Natural Law & the Affordable Care Act

An Exchange

Hadley Arkes, Unagidon

If health care is a right, must the government guarantee it? If it's not a right, what is it?

Seeing Green

Is Mitt Romney right about envy?

Gordon Marino

Mitt Romney thinks grumbling about inequality is really about envy. Progressives say that vitriol about the wealth gap is not the voice of envy but instead expresses a concern about distributive justice. But Romney is right—justice and job prospects are not the only motivations behind the placards and chants of the occupy movements. Envy is also an engine, just as it was the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions.

Compromised

Obama owes more on religious freedom

E. J. Dionne Jr.

One of Barack Obama's great attractions as a presidential candidate was his sensitivity to the feelings and intellectual concerns of religious believers. That is why it is so remarkable that he utterly botched the admittedly difficult question of how contraceptive services should be treated under the new health-care law.

Bad Decision

The Editors

The Obama administration has rejected appeals to exempt religious-affiliated institutions, such as hospitals and universities, from the mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services requiring all health-insurance policies to include free coverage for contraceptives and other “preventive” services such as sterilization. This was a serious mistake.