Posted on 07/10/2014 3:58:44 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
Will they have to cover something like this under the Employee Benefit Program if that employee wasn't a JW, or could they say that they now have a religious exemption, too?
I wonder what other can of worms the recent SCOTUS ruling will open up...
I have no problem with that.. health insurance as part of my work compensation...and its just that .... work compensation.. if you don’t like the compensation for your go work somewhere else
One might die without a blood transfusion but will not die not using birth control. But the Birth control can kill a person. Thirdly, yes, why can’t people understand they can pay for it themselves.
Your issue admits of a plain and simple answer.
Whether an employer objects to paying insurance premiums for employees for surgical abortions, abortifacients, any form of "birth control" whatsoever, blood transfusions, prescription medications costing more than $4 a month, medical marijuana, nursing home care, hospitalization or name your medical care of concern, a conservative of any stripe (traditionalist or libertarian or whatever) should readily concede that the problem is Obozocare itself or any similar plan (Romneycare? Schmuckie Chewmer care?),
On what basis does Congress possibly claim authority to mandate upon employers at employer expense or otherwise a scheme of such medical "insurance," one size fits all or otherwise?
SCOTUS ought to drop the facade of this "law" being somehow justified as a "tax" or constitutional in any way.
Let's also, as a matter of policy, and assuming that the law somehow survives, are morally conservative employers to be required to pay for "gender reassignment surgery?" Sterilizations? Euthanasia? Employers MAY OFFER these coverages and more, to their hearts' content and to the limit of the employers' ability to pay all or part of the premiums. Or not, as the employer sees fit.
I can imagine the passage of legislation requiring employers to give full disclosure to prospective and current employees of any employer provided medical insurance or other insurance. That is an anti-fraud measure and may guide the employee in whether to seek employment elsewhere, as available.
This scheme of liberty is also known as..... laissez faire capitalism.
The media has failed to mention a passage in Justice Alito’s ruling that although Hobby Lobby doesn’t have to pay for drugs they oppose on religious grounds, the insurance company DOES so all employees have access to all 20 drugs, including those that produce abortions. This would be true of Jehovah Witness owners or any other sincere religious objection.
Here’s the exact comment from Justice Alito’s majority opinion:
“The effect of the HHS-created accommodation on the women employed by Hobby Lobby and the other companies involved in these cases would be precisely zero. Under that accommodation, these women would still be entitled to all FDA-approved contraceptives without cost sharing.”
This refers to an exception created by the Department of Health and Human Services that forces insurers to pick up the tab for coverage objected to by religious non-profit organizations and churches.
Women employed by these organizations receive the same coverage, medications, and cost-free contraceptives as everyone else as mandated by HHS, even though the organizations themselves refuse to pay for that coverage.
Well in all truth, minimum wage laws works the same way...we allow government to dictate a minimum compensation standard else you can not employ that person. I don’t agree but I do understand how one could argue the case
Neither the health care companies nor the Supremes will give a rip about this. They won’t craft special health care plans for this nonsense nor should they. The issue is Obamacare itself not blood transfusions
You know this whole mess could have been averted if the Government(part of them at least)hadn’t delved into an area where they have no business.....health care.
bump
OTOH, employers in a truly free market will find themselves having to pay competitive wages or watch their employees go to employers who will.
I also do not object to deviations from the standard for other reasons. Catholic employers were urged by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Rerum Novarum (ca. 1893) to pay a wage sufficient to allow employees to comfortably support a family and acquire modest means of production and/or property out of any modest surplus. This ought not be confused with Marxism either because that encyclical was, in fact a profoundly anti-Marxist document. Leo XIII simply urged Catholic employers accordingly. He did not ask governments to intervene with legislation.
One theory of what Leo XIII was driving at was that an employer who is generous to his employees need not worry about them leaving his employ lightly nor about their loyalty.
I'll stand behind my maximum wage crack but it was directed at Rove and his ilk on another thread having to do with Rove's desire that we conservatives make a deal with Obozo on immigration (which would benefit Rove's crony "capitalist" buddies and patrons.
God bless you and yours!
We shall soon see, perhaps...
1.) If you have just as many who own a company as who brought the case from Hobby lobby to the SC, or 2.) an owner(s) have enough employees at a company for it to meet the threshold of either paying a fine or providing EBP’s (I am not sure what the present Obama adm. threshold # is right now) then they can say that they in good conscience cannot support blood transfusions being on their EBP’s - and thus they are going to let the gov’t (ObamaCare) foot the bill, or let their employees pay out-of-pocket.
The same scenario could happen with vasectomies or infertility treatments, as has been pointed out.
I had no intention from the start to attack the ruling, but rather my intent was to point out the law of unintended consequences.
And Fuzz was massively correct in post #16: SCOTUS made its ruling based upon the premise that the personal beliefs of the company were enough to deny insurance coverage.
That is what baffles me...
Here at FR that usually is the mantra (a mantra that I support): if you don’t like it, go somewhere else and work. Period.
Now, some seem to say here that, no, we must force the company to provide blood transfusions even if SCOTUS made its ruling purely on the stance of closely held religious view(s).
It seems as if we have some here that like religious liberty for their church or belief system, but not for others.
If a company adheres to the SCOTUS ruling (as Fuzz was massively correct on in post #16) and says, basically, that vasectomies are an abhorrence to their personally held religious views: then go work somewhere else.
If you don't like that a company doesn't have an EBP: go work somewhere else.
Thus, you now truly know the scheme of liberty.
We don't need Obamacare, but we don't need the SCOTUS ruling either. The law of the land should be: if you don't like it, go work somewhere else.
If the owners of a closely held company have religious objections to vasectomies, infertility treatments, blood transfusions, etc, etc, they will try to deny.
Then the lawsuits will come,
Then theses issues will work their way up.
Or do you think that the majority on SCOTUS will only safeguard closely held religious beliefs for some religious peoples, but not all?
True, they couldn't rightly do that without re-opening a huge can of worms, could they?
But surely part of the unspoken context would be that this involves something very important and controversial: if owners of the closely-held company refused to pay for all forms of birth control would the court have reached the same decision?
I was coming at this more from a theological or moral point of view, rather than a legal or political one, though. If you believe something is wrong, is it wrong just for you or wrong for everybody?
My first thought was live-and-let-live, but on reflection, it does look like the stronger your convictions the more likely you are to believe that your belief should apply to everyone, whether or not you want that belief enshrined in law.
Of course, that has nothing to do with what the court ruled actually ruled in the case, but hypothetical questions can get us moving in different and unexpected directions.
“Of course, that has nothing to do with what the court ruled actually ruled in the case, but hypothetical questions can get us moving in different and unexpected directions.”
Which is why the “unspoken context” is a bad way to make law and set precedence. If the only justification for a ruling is a deeply held personal religious belief, the interpretations are vague and arbitrary that will more than likely lead to the courts deciding what religious beliefs are valid.
If owners of the closely-held company refused to pay for all forms of birth control would the court have reached the same decision?
Look..no one has to GIVE YOU anything.. employment is a contract between two people.. you and your employer. . So if health insurance is part of the package fine ...if it’s not fine ..if it only has some parts you like and some you don’t fine.
Truth is I really I prefer cash only for employment..
All the benefits like health insurance is really barter beween the two parties....
why the government should dictate that some of your compensation must be in the form of barter and the barter must include certain items is nuts
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