President Barack Obama's political shifting over contraception coverage has united conservative Republicans in protest even as they split over which GOP presidential hopeful should face him in the general election.

The candidates themselves, campaigning for votes in the Conservative Political Action Conference's straw poll Saturday, competed to present themselves as most opposed to Obama's health care law. It includes a requirement that most religious-affiliated employers cover birth control costs regardless of their beliefs.

On Friday, after three weeks of controversy that pitted the nation's Catholic bishops against the White House, Obama retreated. Instead of requiring employers to cover contraception, the policy would now require insurance companies to provide free birth control coverage in separate agreements with workers who want it.

Conservatives scoffed.

"It's an accounting trick _ the employer still plays the insurance," said Mike Gonzales of the Heritage Foundation. "Do (White House officials) think people are stupid?"

The controversy, several said, is a natural outgrowth of what they consider the overreach of Obama's health care mandate.

"My problem is the coercion" in the broader overhaul, said Washington real estate agent Bruce Majors.

Many shrugged off Obama's rewrite.

"It's not like they said, `We were wrong," said Spencer Larson, an investment adviser from Moraga, Calif. "They said, `We can't afford this politically.'"

"Nothing in health insurance is free," agreed Cherylyn Harley LeBon, a lawyer. "The cost is going to be passed on" to employees of religious organizations and everyone else, she said.

The whole debate over government health insurance has cost Obama plenty. His party lost the House majority in 2010 in part because of a backlash over the new law's demands on private industry and individuals.

The resentments erupted anew after the Obama administration on Jan. 20 announced that religious-affiliated employers, except houses of worship, had to cover birth control free of charge as preventive care for women. These hospitals, schools and charities were given until August 2013 to comply. Continued...