State Representatives Peter Stautberg (R-Anderson Twp.) and Barbara Sears (R-Monclova Twp.) today applauded the Ohio House’s passage of a resolution urging the federal government to protect the rights of religiously affiliated organizations by repealing a federal mandate that all health insurance plans must cover contraceptive services.

House Concurrent Resolution 35 specifically urges President Barack Obama, Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and the United States Congress to rescind a rule promulgated under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that requires all health insurance plans to cover contraceptive and preventive services. According to this mandate, health insurance plans offered by religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges and other non-profits must offer coverage for these services, regardless of whether they have a faith-based opposition to them.

“For all Americans, this particular mandate was not simply about politics—it was about religious liberty,” said Representative Stautberg. “I applaud my colleagues in the Ohio House for supporting this resolution in the hope that we might send a message to Washington that there is no justification for the government to direct any church or any faith to contradict its core principles and values.”

“It is clear that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has been a dramatic overreach and unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle that diminishes the quality of health care in the United States,” Representative Sears said. “This issue brought to light only one of the many examples of how the federal health care overhaul will not improve the delivery of health care but instead insert government control where it does not belong. The House’s actions today were an important step toward limiting the destructive nature of this flawed federal health care mandate.”

H.C.R. 35 passed from the Ohio House by a vote of 55-38.