Supreme Court To Take Up Controversial Birth Control Cases

reply to post by charles1952

I would have thought that the question is, may the government order the owners of a business to pay for goods and services which directly violate deeply held religious convictions in spite of the First Amendment?

Can a corporation have deeply held religious convictions?

Can a corporation be saved or sent to Hell?

Can a corporation be sent to jail, get sick, get pregnant?

Can a corporation compel it's employees to follow a certain religion?

reply to post by windword

Dear windword,

As far as I know the answers to your questions are:


Can a corporation have deeply held religious convictions? (The owners can)

Can a corporation be saved or sent to Hell? (The owners can)

Can a corporation be sent to jail, get sick, get pregnant? (The owners can) (The corporation can also be dissoved, killing it, fined or sued.)

Can a corporation compel it's employees to follow a certain religion? (No)

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by charles1952


Charles,

Hobby Lobby is no mom and pop shop. They employee over 21,000 people. People incorporate their business to shield them from liability. A corporation is a legal entity, and Hobby Lobby has chosen to set up shop in the secular community, and so, must abide by secular law. If God judges the owners of Hobby Lobby for following the law, by providing comprehensive health insurance, perhaps they're in the wrong business sector.

No one’s asking Hobby Lobby to support abortions. Their job here is to provide comprehensive health coverage for their employees, not to pick and choose what to cover, in order to discriminate against women, and their employees have a right to decide how to their insurance.

reply to post by windword


I thought you could sign up as an individual.

reply to post by Nephalim


I don't know much about the ins and outs of the ACA, but I found this:

Comparing job-based and Marketplace plans
With most job-based health insurance plans, an employer pays part of your premiums. If you pick a Marketplace plan instead, the employer doesn’t contribute to your premiums. You should consider this carefully before comparing Marketplace plans.

Qualifying for Marketplace savings
If you decide to check out Marketplace plans, be aware that you may not qualify for lower costs on your monthly premiums and out-of-pocket costs, even if your income would qualify you otherwise.

Whether you qualify for lower costs based on your income will depend on the coverage the employer offers. You won't be able to get lower costs if your job-based coverage is considered affordable and meets minimum value.

The employer can tell you whether the insurance plan it offers meets minimum value. It can provide you with information to determine if the plan is considered affordable to you.

One way to gather this information is by asking your employer to fill out an Employer Coverage Tool.

Minimum value standards
A health plan meets the minimum value standard if it’s designed to pay at least 60% of the total cost of medical services for a standard population.

In other words, in most cases the plan will cover 60% of the covered medical costs and the person with coverage pays 40%. www.healthcare.gov...

Most healthy women spend a majority of their face to face time with their doctors due to female needs and problems, in my experience. "Family planning" is an important and expensive part of a woman's health care needs.

reply to post by ketsuko

No, it isn't really beside the point.

The point about oral contraceptives being health care isn't exactly true. They only are in certain cases, and most policies cover them in those cases, even those policies that don't cover them as contraception.

Contraception isn't medically necessary. It is elective which is why those policies don't cover it.

When you are diagnosed with something like ovarian cysts, oral contraceptives can become medically necessary, and then those policies cover them.

Contraception IS a medical necessity for women.

The federal HIPAA law blocks employers from access to their employees' health information. It is none of the employer's business and they have no right to know why the contraceptive is being prescribed. Therefore they cannot know whether its use is immoral or not.

Birth control isn't a religious issue, it's a woman's health issue and an economic justice issue.

Yeaa Id doubt you're going to win this one Wind, religious liberty is protected by the constitution, just like your right of choice.

I just heard someone on television say if congress wanted to provide contraception they could write a bill and do it, but that a court who has already ruled on religious liberty or religious protection is not going to mandate that they violate their own beliefs.

I still say you should be able to go buy it and get insurance for yourself and choose what you want out of your coverage. Why put your personal and private decisions back into the government or a private corp when you already have the right established not to? Its like you say, its none of your business then you say wait.. YEA IT IS!

help me understand that one. Is it about cost?

reply to post by Nephalim


Second post here on this. -Looking at the level and quality of healthcare based on 4 personal and most recent experiences. (real examples)

Experience 1- I got food poisoning (no insurance) I sat in the ER lobby, puking, crappin my guts out constantly, dizzy, cold. I finally passed out on the floor from dehydration. When I woke up several hours later a doctor says to me, we didn't think you were gonna wake up. I spent four days in the hospital on multiple IV's.

Experience 2- I took a company physical after accepting a letter of offer to work for a very large corporation. The doctor examined it all, right down a small mole on my shoulder and told me it was normal, not a problem. Determined I was fit.

Experience 3- No insurance. I broke my shoulder sort of, separated some stuff in there. Went to the ER, they x rayed doc says there's not much to be done. Offered me a number to call, some pain meds and put my arm in a sling. Shoulder is still crap.

Experience 4- I went to a physical therapist (no insurance) and got a physical for employment. They checked everything, even asked about my shoulder but again apparently nothing could be done. Everything else apparently says healthy as an 18 year old. I'm 36.

Which of these levels of care do Americans want and expect? and, if you choose what you consider to be the best, should government and private corps shoulder the cost, or should you deal with it like I did? You just rough it with no insurance. Does quality of healthcare go up or down depending on employer or even having insurance at all based on the little info I provided here?

Last question, is it possible that an insurance provider give you ,multiple options that you can select to determine the amount of coverage you yourself choose with no government of private corporation involvement?

reply to post by Nephalim

Yeaa Id doubt you're going to win this one Wind, religious liberty is protected by the constitution, just like your right of choice.

Yep, we'll see. This Supreme Court, it's anyones guess what they'll do.

I just heard someone on television say if congress wanted to provide contraception they could write a bill and do it, but that a court who has already ruled on religious liberty or religious protection is not going to mandate that they violate their own beliefs.

Actually, the Court has ruled, in several cases, that religious beliefs don't trump secular law. The peyote case comes to mind, off the top of my head.

I still say you should be able to go buy it and get insurance for yourself and choose what you want out of your coverage. Why put your personal and private decisions back into the government or a private corp when you already have the right established not to? Its like you say, its none of your business then you say wait.. YEA IT IS!

help me understand that one. Is it about cost?

I worked all my adult life, not as an executive with a great incentive package, but as waitress in restaurant chains, mom and pop cafes and hotels (including Mormon owned Marriott), and contraception was always, without question included in my insurance. It is only since Obamacare proposed minimum insurance standards to include contraception, that all of sudden, employers, who had offered it to their employees before, either knowingly or unknowingly, (including Catholic hospitals and colleges) started to pull coverage in protest.

The cost is an important aspect to the debate, but it's not the main problem. Discrimination against fair coverage for women, the insistence of the employer to impinge their personal morality onto their workers, and bad science combined with the pro-life agenda are the main themes of the debate. In my opinion.

The other thing about these two cases is just how slippery the slope is. Today, it's "The Morning After Pill", tomorrow it may be chemotherapy, if your boss is Christian Science, HIV/AIDS medication for gays, if your boss is a fundamentalist, a blood transfusion, if your boss is a Jehovah Witness, or a psychiatrist if your boss is a Scientologist.

reply to post by Nephalim


When I was 36, I was working for (Mormon owned) Marriott Corp. I was experiencing some pain and made an appointment with my GYN, for a few days later. During that appointment, the Dr determined that I was pregnant and it was ectopic. My ovary was the size of a grapefruit, and the Dr feared it would burst, and kill me. I was immediately admitted into the hospital and the problem was taken care of in surgery. I was there, in the hospital, for 3 days recovering, and my co-pay for the whole ordeal was $600.

That's the kind of care I expect from my insurance. I also expect contraception and a relationship with a GYN, and for him/her to be available to me for all kinds of things associated with female issues, like, monthly mood swings, excessive acne, heavy bleeding, migraines, leg cramps, dizziness, late or missed periods, yeast infections, UTI infections and emergency scripts, as well as PAP smears, mammograms and treatment for whatever may show up in those tests. These are real, everyday concerns of every woman.

I believe ya. Heck I started working at 17 in restaurants at what.. 4 and change per hour. Then onto manual labor for not much more. I don't know anything else. Ive never had an office. So yea, I know the feeling. Bust your ass for a ten cent raise and the newly earned priviledge of washing pots. shaking my head here

I'm not giving any rights up so people can sell generic drugs or make money from it though. I don't care what anyone says. Judge, President, congress person, lol I'm not that dumb. I think everyone should have the actual healthcare they need but I highly doubt, HIGHLY doubt that anyone has to give anything up for that.

reply to post by windword



Comparing paying for some guy to have his clap treated to paying for a womans abortion is not quite relevant.

I do not think that in the long run, when all is said and done, abortions will always be legal. Today it is the law of the land, no doubt. But I think there will be scientific progression that eventually brings that law to an end.

Regardless, OBama mandating that policies include this, and then telling employers that it has to be included in their employee policies, is just not right. They are dictating what must be bought by the public. And abortion is horrific.

windword
reply to post by Nephalim

 

When I was 36, I was working for (Mormon owned) Marriott Corp. I was experiencing some pain and made an appointment with my GYN, for a few days later. During that appointment, the Dr determined that I was pregnant and it was ectopic. My ovary was the size of a grapefruit, and the Dr feared it would burst, and kill me. I was immediately admitted into the hospital and the problem was taken care of in surgery. I was there, in the hospital, for 3 days recovering, and my co-pay for the whole ordeal was $600.

That's the kind of care I expect from my insurance. I also expect contraception and a relationship with a GYN, and for him/her to be available to me for all kinds of things associated with female issues, like, monthly mood swings, excessive acne, heavy bleeding, migraines, leg cramps, dizziness, late or missed periods, yeast infections, UTI infections and emergency scripts, as well as PAP smears, mammograms and treatment for whatever may show up in those tests. These are real, everyday concerns of every woman.

Then don't work for a company that does that to their employees. Very few people feel strongly enough about their convictions to let it seep into the businesses they own. I have never worked somewhere where religious views were even allowed to influence the business in the smallest degree.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

Comparing paying for some guy to have his clap treated to paying for a womans abortion is not quite relevant.

Where do you get that? The cartoon, in the OP, is insinuating that allowing (slutty) women access to birth control equals men getting STDs. following this scenario, I asked "Can an employer, then, refuse to pay for treatment of STDs based on the employer's disapproval of the immoral way in which the employee contracted it?

Regardless, OBama mandating that policies include this, and then telling employers that it has to be included in their employee policies, is just not right. They are dictating what must be bought by the public. And abortion is horrific.

There is no abortion mandate in the ACA.

www.ppaction.org...

There is a mandate for contraception as a minimum standard for comprehensive health care coverage for women. For an employer to want to compartmentalize and cherry pick what women's health issues and prescriptions they decide to cover, when and why, is counter productive. These issues can't be separated, they're intrinsically related.

windword
reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

 

Comparing paying for some guy to have his clap treated to paying for a womans abortion is not quite relevant.

Where do you get that? The cartoon, in the OP, is insinuating that allowing (slutty) women access to birth control equals men getting STDs. following this scenario, I asked "Can an employer, then, refuse to pay for treatment of STDs based on the employer's disapproval of the immoral way in which the employee contracted it?

How is that even relevant to reality? Because a cartoon popped up about it? I make cartoons about gorillas doing human things....should we discuss that as well?

Regardless, OBama mandating that policies include this, and then telling employers that it has to be included in their employee policies, is just not right. They are dictating what must be bought by the public. And abortion is horrific.

There is no abortion mandate in the ACA.

www.ppaction.org...

There is a mandate for contraception as a minimum standard for comprehensive health care coverage for women. For an employer to want to compartmentalize and cherry pick what women's health issues and prescriptions they decide to cover, when and why, is counter productive. These issues can't be separated, they're intrinsically related.

edit on 28-11-2013 by windword because: (no reason given)

Then don't work for those employers. In a free society, we "rule" by voting with our attention/money. We don't demand the government force everyone to conform to our worldview.

I, personally, have turned down jobs for companies that I felt were beneath me with their policies. I have principles, which demand that I personally hold myself responsible. I don't demand the world bend to my own personal desires. That is not personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is realizing that when you are offended, it is your problem to learn to deal with. Because anger, like poison, only hurts the person consuming it.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

How is that even relevant to reality? Because a cartoon popped up about it? I make cartoons about gorillas doing human things....should we discuss that as well?

Talk about whatever you want! It's relevant because it is a common tactic to call women who demand contraception coverage "dirty sluts".

Then don't work for those employers. In a free society, we "rule" by voting with our attention/money. We don't demand the government force everyone to conform to our worldview.

I, personally, have turned down jobs for companies that I felt were beneath me with their policies. I have principles, which demand that I personally hold myself responsible. I don't demand the world bend to my own personal desires. That is not personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is realizing that when you are offended,

Do you think that it's appropriate for contraception to come during a job interview?

it is your problem to learn to deal with. Because anger, like poison, only hurts the person consuming it.

Are you saying that, by requiring employers to provide minimum health care standards, that include contraception for the female employees in their benefit packages, that it will spawn unhealthy employer hatred for their female employees, and the men who are providing coverage for their wives?

Or, perhaps you're implying that those who wish to deny fair and comprehensive coverage are full of anger toward their female employees demands, and that women should take the higher road, and just shut up about it already!

windword

Talk about whatever you want! It's relevant because it is a common tactic to call women who demand contraception coverage "dirty sluts".

I have never seen such. Then again, i ignore morons who would say such things. Or let it flow through like "garbage in/garbage out". Name calling is just name calling, meant for children.

Do you think that it's appropriate for contraception to come during a job interview?

I think its appropriate to ask for a copy of the policy manual before doing anything more than accepting a conditional job offer. The details of health coverage should be covered as well. Contraception as a topic? No. But as a clarification of limitation of the benefits package being offered? Absolutely. But how many people actually take the time to inquire about the details of such? I see more people wearing pajamas to an interview than i see being insightful enough to ask that kind of question.

Are you saying that, by requiring employers to provide minimum health care standards, that include contraception for the female employees in their benefit packages, that it will spawn unhealthy employer hatred for their female employees, and the men who are providing coverage for their wives?

Or, perhaps you're implying that those who wish to deny fair and comprehensive coverage are full of anger toward their female employees demands, and that women should take the higher road, and just shut up about it already!

I am saying that the employer should not be required to do anything relating to health care. We provide insurance to our folks, with us paying over 70% of the premiums on their behalf. They get the same insurance the CEO gets at the same price. Additionally, we pay 100% for the AD&D and life for the employee (up to 100k). The reason we do this is to take care of our folks while providing us a competitive advantage. Since we are the only place in our industry to offer insurance, you can imagine we have amassed all the talent in our town, and are rated so far above our compettition in customer satisfaction that it is almost ridiculous to even look at (seriously).

It is amazing what happens when you combine smart business with employees who would rather take advantage of that smart business instead of demanding entitlements.

Now...if you have any idea how much insurance costs an employer, you may understand why I would bristle at my employees making demands about health care coverage. We spend tens of thousands a month on this benefit for them, to invest in their health. If, as a business, i do not wish to invest in their decision to not have children, that is my choice.

reply to post by windword


Did the ruling claim corporations are people or persons?

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan

I have never seen such. Then again, i ignore morons who would say such things. Or let it flow through like "garbage in/garbage out". Name calling is just name calling, meant for children.

Apparently, you missed the whole Sandra Fluke hoopla, then.

I think its appropriate to ask for a copy of the policy manual before doing anything more than accepting a conditional job offer.

In my experience, contraception was never an issue. Only now are employers using religion to deny that it's a basic coverage, that has normally been provided. Many employers, who were offering contraception benefits, are suddenly pulling that from their plans, in protest of the ACA.

I am saying that the employer should not be required to do anything relating to health care.

I agree. I wish that the Single Payer Option, that Obama had originally proposed, had gone through.

Now...if you have any idea how much insurance costs an employer, you may understand why I would bristle at my employees making demands about health care coverage. We spend tens of thousands a month on this benefit for them, to invest in their health. If, as a business,

This isn't about your employees making demands. It's about employers following the law.

i do not wish to invest in their decision to not have children, that is my choice.

That's what the Supreme Court will decide, if it's your corporation's choice. ( It's ironic that pro-life employers want the "choice" to deny "choice" to their female employees. )

Right now, legally, according to ACA, it's not your call. You can't provide medical benefits for women who choose to have children and discriminate to deny benefits from those who don't.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes. SCOTUS, if they rule in favor of the religious, will either open the door to all kinds of religious objections, not just contraception, or they will have to somehow limit religious objection to contraception only.

reply to post by DerbyGawker


I'm not totally clear on the implication of the Citizen's United ruling. But this what Charles posted on page one of this thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

May I start with Citizens United v. FEC? It didn't declare that corporations are people. That's a slogan designed to fit on the bumper stickers of angry people. From the comments on the case from The Harvard Law Review (I'll dig up the actual case holding if you think it's important)

Though the Court ruled that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as natural persons regarding independent political expenditures, the same corporations still do not have the same panoply of rights as natural persons, even after Citizens United. Corporations and unions are still precluded from making donations directly to candidates’ campaigns. And Citizens United left intact systemic safeguards, namely the FEC’s strict disclosure and reporting requirements.

Mitt Romney made the phrase "Corporations are people" famous. We'll see how true it really is soon enough, I guess.