Ernest Istook: “I believe the date was July 11 when the Council had its meeting. At that meeting, an ordinance came up for consideration…”

“I believe the date was July 11 when the Council had its meeting. At that meeting, an ordinance came up for consideration requiring placing a mandate compelling employers in the District of Columbia to make one portion of health insurance coverage be that contraceptives would be covered, that they would be part of the benefit. Now, we could have a separate debate, we are not going to, but we could have a separate debate about what happens when you keep putting different mandates on health insurance. No matter how common sense some particular mandate may seem to some people, it still drives up the cost. It is like every time you buy a car, they say, do you want this option or that option, or anything else that you purchase that you have got options, the more options you choose, the higher it costs. The same thing is true, of course, with health insurance. If you require that people cannot buy health insurance unless you get it with all these options, then you find that nobody can buy plain coverage.”