Posted on 07/06/2014 5:32:50 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The Supreme Court's recent decision in the Hobby Lobby case demonstrates that the court, at least the five justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby, has little concern for, and probably little understanding of, women's health care. By ruling that corporations, on the grounds of the alleged religious views of their owners, can deny women access to some forms of contraception, the court set a horrible precedent that if followed will endanger the health and lives of many American women.
The Hobby Lobby ruling may at first seem like a victory for the minority of Americans who think that both abortion and contraception should be illegal, and for those who believe that the US should operate more as a theocracy than a country where state and church are separate. However, the ruling not only is terrible news for women seeking a guarantee of good healthcare through their employer, but also for anybody who believes in personal freedom.
In the US, where health insurance is linked to employment, health insurance is part of the compensation package. When most Americans are about to start a new job, or choosing between two or more jobs, one of the first questions they ask is about the quality of the health insurance they will get. In most cases, health insurance varies because some companies offer plans with lower co-pays, better dental care or things like that. Firms that deny dental care are doing it because of concerns about costs, not because they have an ethical or religious problem with healthy teeth. Hobby Lobby is doing something different, denying women access to some forms of health care because of the personal beliefs of the people who run the company.
This decision raises the question of whether the Supreme Court will next rule that employers can tell workers how to spend the money they earn at their jobs. This sounds a bit extreme, but in a very real way that is precisely what the court just did. By limiting how workers can use some of their compensation, the court, despite its own assertions that it was not setting a precedent, opened the door for further limitations. If Hobby Lobby can tell people how they can or cannot use their health care benefits, why can't they also tell people they can't, for example, use their salaries to, for donate to pro-choice political candidates or pro-marriage equality causes? The answer, one would think, would be obvious, but the recent court decision makes it considerably less clear.
The Republican Party has long, if not always sincerely, repeated a mantra of individual freedom, but the Hobby Lobby decision, in which all five justices who formed the majority were appointed by Republican presidents, undermines that. A central belief of all Republican politicians is that Americans should have a right to do what they want with, and keep as much as possible of, their hard-earned money. The Supreme Court made a big move against that idea this week, but the outrage from the Republican side has been absent.
Conservative opposition to healthcare have consistently argued that decisions about health care should be made by patients and doctors, not by the government. The death panel hysteria that Sarah Palin unleashed on the American people a few years ago took that point to a nutty extreme. After last week, conservatives who support Hobby Lobby should probably change their position and argue that health care decisions should be made not by a patient's doctor, but by a patient's employer. Similarly, for supporters of the Hobby Lobby decision, the new mantra of individual freedom should now be that Americans should be allowed to do whatever they want with their hard earned money, as long as their boss approves, but somehow that seems an unlikely campaign slogan for Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.
The Hobby Lobby decision is about women's health care and individual freedom, but it also another sign of the consolidation of power by big corporations in the US. It is now legal for corporations to deny workers important medical services, and redefine their compensation packages, simply because, religious claims aside, they want to. During a very tenuous recovery in which real wages have not recovered, unemployment remains high and economic uncertainty on the part of working Americans is an enormous problem, the Supreme Court just gave more rights to corporations while taking wealth, as health care benefits are a form of wealth, out of the hands of working Americans.
...and the ability to murder your unborn child any way you want at any time you want and get others to pay for it.
And who is Lincoln Mitchell when he’s at home?
You mean like buying Obamacare?
Wow, what a CV. I’d be so ashamed of that I’d probably retire to a remote island where they never heard of me.
Another person who has reached adulthood without having done anything constructive in his entire life. The Left is full of these parasites who self-proclaim they are our betters and know how we should live our lives.
I was not denied access. I CHOSE to use a doctor that was not covered, and paid full price. Isn't that what they mean by pro-choice?
I imagine it would be possible to delude one’s self even more about some issue than this article does but it wouldn’t be easy. There are just so many assertions about this ruling that are completely false in there.
Lincoln Mitchell, you are an idiot
His bio also says he writes for Baseball Prospectus and blogs about baseball. If he understands baseball as well as he understands the Hobby Lobby case, he probably thinks the Yankees need a new quarterback.
:)
Not even a doctor should come between a woman and her birth control. Make all birth control over the counter.
Better yet, make it like MDMA in San Francisco
have free dispensers on every street corner
This guy obviously has never heard of the 1st amendment.
The Hobby Lobby decision didn’t have anything to do with contraception. Contraception is defined as the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy.
The decision affects morning after type “tools” which - by definition - only help after pregnancy has begun.
We can email this genius here: lincoln@lincolnmitchell.com - and tell him how brilliant he is.
BTW, this wizard used to work in the Soviet Union.
The interesting thing here, is that they consider the deletion of these pills from the guaranteed coverage package as tantamount to denying being able to get them.
What this bespeaks is a GRAND slavery to Uncle Sugar. It’s like if Uncle Sugar isn’t furnishing something you don’t have the option to get it some other way.
People who beg for slavery do not have a right to complain when their masters start getting perverse on them.
“When most Americans are about to start a new job, or choosing between two or more jobs, one of the first questions they ask is about the quality of the health insurance they will get.”
Oh, this is rich. I can just imagine the prospective employee in the obameconomy thinking “Is the healthcare better working 29 hours per week at McDonald’s or at Burger King?”
This guy doesn’t get out much...
What this Supreme Court decision did was to UPHOLD the religious rights and freedoms of the owners of Hobby Lobby that they are guaranteed to under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. The court has just decided that the government cannot force privately held companies to provide certain contraceptives (four only) that they object to for religious reasons.
This court decision does not ERODE women’s rights to contraception. Last time I checked, there is no mention in the Constitution of the right of women to have all the contraceptives known to man given to them for FREE. This is something Obama and Sebelius forced Hobby Lobby and other companies to do AFTER ObamaCare was passed into law, because some fluzzy named Sandra Fluke publicly whined about not being able to get her contraceptives for free. Women are not being denied the freedom to use contraceptives. They never have been. They still have contraceptives available to them. They may have to cover the cost of the four not offered by Hobby Lobby anymore. But then previous to Obama forcing this down employers’ throats, women had to pay for their contraceptives anyway.
This ruling is not about women’s rights, which are not delineated in the Constitution. It is about religious rights, which are spelled out in the Constitution.
This Lincoln guy has got it all backwards. His liberal petty coat is showing.
This statement is just so typical of the doomsday propaganda that airheads on the left are spewing in reaction to the SCOTUS Hobby Lobby decision.
The employer "can deny women access to some forms of contraception"? If some item or service is denied in an insurance policy, it only means that the insurance policy will not pay for it. I doesn't mean that these female employees are being "denied access" to these forms of contraception, because they can pay out of their own pockets (the price is very modest) or, if necessary, get the item and service they want from some other source, like Planned Parenthood.
This whole idea that government or corporations have to pay for every product or service under the sun is insane. It's this entitlement and hand-out mentality that is a major factor in the growing decadence of American society.
Seriously. He needs a life.
/johnny
Color me unsurprised.
What is his FR screen-name?
/johnny
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