Side note no one's talking about: The birth control methods Hobby Lobby objects to are not considered to be abortifacients by the medical community. That a woman with an IUD inside her body is constantly performing abortions on herself is nothing more than the Green family's fictional opinion with no basis in science or medicine. Hence, if they decide your heart pills can cause a miscarriage, don't be surprised if they decide not to cover them either.
Folks, the question of whether or not corporations are religious entities would never have been entertained by any court unless the Right didn't see it as a way to lift one tiny corner of Obamacare in hopes of peeling off the whole thing.
Ironic side note: People incorporate in order to put a legal separation between themselves and their business, thereby protecting their personal assets. So Hobby Lobby and friends want a secular relationship with their company when it comes to liability, but a religious one when it comes to what sort of birth control their insurance plan can offer their female employees. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too?
In the grand scheme of things, the contraception argument is just a delivery mechanism. Big Money riles up the base by talking about abortion and calling women near-hysterical sluts. They do not care about picking up the $500 to $1000 tab of an IUD insertion. Birth control is chump change (unless of course you're a clerk at a craft store). The costs Big Money really doesn't want to cover are for your cancer treatments, your heart disease and your type II diabetes. If they can get the courts to say you don't have to cover an IUD, they'll just keep chipping away until they don't have to cover anything.
Trust me, most employers in America would love to drop employee health care insurance and have been doing everything they can to lessen the burden: dropping retirees, setting up "wellness" programs, and mandating dependents use their own coverage or pay an extra premium. All of it was going on long before the ACA was born. Take away the Obamacare employee mandate and pretty soon, it's not just going to be minimum wage employees seeing their coverage disappear.
It's going to be you too.
Another note no one wants to own up to: health care costs aren't going up because of Obamacare. They're going up because we're getting fatter and sicker. Think how rare cancer and type II diabetes used to be. As for our waistlines, take a walk around Disney World. Stroll through a state fair. Go to the mall. I won't even talk about the growing greed of the health care industry.
An yet another side note since we're here: remember when Michelle Obama had the audacity to suggest that people drink a glass of water instead of a bucket of carbonated and diluted high fructose corn syrup (aka soda pop)? The Right went ballistic.
As for Hobby Lobby, I have no idea which way the case will go (but I suspect we'll see an unprecedented level of hypocrisy from Scalia who no-likey religious rights when it comes to peyote). If it passes, make no mistake, the next thing the zealots will be asking for is the "right" to have their employees sign a paper swearing they will not use their paycheck to pay for a same sex marriage, an IUD or anything else that offends them. After all, if you give them the right to determine how you can use one earned benefit (your insurance), they'll ask for control of how you use other earned benefits (your paycheck).
"Sorry Miss Smith, but our surveillance records indicate you've terminated a pregnancy and therefore, we'll have to terminate you."
Now then, some forty percent of Dearborn, Michigan residents are Arab American, many of them are Muslim and many are small business owners. Imagine what they might require of employees given this new religious freedom.
"Women must have their heads covered at all times while on the premises."
That's what the Hobby Lobby case is really about, good pilgrims, the right for your boss to inflict his religious beliefs on you, be they Muslim or Christian or Scientologist. That's what they're willing to trade in in order to weaken Obamacare.
* * *
45 comments:
Any doubt that this litigation is being pursued for nakedly political ends?
Hobby Lobby PAID for these types of coverage through their own insurance carrier prior to the passage of the ACA. No muss, no fuss.
MR
That is what I had heard, MR, but I couldn't find a link verifying it so I left it out.
The whole thing is absolutely beyond me.
Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, 3/21/14; Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, 3/12, 14; Jaime Fuller, the Washington Post, 3/24/14.
MR
If you like your Obama Care, you can keep your Obama Care.
Do any of you libs own a company? Let's say I want to start a new company, risking my own money, Bill's Trolling; and I hire 50 Trolls. Now I want to provide catastrophic health care coverage for my employees. Am I required to provide the precise coverage dictated by the federal government? Really? After all, my prospective employees could, if they wanted to, go down the street to Aaron's Group Think, Inc., and apply, because, at Aaron's, they offer a more comprehensive health insurance plan.
Am I required to provide the precise coverage dictated by the federal government?
Precise isn't the best word. Try "minimum."
It's sort of like minimum wage. Minimum wage, minimum safety standards, minimum health care coverage. You get the picture. Deal with it.
As for liberal business owners, look up a dude named Warren Buffet. He owns a little operation called Berkshire Hathaway.
The hypocrisy from the right is astounding. What is even more astounding is how usually intelligent reasonable people will wrap their minds into pretzels to try to justify the hypocrisy. It is like the WBC damning other Churches for preaching "God Loves everyone!".
Say, Erin, if someone were unable to answer a basic question like what sort of health care coverage was required or available after a few minutes on the internet, do you suppose they ought to consider a big decision like opening a business in the first place?
MR
if anyone had told me tha tthe government would ytell an employer what benefits, if any, he has to offer his employees I would never believe it
Why not mandate 6 weeks of vacation? Why not tell her to offer company cars and stock options to everyone?
Included in Berkshire's top 15 holdings is, Wal-Mart. Go figure.
Joe, you're preaching to the choir. Reform should have meant Medicare for all. Blame Romney and the Heritage Foundation.
Blame anyone, Joe. Just don't blame Obama or Obamacare or any Obama policies. You criticism my be misunderstood.
Or, your criticism may be misunderstood.
You boys are welcome to comment on anything you like, but this post is about whether or not your boss should be excused from a law based on his "religious beliefs" at your expense.
Because that $500 to $1000 IUD is likely a big expense for a craft store clerk, particularly when you consider that she has to pay for part of her insurance, which, incidentally, costs the same for her and Hobby Lobby whether the IUD is covered or not.
The entire thing is purely punitive to female employees.
Perhaps this not an approved comment, but I won't blame anyone except the Democrats who wrote the law, passed the law an signed the law.
Perhaps my last comment is relevant in that if the Democrats would not have written such a lousy law, then this religious issue would not now be before the courts...
It's called obstructionism Joe. It was never a problem before. Hobby Lobby's insurance offered the contraceptives before the ACA, that they are now fighting against. How were the Democrats to know that the Fake Christian Teapublicans would object to something that was already being covered by insurance companies? They had no problem with the coverage before the ACA became law.
That's right, this whole ridiculous charade is an attempt to begin dismantling the ACA. I'm just stunned by what lengths the Righties will go to--giving secular for-profit companies immunity from laws based on the owners' religious beliefs.
Sure, go ahead and tell yourself it'll stop at contraception.
Blood transfusions, vaccines, AIDS ... What if the same conservative Christians decide that Type II diabetes is God's way of punishing gluttony and they don't want to cover treatment for that?
Maybe this is just how we get to public socialized medicine. Dunno.
ZOMBIE LIE ALERT ZOMBIE LIE ALERT
Back in February-Groundhog Day, howzat for doing something all over again?- there was some discussion in these spaces about the legislative history of the Affordable Care Act in which someone here attempted to assign the entire legislative process to the Democratic Party as if the Republicans had not a bit of input in the process. And that's what we call a Zombie Lie, because it's a lie that doesn't die. As you can see, it slithered into a comment above. If anyone is interested in a more truth-based approach to truth, with, you know, truthiness, the names, dates, sources etc are still there if you care to take a look. It was horseshit when it slipped into Fox's regular rotation, it was horseshit when it was allowed to seep into general usage, it was horseshit when I posted the sources in February, and it's still horseshit today. The next time said commenter rolls out those bon mots it'll still be horseshit.*
If anyone is interested in another perspective on 'lousy' writing, consider the Citizen's United decision, which added the legal travesty to our jurisprudence that a corporation enjoys the same freedom of speech rights as a human being, AND that the rich corporation was allowed to let it's money talk for it. It puts REAL human beings at a bit of a disadvantage, volume-wise.
The ONLY reason the Hobby Lobby/Conestoga cases have risen to a worse travesty, that a corporation has religious freedoms, is due to Mr Justice Kennedy's drawn-and-quartered logic in the Citizen's case.
Even though the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, are incorporated and thus insulated from personal liability, the case has been allowed to proceed on the bizarre theory that their personal beliefs were at risk. And they're not. Because they ARE incorporated.
MR
PS-Erin, my apologies. I didn't notice that your Groundhog Day post had a cute furry animal with it. That's how one creates a multi-media statement.
*-Did I mention that that claim is horseshit?
which Republican voted for the ACA?
Which Republican was on the committee that wrote the law?
I can't remember, I guess I am still stuck on Groundhog Day.
Zombie lie indeed.
Here are the facts behind the "Zombie Lie"
http://patriotpost.us/pages/251
Hmmm it does indeed look as if the Democrats passed the ACA without a Republican vote.
I'm late but our hostess made reference to an unintended consequence if H.L. prevails. Incorporation provides indemnity. (Anyone else besides me also find the embrace of Corps by conservatives odd seeings how they're creations of the state?) Anyway...If H.L. can avoid the law for religious reasons so can individuals. If my employer refuses to give me an opportunity to chant and sway and burn incense or make sacrifices to Xenu during work hours I can sue their britches off. Touche'
RJ
In other news:
Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company's owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).
Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby's retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby's health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.
Hobby Lobby contributes to their employees' retirement plans:
A website Hobby Lobby set up to answer questions about the Supreme Court case states that its 401(k) plan comes with "a generous company match." In 2012, Hobby Lobby contributed $3.8 million to its employee savings plans, which had 13,400 employee participants at the beginning of that year.
Mother Jones via Daily Kos. 4/1/14
RJ
Our hostess made the point but I just feel an urge to second it. Without religious/cultural issues the GOP becomes increasingly irrelevant. I say lets leave the 19th century behind.
RJ
SUMMARY:
Unable or unwilling to dispute the facts mentioned above and previously in this forum, that it's a flat-out lie to claim the GOP had no role in the legislative processes leading up to the passage of the ACA, Joe instead attempts to address a point I didn't make, ie, that there were no GOP votes for the final passage of the bill.
--------------------------------
I didn't make that claim. The GOP, especially in the Senate, dragged out the process as long as possible before all voting 'no.' The right-wing view that that sort of obstruction and bad-faith negotiating was a virtue is a powerful demonstration of the GOP's unfitness to govern.
Trying to change the subject like that fits in somewhere between 'But Jack did it too' and 'I know you are, but what am I?' on the rhetorical spectrum.
I mentioned three long-established journalistic sources; between them the New Republic, the New York Times and Forbes Magazine represent 360 years of publication.
Joe's source is a right-wing blogger who's been around 10 years. The blog advocates the demolition of any separation between church and state and asserts that the Constitution, which is our fundamental law, is secondary to the Declaration of Independence, which is not our law at all.
There are plenty of reasons to disagree with the current administration. Many people on the left (the real left, not the union delegates, schoolteachers, social workers and civil rights advocates that are in the right's imagination dangerous subversives) doubt whether or not Mr Obama should even be considered a member of the Democratic party.
The thing is, if Mr. Obama's opponents to his right insist on deliberately including well-known and easily disproven lies in their rhetorical palette, only fools and half-wits are going to listen.
MR
If you haven't gotten over to Joe's place, I suggest you pop over there to see what you're dealing with. Joe and Mr. Smith (James Old Guy) still cannot extrapolate this argument past all of us silly sluts and our silly birth control.
From Joe in the comment section: "IUDs only have one function. If you odnt want babies dont copulate. Lots of people understand tha ttha tconcept. I want ot go to the ballgame, it is a ball of fun for me. Should you pay for my ticket?" (sic)
And if you smoke for 30 years, should you pay for your cancer/emphysema/heart disease?
As for the "ticket," unless I'm mistaken, most employees pay 10 to 20 percent of it.
The poor Righties fall for it every single time. Big Money yells SLUT! FREEDOM! ABORTION! and they all obediently get in line without one clue that it's just a piece of bait dangling from the one percent's golden fishing line.
So then, Joe, be honest: are you using any ACA benefits? Have any adult kids hanging onto your policy? Any diseases that before the ACA might have caused you preexisting condition trouble?
Poor silly righties.
I think I'll pass.
RJ
FYI...While I was not visiting Joe's blog this morning I read at another heavily trafficed site that Fox News did an Investigation on Hannity last night in which it was discovered college kids go to Florida about this time every year, get rip roaring drunk and screw their brains out. Much consternation ensued.
RJ
Brilliantly said! Thank you!
It's been 25 months since Sandra Fluke and there are still a sizeable number of people on the dismal side of the nineteenth century who refuse to process the fact that many women take hormonal birth control for reasons other than contraception.
Another zombie lie.
MR
"The thing is, if Mr. Obama's opponents to his right insist on deliberately including well-known and easily disproven lies in their rhetorical palette, only fools and half-wits are going to listen. "
MR
As fine an articulation of what I shall now label "Corporate Conservatism" as has ever been written.
The fools and half-wits are their target audience. The CC's cynically understand that they are passionately paranoid, intellectually lazy and easily separated from their personal fortunes no matter how large or small.
RJ
Hi Erin,
Have not read through/kept up with comment thread, but I came across this, of interest I think....
http://go.nationalpartnership.org/site/News2?abbr=daily2_&page=NewsArticle&id=44079
I have nothing of substance to add here, however, the comment " if you don't want babies , don't copulate" brought to mind one of the greatest scenes in Monty Python's "History of the World." A Protestant wife asks her husband why the Catholics across the street have so many children. He replies "because every time Catholics have sex, they 'av to 'ava baby, dear."
"Oh..., is that why we 'av two?"
Cue the big song and dance production "Every Sperm is Sacred."
Hilarious.
I have recently been radicalized by re-reading Buckminster Fuller's "Critical Path" polemic of 1980. His insights are now eerily prescient, including the effects of the internet, which he did not live to see, his "speculative prehistory of humanity" entailing the origin of trigonometry( deck of ship=adjacent leg/ mast=opposite leg/line transcribed by helmsman sighting on a star to a point on the mast=hypotenuse) and the subsequent quest to control supply chains, and even why the Catholic Church endorses pregnancy in poverty.
"Fascinating."
Dr. Spock
I realize this has little to do with Hobby Lobby but You should Google this: The Coming Obamacare Shock for 170 Million Americans
Hey Bill Google this:
GM sets price for human life at 57 cents. What do you bid?
RJ
The GM thing is criminal. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Obama administration was aware of this issue and just didn't want to rock the boat on the bail out. Not sure what this has to do with the failure of Obamacare, though.
Hey Bill, Google this, GOP senators and House members slit throats of puppies on the steps of Capitol and hungrily gulp down blood from dripping wound in response to pro-puppy statement from Obama.
LOL! Touche'.
William, I do appreciate a man who can take a joke.
I'm surprised any conservative can laugh given the nuances of humor. I shall, however, endeavor to help William, et al across the intellectual chasm between GM and Obamacare.
To wit:
GM is to Obamacare as "The cost to replace that faulty switch is prohibitive" is to "No one is dying, they can always go to the Emergency Room."
RJ
"A public private post to Madame OB" penned by occasional Owner's Manual commenter, Joe.
You are brave and intelligent Erin, which is inspiring and heartening.
Thanks for keeping your grace intact. Pretty sick stuff when people call you names. I am so sorry for that--why did I look? Why did I read? YIKES!
I've got better things to do, I know you know. Breathing. Listening to my kids laugh. Taking in love. Sending some your way too.
That was such BS to call you out and I am really saddened by it. Keep your head up! You got it warrior woman!
K
Exactly what you should be doing, Katherine. Carry on and let me handle the Righties.
Thanks for dropping in
You know what I miss? I miss being chastised by Twinkles, once in a while. I wish you'd check in more often over here Twinks. Seriously.
It's good to have big dreams, Bill.
I got my hands full for now!
twinkly
Erin: A few more like this one, and I shall begin to doubt that Mark Twain ever died. Brava, indeed!
Donn S. Miller,
«Senex Ægypti Parvi»
Post a Comment