Former Republican Hawaii governor Linda Lingle, who is running for Senate in the state, said this morning that she opposes an amendment pushed by Senate Republicans last week that would allow any employer to drop health insurance coverage for contraception and other health services on moral grounds.

In a statement, Lingle’s campaign manager said she shares the position of her Democratic opponent, opposing the amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO). “Governor Lingle and [Democrat] Mazie Hirono share the same position on the Blunt amendment,” the statement said. “[N]either supports the broadly crafted language of the amendment.”

Nonetheless, Lingle, who is pro-choice, attended a fundraiser for her campaign which featured Blunt last night in DC. Lingle’s campaign defended the decision to travel nearly 5,000 miles to attend the fundraiser, decrying alleged Democratic “personal attack[s]” on Blunt.

Lingle joins Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who voted against the Blunt amendment, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who said yesterday that she regrets her vote for the measure, in publicly criticizing the Blunt legislation. It was narrowly defeated on a near party-line vote last week.

Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski told a local newspaper yesterday that she regrets her vote for the so-called Blunt amendment, the GOP’s alternative to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception coverage as part of their health care insurance plans. Under the amendment, which the Senate tabled with the help of just one Republican, employers would have been empowered to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections.

“I have never had a vote I’ve taken where I have felt that I let down more people that believed in me,” Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News’ Julia O’Malley, claiming that the amendment’s language went “overboard”:

“If you had it to do over again, having had the weekend that you had with women being upset about the vote, do you think you would have voted the same?” I asked.

“No,” she said.

Murkowski said she believes contraception should be covered and affordable, except when it comes to churches and religiously affiliated organizations, like some universities and hospitals. She sponsored a contraception coverage bill as a state legislator in 2002. That bill exempted “religious employers.” She said her position hasn’t changed.

“I have always said if you don’t like abortion the best way to deal with it is to not have unwanted pregnancies in the first place,” she said. “How do you do that? It’s through contraception.”

I pointed out that her support for birth control conflicts with the Catholic mandate against it. “You know, I don’t adhere to all of the tenets of my faith. I’m a Republican, I don’t adhere to all of the principles that come out of my party,” she said. “I’m also not hesitant to question when I think that my church, my religion, is not current.”

Murkowski called the Blunt Amendment a “messaging amendment” that “both sides know is not going to pass” and said “Republicans didn’t have enough sense to get off of it.” She also condemned Rush Limbaugh’s deragatory comments about a Georgetown law student testifying in favor of greater access to birth control. “I think women when they hear…mouthpieces like that say things like that they get concerned and they look to policymakers,” she said. “That’s where I feel like I have let these women down is that I have not helped to give these women the assurance they need that their health care rights are protected.”

Before the vote, ThinkProgress repeatedly called Murkowski’s office to ask how she would vote on the Blunt measure, but her office did not return our requests for comment. Retiring Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was the only Republican to oppose the measure.

By a vote of 51-48, the Senate agreed to table a Republican amendment offered by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that would have empowered employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections. The measure represented the GOP’s response to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception and other preventive health services as part of their health insurance plans. Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) — who announced her retirement earlier this week — was the only Republican to join Democrats in “tabling” the amendment, while three Democrats, Sens. Ben Nelson (NE), Joe Manchin (WV), and Bob Casey (PA) voted to preserve it.

During the nearly two hour debate, Republicans attempted to frame the issue as an attempt to prevent religious organizations from the Obama administration’s overreach and, despite supporting efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, maintained that women could obtain birth control from public sources. Blunt took to the floor to argue that employers would be discouraged from denying certain treatments by existing state mandates and a provision in the amendment requiring employers to replace the benefit with another service.

The most surprising support came from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a pro-choice Republican who has previously supported contraception equity measures without conscience exemptions for religious organizations. Collins expressed skepticism about the wide scope of Blunt’s amendment, but said the administration’ incomplete rule — specifically its lack of detail about how to treat self-insured plans — compelled her to support the measure. “I feel that I have to vote for Sen. Blunt’s amendment with the hope that the scope will be narrowed and refined,” she said, adding, “I do this with a lot of conflict.”

The Obama administration’s rule requires employers to offer contraception in their health care benefit plans, but exempts houses of worship and nonprofits that primarily employ people of the same faith from covering birth control. Religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges, and other nonprofits can also eschew the benefit. Their employees would obtain the coverage — at no additional cost sharing — directly from the insurer.

More people agree with Democrats that the U.S. needs to maintain a defined set of benefits in traditional Medicare, according to a new survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Seventy percent of respondents, including 53 percent of Republicans, said they want to keep Medicare as it is. This come ahead of the introduction of the Republicans’ proposed budget later this spring, which is likely to include Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) plan to transform the program into a “defined contribution” structure that would provide seniors with a voucher to purchase insurance from an exchange of private plans.

On contraception coverage, 63 percent of people agree with President Obama’s position that employer-provided insurance plans should cover it at no cost. Most people also agreed with the Democrats’ agrument that the contraception debate is about women’s rights, and 49 percent said they most trusted Democrats on the issue, with 33 percent saying they trusted Republicans.

The Senate will vote on the Blunt amendment, which would undermine the contraception mandate by allowing any employer to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of their personal moral objections.

Mitt Romney sparked controversy Wednesday afternoon after he told local reporter Jim Heath in Ohio that he would oppose a bill that would “allow employers to ban providing female contraception.” “I’m not for the bill,” Romney declared. “But look, the idea of presidential candidates getting into questions about contraception, within a relation between a man and a woman, a husband and wife, I’m not going there.” Romney made the comments on the eve of a Senate vote for an amendment offered by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) to permit employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of personal moral objections. The measure is the GOP’s response to President Obama’s rule requiring employers to provide contraception and other preventive health services as part of their health insurance plans.

But moments later, the Romney campaign reversed itself, claiming that the candidate was confused by the question and that he does indeed support the rhetoric behind the bill, namely a boss’ right to keep health care services out of the reach of workers based on religious concerns. Romney himself clarified his stance during a radio interview on the Howie Carr Show:

ROMNEY: I didn’t understand his question. Of course I support the Blunt amendment. I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception. So I simply misunderstood the question and of course I support the Blunt amendment…No, I simply misunderstood what he was talking about. I thought it was some Ohio legislation, where employers were prevented from providing contraceptives, and so I talked about contraceptives and so I really misunderstood the question. Of course Roy Blunt who is my liaison to the Senate is someone I support and of course I support that amendment. I clearly want to have religious exemption from Obamacare…. I really think all Americans should be allowed to get around this religious exemption.

Watch the two moments side by side:

Note that Romney could not bring himself to back the actual intent of the Blunt amendment — empowering employers to deny any health care services that undermine their religious beliefs — but could only justify his support by embracing the GOP’s rhetorical cover story: the claim that Obama’s contraception rule undermines religious liberties and that Blunt seeks to protect them. When Jim Heath unwrapped the faux First Amendment claim and explained the bill for what it actually does (rather than what the GOP claims it would prevent), Romney opposed it. As he explained in the radio interview, he initially came out against the bill because “I thought he was talking about some state law that prevented people from getting contraception.”

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Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) came out today against a piece of legislation her fellow Republicans are advancing to stop the Obama administration’s new birth control rule. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), would go much farther the Obama rule and allow any employer to deny coverage for contraceptives and other preventative health care services to their employees. The measure puts “your boss in your bedroom and in between you and your doctor,” as ThinkProgress’ Josh Dorner noted, and could endanger millions of women’s insurance coverage for preventive health care.

Republican lawmakers have rallied around Blunt’s amendment. A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, attached to an unrelated transportation bill. But Snowe — who announced her retirement yesterday — said on MSNBC today that the Blunt Amendment goes too far:

SNOWE: With respect to the Blunt amendment, I think it’s much broader than I could support. I think we should focus on the issue of contraceptives and whether or not it should be included in a health insurance plan and what requirements there should be.

Watch it:

 

 

Fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins joined Snowe in breaking ranks with the GOP to support Obama’s contraception rule, after he made an accommodation to religious organizations. So far, Collins is undecided on the Blunt amendment and others may oppose it too.

Sixty-seven percent of voters oppose legislation like Blunt’s, a recent poll found.

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) has offered an amendment that would allow employers to deny coverage of health services to their employees on the basis of their personal moral objections. Women’s groups warn the measure will severely limit access to needed care and now Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, is providing a sneak preview to the kind of discrimination employees will experience if the amendment becomes law.

Upon hearing news of President Obama’s regulation requiring all employers to offer contraception coverage without additional cost sharing, Bozell examined his own organization’s insurance policy and was “horrified” to learn that MRC’s plan has long provided contraception (and abortion) coverage. Bozell asked his employees to stop using “contraception/abortifacient/abortion services” and promised to eliminate the benefits at once:

“[W]e are working to change our insurance policy so as not to have to comply with this administration’s disgusting mandate to provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient services. In the course of looking into this I have learned our insurance policy provides abortion services. I cannot begin to tell you how horrified I am by that. I never would have approved this had I known. It is the taking of a human life. That will change.”

If Congress approves Blunt’s amendment, employers like Bozell would be able to make health decisions for their employees on the basis of their own personal beliefs. About two-thirds of Americans oppose this idea, but Bozell is already putting it into practice.

The incident is reminiscent of the Republican National Committee’s reaction upon discovering — through an article in Politico — that its health insurance plan covered abortion in 2009. Like Bozell, the RNC did not change its policy until it contradicted its political rhetoric, suggesting that women’s health care benefits are standard insurance benefits and that the GOP’s sudden outrage is nothing more than a manufactured political issue designed to rally the Republican base.