ABC 33/40 - Birmingham News, Weather, SportsEWTN not dropping federal lawsuit

President Barack Obama came out this morning with a revised plan to the controversial requirement that all employers offering insurance had to cover birth control for their employees.

Under the new arrangement, employers who object will not have to pay for contraception. Instead, insurance companies will be directly responsible for providing "free" contraception.

Even with these modifications the federal lawsuit filed Thursday by EWTN Global Catholic Network has not been dropped. The reason, EWTN is self insured. That means it would still be responsible for paying for birth control.

"We are continuing forward with the lawsuit and we intend to do that," EWTN President and CEO Michael Warsaw said, "We're very skeptical that the proposals put forward by President Obama and the administration really do make any significant change in this (mandate)."

Warsaw believes EWTN's lawsuit filed in Birmingham federal court Thursday got the administration's attention.  However, the changes made by the White House were not what he was looking for.

"As a self insured fund, the employer pays those claims directly, so that hasn't changed any thing for us," Warsaw said.

Another reason EWTN will keep the suit alive is that rules for the mandate still are not finalized.

"The reality is that over the next year, the administration plans to sort out many of these rules. We still don't know what many of those are," says Warsaw.

While EWTN is a Catholic company, Warsaw says this issue has brought together
many denominations and he expects support will continue to grow.

He says, "We're seeing a tremendous rallying not only of Catholics but people of all faiths coming together in really joining us in resisting these efforts by the government."

Warsaw goes on to say this issue will not be resolved until the White House repeals this contraceptive mandate.  If not, he says he is prepared to take the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.