also found that 72 percent of Americans oppose cutting Medicaid spending — including 59 percent of self-identified Republicans — and 54 percent are against raising the Medicare eligibility age.

Politico’s Pulse reports that Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) “is inviting people to send a ‘thank you’ note to the 11th Circuit Court of appeals for deeming the individual mandate unconstitutional. “I applaud you and your efforts for standing up for the constitution and for defending my individual liberties,’ reads the note on her reelection website, conveniently omitting the fact the Snowe was the only Republican to vote in favor of the mandate when she supported moving the health reform legislation out of the Senate Finance Committee:

In fact, she did not publicly oppose the individual requirement to purchase coverage — which the 11th Circuit found unconstitutional — until October of 2009. Earlier that year, she had indicated that she could support an individual requirement if coverage became more affordable. “I understand the rationality behind the individual mandate,” Snowe said during the committee’s mark-up hearings. “Certainly we shouldn’t pay for those who don’t have health insurance.”

But this isn’t the first time Snowe has attempted to cloud her role in moving forward the health care legislation. In March, Snowe issued a press release announcing that she is co-sponsoring an amendment “to repeal the employer mandate imposed by the new health reform law.” The “mandate” she was referring to, however, is actually a “free rider” compromise provision that she helped broker in her effort to draft a bipartisan health care law.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) — who is up for re-election in 2012 — has issued a press release announcing that she is co-sponsoring an amendment “to repeal the employer mandate imposed by the new health reform law”:

U.S. Senator Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) cosponsored legislation today to repeal the employer mandate imposed by the new health reform law. Senator Snowe, who opposes this mandate requiring employers to offer health insurance to their employees, filed an amendment during Senate consideration of the health care legislation to strike the provision altogether. Additionally, Senator Snowe is a cosponsor of legislation to fully repeal the health care law.

From the beginning, I strongly opposed this mandate, which will require small businesses with more than 50 workers to offer health insurance as a workplace benefit – or be subject to a fine of up to $2,000 penalty per employee. Worse still, the employer mandate captures part-time workers and seasonal workers who are employed for more than 120 days in determining whether a firm will be subject to the mandate.

The “mandate” Snowe is referring to is actually a “free rider” compromise provision that she helped broker as a member of the so-called ‘Gang of 6.’ Unlike the pay or play employer requirement that was part of earlier drafts of the law it doesn’t “require small businesses with more than 50 workers” to offer coverage. In fact that’s why Snowe eventually voted for the measure in the Senate Finance Committee.

As the National Journal reported on July 28, 2009, Snowe “emerged from bipartisan talks Monday confirming the employer mandate and, as expected, a public option would not make the final bill.” “We still have various options on the table, but we obviously are providing incentives in that regard,” Snowe said. “We don’t mandate employer coverage.” What the Finance Committee offered instead was a provision that did not require employers to provide insurance. However, by 2014, businesses with more than 50 employees that choose not to offer coverage, but have at least one full- time employee who receives a federal tax credit through an exchange, must compensate the government.

Progressives vehemently opposed the measure. As the Washington Post’s Steve Pearlstein explained at the time, “the provision would have the perverse effect of encouraging employers to fire, or not to hire, low-wage workers with children or spouses who are unemployed.” “Republican Olympia Snowe is said to be particularly enamored of this idea. I’d bet a two-pound lobster and bowl of Maine’s best chowder that she can’t find a labor economist back home who thinks this is a good policy,” he added. Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to replace the free-rider provision with an employer mandate and the Snowe-crafted provision made its way into section 1513 of the Affordable Care Act.