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.
The left wants “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment too.
If the boss is sleeping around with the hired help, the other employees have a claim for damages. (I attended a training class some years ago where the trainer made this very point.)
not paying for something is RADICALLY different from denying it
if you want to kill your kids, you have the ability in the US.
just stop expecting someone else to pay for it
Indeed. Thanks for the ping!
Unless, of course, the boss happens to be the fabulous Bill Clinton, eh? *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*?
Or you can go to the blog site and publicly humiliate him in the comments section.
Pretty entertaining, but the libs on MSNBC are really talking this way.
You would think that Hobby Lobby had a rule that employees cannot use BC at all, from the words the libs use.
Contraception is not health care.
Abortion is not health care.
They already ruled on that, it's called the IRS, AND Obamacare
From 1787-2009: If you did NOT want to provide abortifacients in your health care plan, you did not have to.
Then in 2009, 0-care stuck its nose into private affairs and then, for the FIRST TIME IN AMERICAN HISTORY, the government could FORCE employers and hospitals to do things that went against their religion.
Am I correct, Or am I missing something?
As one of the writers at NRO noted, the notion that not providing a subsidy for the purchase of a product is equivalent to banning the product is one of the more curious tenets of contemporary liberalism.
they denied the women nothing.....is is readily available....they just don’t want to pay for drugs to kill children.
ABORTION IS NOT HEALTH CARE.
HL, let the babies shriek themselves to death. That’s how you handle babies and spoiled brats and that’s exactly what they are. You poll the shriekers and I bet you find many of them have never worked a day in their life or have been out of work for over a year or more...
Mark
It would be funny but with the Dictator inChief using his pen it will probably happen before Hilary ever wins a nomination.
Precisely
And the Dictator on Chief continues to commit treason and congress does nothing
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