by Doctor Science
As you would expect, I’ve got my own take on Sebelius vs. Hobby Lobby Stores. Last week, Eugene Volokh did a series of posts about the case; I made some comments, which I’ll repost here, along with some other information I’ve dug up.
This illustration, like all others I’ve seen and like the BBC production, gets the characters’ looks fundamentally wrong. Dinah is rather cool and bland — not to say boring or plain — in appearance, while Hetty is extraordinarily *cute* — Elliot keep comparing her to kittens, lambs, etc. Jenna Coleman is the look they should be going for. But also [highlight to read]: Hetty is attractively “plump” — enough that no-one realizes she’s pregnant.
In reply to the series opener, I wrote:
I’d really like to see you address the issue which jumps out at me, as a scientist:
The corporations’ argument is based on a factually incorrect premise. any devices or products that sufficiently risk killing a fertilized embryo, including by preventing implantation of the embryo does *not* include either oral contraceptives nor Plan B. Fertilization occurs several days after coitus; Plan B, and The Pill even more so, don’t do anything after conception, including preventing implantation.
As this paper points out, one of the problems in figuring out if contraception interferes with implantation is that a high proportion of “naturally” fertilized eggs don’t implant, either. Surely “sufficiently risk” must refer to a risk *higher* than the natural risk, right? In which case even if oral contraception led to 30% of zygotes not implanting, that wouldn’t be “sufficient risk” — that would be business as usual.
It turns out that 30% may be a *drastic* underestimate. A recent study found that 70% of pre-implantation human embryos (i.e. those from the week between conception and implantation, when actual pregnancy begins) contained chromosomal abnormalities, the kind of thing that is usually *really* fatal, long before birth. Many of these embryos are “mosaics” of abnormal and normal cells, and may be able to eject the abnormal ones before they’re killed, but these authors (and others) point out that human fertility is quite poor, compared to other mammals. Basically, a *lot* of human zygotes are duds, that could *never* grow up to be a live baby. Conception may be a first, necessary step toward getting an undoubted human being, but it’s only a very sloppy, preliminary one.
For instance, William Saletan (who I generally can’t stand, btw), reporting on a Pontifical University Bioethics Congress in 2005:
The priests scratch their heads. What does wanting have to do with it? Either the thing can grow into a baby, or it can’t. If it can, it’s sacred.
What neither Saletan nor the priests realize that, for any given human zygote, whether it has the basic ingredients to grow into a baby is not a sure thing. There may not even be a 50% chance that it can ever have more “peopleness” than a hydatidiform mole or a teratoma — both of which are, after all, alive and made with human DNA.
The final installment of Volokh’s series is less of a legal exegesis than the rest, more of a meditation on the mutual duties of accommodation in a democracy. I commented:
It never ceases to astonish (and enrage) me how much discussion there can be about abortion, contraception, etc., without using the word “woman”.
The fact is that Hobby Lobby (et al.) want to restrict the health care benefits they offer to women, specifically. They claim this is because they have a religious belief that killing a zygote is murder — a belief which is historically novel. Furthermore, as one of the amicus briefs points out, several of the medications they wish to disallow do *not*, in scientific fact, kill zygotes or prevent their implantation.
On the other hand, it is a long-established, traditional belief in many religions that women do not have the same rights of self-determination, self-defense, and bodily autonomy that men do. I do not doubt that many people today have a completely sincere and heart-felt religious belief in the need for women to be submissive, obedient, chaste (if not virginal), and self-sacrificing.
If Hobby Lobby can restrict women’s access to certain contraceptives for religious reasons, is there any limit to the restrictions they could place on women’s health care? Could they refuse to provide HPV vaccine, because they sincerely believe it encourages sinful promiscuity? Could they refuse to pay for treatments for cervical cancer, which is normally caused by HPV, which is transmitted through sexual promiscuity? Could they insist that contraceptives be only accessible to married women? Could they insist that they only be accessible to married women with their husbands’ permission?
IANAL, but I don’t see anything that makes Hobby Lobby’s rejection of certain contraceptives legally different from any other kind of religiously-justified limitation on women’s autonomy.
This was not a very popular position over there. In reply to a commenter who said Additionally, Doctor Science says that the belief that life starts at conception is historically novel. It has been novel for several thousand years. The idea that it does not has also been around for several thousand years. There is a difference between novel and disputed. I replied:
AFAIK, the idea that fully-human life is present from *conception* — such that killing it is homicide, and causing miscarriage is manslaughter — is purely 20th century. It is overwhelming the case that before the late 19th C, pregnancy only became “real” at quickening. Even when (post-quickening) abortion was severely punished, I don’t believe that accidents or torts believed to cause miscarriage were prosecuted as manslaughter. As in traditional Jewish interpretation of Exodus 21:22, fetal loss is treated as a loss of property or a tort against the parents, not manslaughter against the fetus.
Among the evidence discussed in this paper, for instance, Morgon v. State, 256 S.W. 433 (Tenn. 1923), in which the father of an illegitimate child admitted to having beaten the mother until she gave birth prematurely. He claimed the infant was stillborn, and his conviction for second-degree murder for infanticide was over-turned when the court agreed
there was not enough evidence that the victim had been born alive to sustain a conviction. And in order to convict of murder, the court said, the infant must have “become a reasonable creature in being.”
In other words, less than 100 years ago in the US, there had to be a live birth before a death could be called any kind of murder.
In reply to a commenter who said The difference is that Hobby Lobby has no power to limit anyone’s autonomy at all. The only power they wish to exercise is the power to choose what benefits they provide to their employees. They’re not seeking to prevent anyone else from doing anything, they’re just choosing to control what they themselves pay for. I replied in turn:
Medical insurance is part of the employee’s *compensation*. By choosing to self-insure, Hobby Lobby is choosing to directly control how their employees spend their compensation. They are seeking to prevent their employees spending their compensation on things they, the owners of Hobby Lobby, believe are wrong.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but a number of you *are*. Tell me what you think.
If Hobby Lobby can restrict women’s access to certain contraceptives for religious reasons, is there any limit to the restrictions they could place on women’s health care?
Can they claim to be Christian Scientists and refuse to pay for any medical care (other than prayer, which is free)? Seems pretty ironclad to me- if Christian Science didn’t exist we’d have to make it up (a la Leary’s Church of Acid)…
I know it’s not the bailing-wire-and-duct-tape version of Constitutional interpretation we have, but Im personally inclined towards an interpretation of the Constitution that doesn’t favor religious beliefs etc over other beliefs/desires. A good test of this is the aforementioned Church of Acid- the government should not be in the business of determining which religions are ‘legitimate’ and which are spurious.
(apologies if that’s a bit too thread-jack-y)
1. Their claims are scientifically incorrect. Check.
2. They are on that well worn path that seeks to deny autonomy to women (hard to say—needs mindreading skills, but one is free to judge by the company they keep). So hell’s bells, check on that one, too.
3.Hobby Lobby can chose to do any number of things. What they cannot do is benefit from the advantageous tax treatment for health care benefits and simultaneously insist on a special exemption from what legally constitutes a health care plan under the ACA.
Check. Check. Check.
If they win this case, then I see no reason why I should not be entitled to a full refund (with applicable 1980’s level interest rates) of any and/or all of my tax dollars that contributed directly or indirectly to the following military adventures: Viet Nam, Afghanistan (from Carter onward), Iraq I & II, Lebanon, Grenada, Nicaragua (accounting might be tricky), Somalia, Bosnia, and Libya (to show my bipartisan bona fides) since all of them deeply offended my finely honed moral sentiments.
Having already found the ACA constitutional in nearly all respects*, I would proffer that the Court will not decide for plaintiff in this instance. They are gunning for a better opportunity to overturn Roe. That’s the probable big one in our future.
*Although their denial in part rests on a rather new and novel Constitutional doctrine pulled from John Roberts posterior, so the odds are not entirely prohibitive.
I think Carleton pretty much nailed it. If the Court rules for Hobby they are pretty much allowing any company to opt out of any law, due to the beliefs of its owners. Medical care, taxes, gun control, drug laws, etc., etc., etc.
Any law can, in principle, conflict with the beliefs of some religion or another. And if it doesn’t . . . we can invent a new religion (or a heresy of an existing one) to take care of that. This way lies madness.
So I, too, suspect that the Court will refuse to blunder forth into that mine field.
“It never ceases to astonish (and enrage) me how much discussion there can be about abortion, contraception, etc., without using the word “woman”.
… They claim this is because they have a religious belief that killing a zygote is murder ”
You know, it never ceases to astonish (and enrage) the other side, how much discussion there can be of abortion, contraception, etc., without using the words “baby” or “infant”. Even when you get into the later stages of pregnancy, when the “mass of tissue” would be viable if simply relocated to the exterior of the woman. Women often give birth to children at an earlier stage of development than pro-choicers persist in using terms like “zygote”.
Do I take Hobby Lobby’s position, or even think it sensible? No, the’re loons. I’m just observing that both sides in this battle have their extremists, out of the mainstream views, and conspicuous rhetorical eccentricities. Kermit Gosnel didn’t continue his slaughter as long as he did without allies, you know.
I don’t think this case really hinges on the truth value of the beliefs of Hobby Lobby’s owners, any more than it hinges on the truth value of the Obama administration’s numerous statements about the ACA. (Roughly equivalent, though I suspect Mr. Green’s are somewhat more sincere.)
What it hinges on are questions of rights. No, not the employees’ rights, as this case is not about any choice they make. The only people getting to make choices in this case are the management of Hobby Lobby, and the government. The latter determined that people must receive part of their remuneration in the form of contraceptives coverage. And this determination is held by the government to overcome any contrary preference by employer OR employee. BOTH must bow to the government’s will.
Or not. See, that’s the thing that’s going to really destroy the government’s case here; Under the RFRA, the government’s interest must not just exist, but must be compelling in order to overcome the presumption that an accommodation must be made. And how compelling can the government’s interest be, when the government has been handing out waivers by the tens of millions? How can it be simultaneously urgent that the ACA be enforced against the Greens, AND that the administration can waive this, waive that, exempt this group and that?
No, Green is a loon, but I expect this loon is going to win.
Is there any reason that Hobby Lobby can’t simply require employees, as a condition of employment, to promise that they won’t procure birth control of any kind? And of course that contract would apply to dependants as well.
I mean, if Hobby Lobby’s religious “beliefs” are impacted by employees buying birth control using compensation directed through a health insurance program, why are those beliefs any less impacted when the birth control purchase is mediated by cash?
Simply banning this behavior in the employment contract seems best from Hobby Lobby’s perspective. And surely libertarians would approve of such an arrangement: everyone is free to refuse to work for Hobby Lobby. Just think of what a glorious world we might all live in where every employer dictated our behaviour outside the workplace no matter how irrelevant to our jobs. This company might require 20 hours of exercise a week, this other one might ban voting for Republicans, yet another might forbid attending religious services while a fourth would mandate gun ownership! It would be a libertarian paradise.
Under the RFRA, the government’s interest must not just exist, but must be compelling in order to overcome the presumption that an accommodation must be made.
For this to be relevant, Hobby Lobby the corporation will have to be found to have religious beliefs.
The only power they wish to exercise is the power to choose what benefits they provide to their employees.
Unless the Supremes want to reinstate Lochner, we are living in a world where employers do not have an absolute right to choose what benefits they do or do not provide to their employees.
So, this will be an interesting case.
I appreciate the difficulty the ACA presents to the Greens, not because I necessarily share their convictions, but because it’s a simple fact that people often find themselves forced to choose between their conscience and the law.
But if there is going to be public policy about anything to do with common public life – in short, if there is going to be any public policy that extends beyond the enforcement of private contracts – then there will always be somebody whose conscience is offended.
I’m curious to know if what the Greens are asking for is an exemption for Hobby Lobby specifically, or a rollback of the mandate itself. Does anyone know?
Kermit Gosnel didn’t continue his slaughter as long as he did without allies, you know.
Name them or provide evidence. Otherwise it is pretty obvious, given your history of bringing this claim up repeatedly, that you are simply bloviating or do not have a f*cnking clue what you are talking about.
The latter (teh government, bp) determined that people must receive part of their remuneration in the form of contraceptives coverage.
Well, it did no such thing.
bobbyp:
Sorry, I’m confused.
“The latter (teh government, bp) determined that people must receive part of their remuneration in the form of contraceptives coverage.
Well, it did no such thing.”
Isn’t that exactly what the government did? Mandate that (a) insurance has to be provided if the company is over a certain size and (b) contraception coverage has to be included?
Not trying to get between you and Brett, here. But it is a requirement, right? Or did I miss something?
Medical insurance is part of the employee’s *compensation*. By choosing to self-insure, Hobby Lobby is choosing to directly control how their employees spend their compensation. They are seeking to prevent their employees spending their compensation on things they, the owners of Hobby Lobby, believe are wrong.
I think that this is the relevant issue here. Not sure what the Supreme Court will decide. But, when a corporation gives its employees “money”, can it contol whether the “money” will be spent on stuff it (whatever it is – thank you, russell) decides is okay? No.
The fact is, insurance is something to use and spend.
Isn’t that exactly what the government did? Mandate that (a) insurance has to be provided if the company is over a certain size and (b) contraception coverage has to be included?
Companies are under no obligation to provide insurance.
“So, this will be an interesting case.”
I agree. Not only do I expect that it will be a split vote, I bet both sides are going to have multiple opinions. It’s going to be fascinating to see how each justice breaks down the case.
In full nerdyness, I’m really looking forward to listening to the oral arguments.
Turb:
Thanks. I looked it up as well…should have done that before asking. There is a penalty for having more than 50 employees and not offering insurance.
This is colloquially referred to as the “employer mandate”, but I agree it’s not strictly an obligation.
There are eight Hobby Lobby outlets in Philadelphia where Gosnell brutalized his victims.
One might wonder if any of the stores’ employees might have found their way into Gosnell’s clutches after being denied pharmaceutical coverage by their employer and thereby becoming pregnant.
I mean, one MIGHT wonder ….. if it wasn’t for the fact that it wasn’t until Obamacare mandated pharmaceutical birth control coverage that the Green’s consciences, pure, thorough, and sincere as they are, discovered that their employer-provided health care insurance had been providing such coverage to their employees for years and the results (whatever they are, with a nod toward Dr. Science’s new post) were being flushed down Hobby Lobby’s ladies toilets across the country for years, one can assume.
Think of the carnage.
It’s odd to me that the Green’s consciences became so finely sensitive so suddenly.
There’s more to this and I suspect it has not much to do with sincerity regarding who’s thumping who and what the individuals are using for protection as it does with the recent sabotage lolapalooza of forced sex among the rat species (I think the professional rats call it ratf*cking) practiced by the Republican Party against all things Obama.
At the very least, the Green’s owe the President a hat tip for alerting them to the murder they have been perpetrating all these years among their employees.
I spose they can get in line behind the NRA and the Gun Owners of America in the gratitude line, except the latter believe the President forced them to buy guns and ammo while the Green’s are being forced to not purchase pharmaceutical birth control for their employees.
Or is it the other way around?
I’d love to hear Brett or thompson or someone answer Carleton’s question: if I’m a Jehova’s Witness, can I offer my employees a health insurance plan that doesn’t cover blood transfusions since my religious principles forbid them? Think of how much money I’ll save offering insurance that won’t have to cover most surgeries!
I don’t believe that Christian Scientists believe it is immoral for others to use medicine, so that hypo doesn’t really work. ditto Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions.
to say this is going to unleash a torrent of exceptions is just goofy.
” But, when a corporation gives its employees “money”, can it contol whether the “money” will be spent on stuff it (whatever it is – thank you, russell) decides is okay? No.”
When a company provides a noncash benefit of course they can control what it is.
Turb/Carleton, I’ll weigh in, but I really have little interest in ACTUAL case. I just think the oral arguments and opinions are going to be really interesting, purely from a fine legal perspective.
My opinion on the hypothetical, briefly (because I need to get some work done), is this is one of the reasons I don’t want employers providing health insurance. Or, more accurately, employer-based health insurance as a preferred method of coverage in our society.
Because it puts us in the position of having to weigh someone’s (or some corporation’s) conscience against public interest and employee rights.
And yeah, “corporations having a conscience” is ridiculous on its face. But I do think people who run corporations and shareholders, etc, should be allowed to exercise their collective conscience through the corporation.
Some people probably disagree about that, I think it probably is going to end up being a fundamental difference. So, feel free to say I’m wrong on that, I don’t really want to try to convince anybody I’m right.
And obviously, if you disagree that “corporations have a conscience” the answer is pretty obvious: corporations do whatever you tell them.
But, for the sake of argument, I’ll proceed with the basic assumption that corporations have some level of “conscience”.
You’re left balancing compelling state interests against that “conscience”.
As I don’t think employer-provided insurance is a compelling state interest, I’d probably side the religious objector.
If you did find employer-provided insurance a compelling state interest, you’d side differently.
In the specific case, I don’t find either side very compelling. I think contraception (and yes, I’m talking prescription) pretty easy to get and not that expensive. My monogamous mate and I used to purchase it without insurance, even when we were very poor. I had friends that got it for free at planned parenthood. I don’t recall this being a huge issue.
OTOH, paying into an insurance policy that includes the possibility of the coverage being used to buy contraception? I don’t like telling people the dictates of their conscience…but that seems like a stretch to me.
And with that, I really need to run. I hope I provided some level of answer to Carlton’s question.
“So, this will be an interesting case.”
I suspect not:
1. Employers are not forced to be in business.
2. Employers are not forced to provide health insurance to their employees.
3. Employers and/or their corporate entities are not being forced to use contraceptives, although I would argue that would not be a bad idea…you know, thinning the herd.
4. The government interest is most likely compelling, but I suspect the Court will not tackle this assertion head on.
The Supreme Court will probably weasel out on this one citing the fact that the Greens are NOT the “the corporation” and have no standing….but with the 5 clown conservative majority…who knows?
For those of you interested, you can read the 10th circuit’s decision, complete with dissents: http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/12/12-6294.pdf
When a company provides a noncash benefit of course they can control what it is.
Within limits. EIRSA which see.
When a company provides a noncash benefit of course they can control what it is.
Is that true even when the benefit is financed by the federal government?
Let’s say that the federal government gives employers a special tax break if they provide a commuting benefit (paying for parking passes or subway or train passes). Can a company take the benefit if they insist that it only applies to employees who don’t drive SUVs?
My understanding is that they cannot, that the feds define the criteria for the tax break and that employers can’t just apply their “conscience” to arbitrarily limit those benefits should they choose to provide them.
There is a penalty for having more than 50 employees and not offering insurance.
Sometimes it costs you something to be true to your conscience when it conflicts with the law.
it wasn’t until Obamacare mandated pharmaceutical birth control coverage that the Green’s consciences, pure, thorough, and sincere as they are, discovered that their employer-provided health care insurance had been providing such coverage to their employees for years
If this is so, then I withdraw my earlier statement to the effect that I’m sympathetic to the Green’s position.
Seriously, if you have any kind of cite for this Count I’d be interested in seeing it.
ditto Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions.
If I understand it correctly, the JW position is that blood represents life and is sacred to God. And, therefore, should not be used or consumed once shed.
That’s not particular to who uses or consumes it, so strictly speaking I think you mis-state their position.
What they don’t do is insist that their scruple be respected, in the form of exemptions from the law, by people who aren’t JW’s.
RFRA or no RFRA.
When a company provides a noncash benefit of course they can control what it is.
No, not really.
Workers compensation, parental leave, etc., all non-cash compensation, and all governed by law.
This comment has no legal content and rather more heat than light, but:
Gosnell indeed did have allies of a sort, albeit unknowing ones. Ironically, they were anti-choice folks in PA state government (and to an extent, nationally) –
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-michelman/kermit-gosnell-abortion_b_2924348.html
As the HuffPo post (along with most other more or less in-depth coverage) noted, his allies also included local anti-choicers: one of his victims reported that she had originally headed to Planned Parenthood, but was frightened off by the protesters (and frankly, I can’t blame her).
Doctor Science writes: “It never ceases to astonish (and enrage) me how much discussion there can be about abortion, contraception, etc., without using the word “woman”.”
Brett responds: “You know, it never ceases to astonish (and enrage) the other side, how much discussion there can be of abortion, contraception, etc., without using the words “baby” or “infant””. Even when you get into the later stages of pregnancy, when the “mass of tissue” would be viable if simply relocated to the exterior of the woman. Women often give birth to children at an earlier stage of development than pro-choicers persist in using terms like “zygote”.”.
It’s true that you can find people on the pro-choice side (personally, the ‘my daughter is nobody’s broodmare’ side) who may use scientific terms inexactly or inaccurately – describing a fetus as an embryo or even zygote – or who talk about a “mass of cells” in a rhetorical mirror image of anti-choice ads that use photos of adorable chubby months-old infants. But note how much this fails to be an actual parallel to Doctor Science’s quote. ‘Embryo’, ‘zygote’, ‘mass of cells’ – these may be rather clinical or not used accurately or whatever, but they’re basically referring to the same thing, pointing to the same place, as ‘baby’ as used by anti-choicers (or joyfully-expectant parents-to-be). Whatever the emotional charge, they’re still centering on – or at least including in the picture – the li’l thing growing inside a woman’s womb. The actual parallel would be if antichoicers consistently, relentlessly talked about ‘mothers’ or ‘blessed vessels’ or whatever, but Doctor Science’s point is that so, so often women get virtually written out of the picture. – The difference between, one could say, defending a war by depicting brave, incredibly patriotic soldiers who feel it is both sweet and fitting to die for their country, vs. defending a war in a way that often hardly makes any mention of soldiers at all.
russell: you asked If this is so, then I withdraw my earlier statement to the effect that I’m sympathetic to the Green’s position.
The petition states:
Thanks Dr. Science.
I read the same language on a post on another blog a few days ago. Unfortunately, I can’t remember which one and googling at Russell’s request turned up nothing, but that’s probably the fault of my phrasing in the search box.
I should have placed my original cite in my favorites at the time for later reference, figuring I’d trot it out here at some point.
At any rate, nothing prevents Russell or anyone else from being sympathetic to the Green’s position, even with this revelation. It would seem to a layman like myself however that the scrupulousness and/or convenience of the Green’s consciences could be called into question in a Court of Law.
Natch, I don’t trust the current political tactics of the conservative side enough in these latter days of the Republic to buy the idea that all is above board here.
Powerful influence and money are lurking behind the Green’s Potemkim-like village of suddenly convenient pristine morality.
Or maybe, as some complain about the number of pages in the Obamacare legislation, Hobby Lobby’s healthcare policies are book length like mine is and thick with small print.
Maybe it was too long for the Green’s to bother reading.
But it’s the private sector. I thought all written communication in the private sector was presented in a maximum of one page and a handshake because everything is so simple and efficient in private life.
They must have to hire bureaucrats too. I hope they pay them well and provide birth control in their health insurance.
Thank you, Dan S.
I had friends that got it for free at planned parenthood.
Although that is beyond the scope of this thread, we should not forget that PP is very high on the ‘to kill’ list of the same crowd that fights the ACA based on ‘religious beliefs’. And (parts of) the anti-choicers are now very open about contraceptives being the next cause celebre after Roe (which they believe is already dead in essence if not the letter by successful denial of access in more and more places). If you call that a fringe position, but for Romney the GOP would have almost nominated a POTUS candidate* last time that spoke openly about that.
*the one one cannot google because it’s NSFW due to a neologism coined after him
“Name them or provide evidence.”
“Steven Massof estimated that in 40 percent of the second-trimester abortions performed by Gosnell, the fetuses were beyond 24 weeks gestational age,” the grand jury states. “Latosha Lewis testified that Gosnell performed procedures over 24 weeks ‘too much to count,’ and ones up to 26 weeks ‘very often.’ …in the last few years, she testified, Gosnell increasingly saw out-of-state referrals, which were all second-trimester, or beyond. By these estimates, Gosnell performed at least four or five illegal abortions every week.”
Here, read it. Yes, Gosnell had allies, he routinely got referrals for his illegal abortions. Yeah, he had allies, the health department completely stopped investigating abortion clinics after Governor Ridge took office, even ignoring complaints delivered directly to their door.
Every ideology has a spectrum. The pro-life movement has people ranging from me, who only objects to abortions after a functioning nervous system is in place, to clinic bombers. And the pro-choice movement runs from it’s public face of moderates protecting access to contraception, to Kermit Gosnell, and beyond, to the advocates of infanticide.
As loons go, the Greens are fairly harmless. All they want is to not be complicit in something they don’t like. They don’t insist that it stop, just that the blood they see not be on THEIR hands.
But, as we see so often when the left gets power, ‘liberals’ don’t have a lot of use for anybody else’s freedom of conscience. Don’t want to be complicit? Retire to a monastery. (While they’re still permitted.) Or move to Somalia. You figure it’s your world, we just live in it, so get with the program, or get out.
More allies from the Grand jury report:
“Janice Staloski of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, who personally participated in the 1992 site visit, but decided to let Gosnell slide on the violations that were already evident then. She eventually rose to become director of the division that was supposed to regulate abortion providers, but never looked at Gosnell despite specific complaints from lawyers, a doctor, and a medical examiner. After she was nonetheless promoted, her successor as division director, Cynthia Boyne, failed to order an investigation of the clinic even when Karnamaya Mongar died there. Senior legal counsel Kenneth Brody insisted that the department had no legal obligation to monitor abortion clinics, even though it exercised such a duty until the Ridge administration, and exercised it again as soon as Gosnell became big news. The agency’s head lawyer, chief counsel Christine Dutton, defended the department’s indifference: “People die,” she said.
Lawyers at the Pennsylvania Department of State behaved in the same fashion. Attorneys Mark Greenwald, Charles Hartwell, David Grubb, Andrew Kramer, William Newport, Juan Ruiz, and Kerry Maloney were confronted with a growing pile of disquieting facts about Gosnell, including a detailed, inside account from a former employee, and a 22-year-old dead woman. Every time, though, they managed to dismiss the evidence as immaterial. Every time, that is, until the facts hit the fan.”
How’s that for names?
As it happens, Brett, for what’s it’s worth (nothing) since neither of our consciences had a rat’s patootie to do with the Gosnell travesty, Gosnell not having consulted either of us regarding the free exercise of his psychopath’s conscience, I agree with you in your condemnation of Gosnell and the criminal regulatory collapse of the Pennsylvania Department of Health in the matter of regulating abortion clinics.
You wrote:
“But, as we see so often when the left gets power, ‘liberals’ don’t have a lot of use for anybody else’s freedom of conscience.”
As it happens, too, Governor Tom Ridge stopped Department of Health annual inspection and oversight of abortion clinics including Gosnell’s, not something my conscience would have tolerated were I in a position of power since I believe in a robust, jackbooted regulatory state in the area of healthcare and its safety, efficacy, and at the very least, sanitation.
The point being that Tom Ridge is a man of the Right, albeit a pro-choice Republican and despite being a law and order advocate, who curtailed regulation that had been carried out prior to his terms as Governors by both Democratic and Republican Administrations.
This scandal, though different in kind, reminds me of the purposeful blinders placed on the SEC and other federal financial regulatory agencies by the Bush and Clinton Administrations as Bernie Madoff aborted people’s financial accounts, despite the matter being brought to their attention many times.
As to what this has to do with a discussion of the Green’s claim to conscience over regulation and anyone else’s consciences questioning the Green’s consciences over birth control, I’m at a loss.
In the Madoff and Gosnell cases, my conscience’s preference for tight government regulation was borne out.
Your conscience’s preference for a much lighter regulatory hand was not.
But we seem to agree that regulators failed.
How is that?
Finally, it may be that my conscience’s preference for easily obtainable birth control through all healthcare schemes, private and government might be a result of my conscience’s effort to make sure abortion is rare, safe, and
otherwise regulated, regardless of nervous system development.
It might be that your conscience’s preference for allowing the Green’s consciences to regulate the consciences of their employees in regard to birth control will end up with more abortions being performed.
But you are on the side of looniness, not me, in this case.
I understand, you want things to be strictly by the Constitutional book, which, by the way, I was just reading the other day (again, am I going to need a link?) one of your revered Founders, Thomas Jefferson, believed that Constitutions, including ours should be ripped up and replaced every 19 years because not to do so, would result in coercion and a diminution of freedom by the old teenaged Constitution.
But he said a lot of loony his own self, the more I read about the watering of trees at Monticello.
I suspect had birth control been available in Jefferson’s time, he would have spiked the slaves quarters water supplies with the stuff, with an eye toward preventing the sullying of his reputation for posterity by the existence of questionable offspring.
Or maybe not, seeing as how he could sell off the offspring.
I’m sure he’d let his conscience be his guide in the matter.
And handcuffs for the rest of us.
Brett:
I honestly don’t understand what you think you’re proving by bringing up Gosnell.
Here’s an overview of how I understand the case.
From the pro-choice POV, Gosnell is emblematic of what we’re trying to *prevent*. He was the back-alley abortionist, the *opposite* of Planned Parenthood.
Women came to Gosnell because the pro-life movement was *successful*: successful at restricting access to abortion, successful at making abortion more expensive, successful at putting delays into the process of getting an abortion (and every delay increases the danger and expense of the operation), successful at making women afraid to admit that they might need one, and successful at shaming them when they went to decent clinics like Planned Parenthood.
It’s actually an anti-choice activist who wrote that a woman “wants” an abortion Not like she wants a Porsche or an ice cream cone. Like an animal caught in a trap, trying to gnaw off its own leg, a woman who seeks abortion is trying to escape a desperate situation. This gets quoted by pro-choice activists a lot, because it really does evoke the desperation an unwanted pregnancy can cause, and how the fear can be like (and can actually *be*) the fear of death or captivity.
The women who went to Gosnell were *desperate*, driven to the last extreme. They felt — and possibly they *knew* — they had no other choice, because so-called “pro-life”rs had made sure they didn’t.
Why are we talking about Gosnell?
Also, Dr. S, thanks for the cite.
To be honest, I’m not that surprised that the Greens were unaware that stuff they didn’t like was covered in the insurance plan they have had up to now. I don’t necessarily see an opportunistic or politically motivated situation here, on their part, they likely simply don’t want to be involved in paying for stuff they believe is wrong.
Which, once again, puts them in the same situation as nearly every human being in any society or culture that has ever existed.
You can ask the society as a whole to accommodate your conscience, but you also have to recognize that the answer might be “no”.
At that point, it’s on you to make whatever adjustments you need to make to be consistent with what you believe.
I appreciate the Green’s position, but there are several hundred million other people living in this country. They get a say, too.
Brett:
Women often give birth to children at an earlier stage of development than pro-choicers persist in using terms like “zygote”.
Huh? When I, at least, say “zygote” I mean zygote, a single cell.
I am objecting to the people who call that cell a “baby” or a “person”. In the Hobby Lobby case, the issues are about the moral status of the first week of development, the stages *before* pregnancy. Calling a zygote, morula, or blastula a “person” whose rights need to be balanced against those of the mother is IMO obscene, and the fact that the woman is often not even mentioned just emphasizes the obscenity.
I imagine that what you’re talking about is use of the word fetus:
Sorry, dude, that’s what it’s *called*. There is no standard medical term for “a fetus developed enough that maybe, if you’re lucky, it can survive birth.”
to the advocates of infanticide.
examples?
In the interest of furthering the interests of my loony conscience against all other interests in America, I want all uninsured grownups, who have been denied Medicaid by the perennially conscience-stricken, and further left to die without treatment for their diseases — we’re talking millions here — to be legally designated as mature zygotes, blastulas, morulas, we’ll call them persons for short, whose rights need to be balanced against those of all of us mothers out there and healthcare regulation shall be adjusted accordingly across the board.
I expect Randall Terry et al to advise his colleagues in the abortion-clinic bombing community that a portion of their incendiary devices, bombs and large-clip abortion doctor-killing weaponry be redirected toward the politicians and medical institutions who refuse the funding for medical care for those who can not pay.
Yes, these grownup fetuses may become dependent and thus eminently killable by neglect to some, but my conscience is my guide.
Also, I do not expect to receive a bill, because I’ve decided here and now that I am against all taxes.
Figure it out, people.
My conscience is armed and damned impatient.
“But we seem to agree that regulators failed.
How is that?”
I don’t think they did fail. I think they succeeded. It’s just that the thing they were trying to do was not the thing the law said they were supposed to be doing.
Suppose I somehow, with my views, ended up in charge of the BATF. If a firearms manufacturer were selling new machine guns to the public illegally, it were reported to me, and nothing happened, would you leap to the conclusion that I’d failed?
If somebody who’s pro-choice is put in charge of regulating abortions, and they end up rather spectacularly NOT being regulated, I’d assume this was what they’d set out to do.
And, again, no, this court case isn’t about the rights of the employees, at all. The mandate is as much a mandate against employees as employers, it is the government over-riding both their choices, to impose it’s own.
Personally, I’d rather my health insurance were just catastrophic coverage, and the difference were dumped into my HSA. But the ACA doesn’t respect that choice anymore than it respects the Greens’ choices. It’s all about the government making the choices, and a future administration, under the ACA, could just as easily decide contraceptive coverage made a policy a “Cadilac” policy, and fine companies offering it.
Granted, “Fetus”. A pro-choicer would have called my son a “fetus”, not an infant, five seconds before he was delivered, and many would have been ok with him being killed at that point.
Oh, and Singer advocates infanticide, nor is he alone. How about Alisa LaPolt Snow, the Planned Parenthood lobbyist?
The reason I brought this up was just to point out that irrational, even widely regarded as outrageous views, are not the solitary province of the pro-life movement. Pro-choicers have some pretty bloody handed extremists themselves, and often in positions of serious authority.
On the scale of reproductive opinion views, the Greens may be irrational, but they are, as I said, pretty harmless loons. All they want is to not be complicit in what they object to.
That’s a good thing to offer one’s foes, not being complicit. It lets them have the option of going on with their lives, instead of forcing them to become your devoted enemies. Unless you share Conan’s view of what’s best in life, and just want to hear the Greens scream, you really shouldn’t object to the RFRA applying here.
Medical insurance is part of the employee’s *compensation*. By choosing to self-insure, Hobby Lobby is choosing to directly control how their employees spend their compensation. They are seeking to prevent their employees spending their compensation on things they, the owners of Hobby Lobby, believe are wrong.
I Am Not A Lawyer, but a number of you *are*. Tell me what you think
I don’t think the kind of coverage an employer voluntarily purchases for his/her/its employees is controlling how an employee spends his or her compensation-the benefits are whatever they are.
When an employer is required by law to provide certain benefits, i.e. there is no volitional act, are you saying the employer has no right to question the burden imposed by the gov’t? Seriously? We all just fall in line and do as we are ordered to do?
Can you explain why it makes sense to include BC and maternity benefits in a single male’s coverage? Other than “because the gov’t says so”?
The compensation argument is as tortured as is the pretense that this is about scientific ignorance of the earliest stages of human life.
The next step is employer funded abortion. This is the dry run. Let’s be honest and have this conversation: can the federal gov’t compel any and all employers to provide the financial wherewithal to fund abortions? Any limit on the timing of the abortion–9th month/healthy baby, ok to abort?
Aside from Brett, does anybody think that “the left” has power in the US?
And if we lefties do have power, why is abortion still confined to “clinics” instead of being available in hospitals like other medical procedures?
–TP
“A pro-choicer would have called my son a “fetus”, not an infant, five seconds before he was delivered, and many would have been ok with him being killed at that point.”
Which pro-choicers on this board would be ok with any of that, either the language or the deed?
Do we have the number connected to “many” in the general population who are pro-choice who believe that strict formulation
I wouldn’t, despite being pro-choice with plenty of reservations.
Now, if he (let’s use a hypothetical baby five seconds before term, not your son or mine to avoid somewhat the cringe factor) were killed five seconds before birth by a burst of machine gun fire from weapons illegally purchased while the BATF turned a blind regulatory eye and you turned out to be the Director, I would in fact think you had failed, because to believe that you believed that you had succeeded with such a dreadful result would be unthinkable for me and unconscionable for you.
I couldn’t bring myself to believe that you would do that, Brett.
I would, however, expect little more than silence or flapdoodle demagoguery from Wayne la Pierre regarding questions about his organization’s lobbying to make such a result a reality.
are you saying the employer has no right to question the burden imposed by the gov’t?
No.
But the reply to the questioning might be that you are still obliged to do whatever it is you don’t want to do.
In all of this discussion, people are talking about “the government” as if it’s some weird intrusive space alien presence.
The government is mandating the coverage that the Greens don’t like because OTHER PEOPLE WHO ALSO LIVE HERE want it.
If there we no constituency for birth control coverage in insurance plans, then there would be no issue.
Look, if you start a business, you have entered the public world. You are no longer a purely private actor, and you are now accountable to things other than your personal beliefs and preferences.
That’s life.
Can you explain why it makes sense to include BC and maternity benefits in a single male’s coverage?
For the same reason that prostate cancer screens, or treatment for testicular cancer, would be covered in a woman’s.
as usual, russell is dead on:
“You can ask the society as a whole to accommodate your conscience, but you also have to recognize that the answer might be “no”.”
There’s a lot a value judgments and balancing of concerns in the determination of “yes” or “no”. I think Free Exercise is one of the hardest things to get right.
That’s why I think the case will be interesting, because Free Exercise is essentially balancing someone’s “sincere beliefs” against a “compelling interest”. With some other legal factors on top.
And thanks to whoever (I want to say bobbyp) posted the opinions on the current case. I found them fascinating.
When an employer is required by law to provide certain benefits, i.e. there is no volitional act, are you saying the employer has no right to question the burden imposed by the gov’t? Seriously? We all just fall in line and do as we are ordered to do?
I think they should get their day in court. But they’ll have to live with the outcome if it doesn’t go their way. If it turns out that way, they can choose to pay the penalty rather than provide coverage they object to. No one’s being sent to the Gulag under the ACA, as far as I know.
These questions, from Doc S’s original post, seem relevant to me, and I’d like to hear Brett and McK’s reply to them.
And yes, I understand that what we’re talking about is Hobby Lobby’s contribution to an insurance policy that covers this stuff, not HL’s direct action to prevent other people from doing or using them.
But how far does this go?
What if my personal beliefs are that a woman shouldn’t work if she has children? Can I fire female employees if they get pregnant?
Why not? Because the law says I can’t?
What’s the limit to this? Or is there one?
“From the pro-choice POV, Gosnell is emblematic of what we’re trying to *prevent*. He was the back-alley abortionist, the *opposite* of Planned Parenthood.”
He was the front alley abortionist, with a license and everything. His crime was ignoring the small sets of safeguards that pro lifers have been able to get for very late term fetuses, and which NARAL wants to remove (and which they successfully undermined leading up to his case).
Progressives seem to have forgotten how tolerance works when it works. My thing on hobby lobby is that exposes the problems with government mandates instead of government doing things. One of the key ways we typically allow for tolerance is by saying that while your tax money gets divided up for government use via democratic principles, we try not to actively force you to participate in things you find repugnant beyond that. I.e. We won’t make you recite the pledge etc. the most direct solution is to have the government provide contraception. You get that by finding the votes to get tax money to pay for it. The tolerance question is mitigated by the common pool of taxes and the voting on the use of the taxes. When you mandate a thing and then have a regulatory agency create rules they would have trouble getting through the democratic process you end up attacking our best known method of allowing tolerant disagreement. So when you use that method, you should probably allow pretty easy exemption if you still value tolerance.
Here’s another curtailing of freedom, proposed by Republicans this time, that I agree with.
No snakes yapping on cellphones on planes.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/republicans-want-to-keep-airplane-phone-ban-in-place-because-of-the-noise
I ‘m not so sure I would keep the ban on fistfights during flights because of the chance that I might spill my drink, and then of course the real fighting would commence.
I do think I should be able to call the pilot at intervals during my flights just to keep tabs on the leadership behind the locked cockpit doors, as kind of a check and balance.
“Captain, Countme-In here again. Say, there’s an oily smudge developing on the right wing at the periphery of the engine. What says your oil gauge on this heap?”
“Sorry, Captain, if I brought my tiny of package of peanuts up to the cockpit, would your co-pilot, who’s probably not doing anything at the moment, be willing to tear them open with HIS teeth, because I just had dental work?”
“Yo, Capitan, the Count, Seat 74! Hey look, your lovely female attendant and I just exercised our Mile-High Club membership privileges in your fine accommodations, and I know this query may be a little after-the-fact, but I was wondering about the fine print in your company’s employee healthcare plan regarding female contraception? …. Hello? Captain? Is this thing on?”
“Me again. I have an incredible urge to start screaming as if my hair was on fire after that last air pocket you hit. Can we watch that, please.”
“Thanks for sending the on board constable back to my seat to let me know that further calls to you will result in the entire Homeland Security apparatus boarding the plane after landing and precipitating a fistfight with me. I’m a guy who appreciates a fair warning. By the way, that guy is ripped. Ten-Four.”
“One last question, captain. Did you see Denzel Washington in “Flight”. Could the engineering tolerances on this thing really withstand flying upside down, I mean, if we had to?”
single men become fathers.
fathers have an interest in healthy mothers (if for no other reason than that helps ensure healthy children).
Aside from Brett, does anybody think that “the left” has power in the US?
Actually, Tony, yes. Because most people define “the left” to mean “people more liberal than me,” just as they mostly define “the right” to mean “people more conservative than me.” Granted, there are some (and percentage-wise more here than in the general population) who carve out a chunk for “the center” — meaning “people who generally pretty much agree with me, but not on absolutely everything.”
Still, the basic principle holds. And on average, people more liberal than Brett do have power in the US. They would be considered serious conservatives across most of the rest of the developed world. And would have been considered conservatives even in the US as recently as the 1980s. But they are more liberal than Brett and so his statement is correct.
Before Obamacare, some health care policies for single and married WOMEN didn’t include much in the way of BC and maternity benefits.
Consciences everywhere slept peacefully.
Yes, there are a number of coverages that might not apply directly to the primary insured under certain circumstances. But I thought the law was already too long and complicated. (I hear it’s quite wordy.)
How many more “if …, then…”s do we want to add, just so people can avoid the particular coverages they don’t need at any given moment? (Risk pooling’s a sticky wicket, especially when you have an atomized, zero-sum view of things.)
Thanks Seb for a very thoughtful response.
Two things.
First, what the Greens are being asked to do is the contribute to an insurance plan that covers stuff they object to. They aren’t being asked to do the stuff they object to, they aren’t being asked to directly pay for it for others.
How does make what is being asked of them any different than “your tax money gets divided up for government use via democratic principles”?
Is there some magic in the difference between tax money and mandated employee compensation?
I’m not seeing the daylight. It might be there, but I’m not seeing it.
The other thing I’d mention is that many folks would L-O-V-E LOVE for health insurance to be provided directly by the government, but that is not available. It’s an utter non-starter.
So, this solution:
is off the table.
Personally, I’d be fine with Hobby Lobby getting an exemption, however I find their doing so based on the RFRA to be absurd. If we’re looking for folks grasping at any-port-in-a-storm straws to get their way, you can find your example right there.
I’m sorry for the Greens’ situation, but extending freedom of religious to for-profit corps via the RFRA is crap.
Brett said:
If somebody who’s pro-choice is put in charge of regulating abortions, and they end up rather spectacularly NOT being regulated, I’d assume this was what they’d set out to do.
I don’t know for a fact that all the lawyers you cited call themselves “pro-choice”; do you? My assumption has been that they didn’t regulate Gosnell because his clients were poor, nonwhite, and included many poorly- or un-documented immigrants, and that they just. didn’t. care.
I *do* know that governmental regulation of abortion clinics is a political football that attracts all kinds of grandstanding, so it’s quite possible that the regulators in question played Hot Potato with any abortion clinic problems that came up, and devoted their time (which they doubtless didn’t have enough of) to tasks they might complete without getting into a media circus.
Because government regulation is so politicized, decent abortion providers have their own organization, the National Abortion Federation. Gosnell applied for membership and was turned down for being not up to standard, but since they don’t have any legal force behind them, they couldn’t close him down.
The grand jury report says:
this is one of the reasons I don’t want employers providing health insurance
Im not sure if many people are *for* this as a general proposition. It’s a question of how badly we want to disrupt the current system I think- moving too quickly could cause some serious problems. otoh, moving too slowly and we have to live with variations of the current (quite imperfect) system.
At least what we’ve got now 1)doesn’t make self-employment a game of russian roulette and 2)has the potential to be changed in ways that would allow us to jettison the employer-based system. And, 3)can be easily merged with a public option, but don’t tell Brett.
But I do think people who run corporations and shareholders, etc, should be allowed to exercise their collective conscience through the corporation.
Some people probably disagree about that…
I think it’s not so much disagreeing on the general point- I think we’d both agree that this can be at most no more absolute than the individual’s right to exercise their conscience. That is, it runs up against all manner of other rights and responsibilities in the society.
And especially when the activity is voluntary- forcing everyone to serve in the military is unfair to pacifists. Forcing everyone who wants to run a business with 51 employees to treat their employees in a certain way has IMO a higher bar for questions of religious conscience, because it’s a perfectly avoidable activity.
I don’t think employer-provided insurance is a compelling state interest, I’d probably side the religious objector
I think that’s taking liberties with the concept of ‘compelling state interest’. That isnt (or shouldnt be) license for judges to impose their political views of the ‘correct’ political resolution to problems, just a way of preventing the state from failing to try to reach a reasonable accommodation, imposing something that isn’t actually necessary to the matter at hand. For example, forcing people to take off their hats in court if they’ve got a religious prohibition.
Otherwise, judges will be throwing all kinds of stuff out of the system based on personal preference. This judge invalidates the laws against smoking pot because he thinks pot is harmless. That judge throws out laws enforcing minimum wages bc he thinks there’s no compelling state interest. etc.
One of the key ways we typically allow for tolerance is by saying that while your tax money gets divided up for government use via democratic principles, we try not to actively force you to participate in things you find repugnant beyond that.
So you agree with the monetary penalties that allow people and companies not to participate if they find certain coverages to be repugnant, leaving it to the government to do the dirty work.
Sometimes you find support for the ACA where you’d never expect it. 😉
McTx …can the federal gov’t compel any and all employers to provide the financial wherewithal to fund abortions?
“Financial wherewithal” is money. If you pay your employees money to work for you, they can spend it on abortions. Unless you propose to pay them in scrip, redeemable only for things you approve of, then you’re already compelled to “fund abortions”. And boner pills. And boob jobs. Not to mention campaign contributions to communists. But it’s more The Free Market, and not so much The Government, that compels you to provide “financial wherewithal” to people who work for you.
–TP
I do think people who run corporations and shareholders, etc, should be allowed to exercise their collective conscience through the corporation.
Whose conscience is included in the “collective”?
Owners?
Board of directors?
Executives?
Employees?
Creditors?
Hobby Lobby is an unusual case because it is so closely held. For any publicly traded for-profit company this idea would become absurd virtually immediately.
But, for the sake of argument, I’ll proceed with the basic assumption that corporations have some level of “conscience”.
Where is this conscience located?
Carlton, I’m afraid judges are kind of stuck inquiring into whether these things are “compelling state interests”, given the RFRA. Of course, Congress can over-ride that any time they want, but that requires that contraversial policies like the contraceptive mandate be included in legislation, instead of invented afterwards by regulators. Congress wouldn’t like that, they might have to accept the blame.
His crime was ignoring the small sets of safeguards that pro lifers have been able to get for very late term fetuses, and which NARAL wants to remove (and which they successfully undermined leading up to his case).
That was one of his crimes. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself further with the case- he ran a profoundly dangerous and filthy practice: untrained staff, expired medications, no records, medical waste & blood & urine & cat shit everywhere, patients drugged without any monitoring, unsterilized equipment. He’s alleged to have performed an abortion on a minor against her will. He committed serial malpractice resulting in at least one patient death and many cases of serious avoidable harm.
So no, it’s not the case that his only crime was “ignoring the small sets of safeguards that pro lifers have been able to get for very late term fetuses”.
It’s not the case that he was merely on the extreme of the pro-choice movement, or somehow representative of it, or that his crimes were committed with the tolerance of anyone in the government due to ideology.
How’s that for names?
Entirely insufficient to support your claim. Bureaucratic incompetence and laziness do not demonstrate “alliance” with Gosnell, any more than a lazy parole officer is an ‘ally’ of a criminal who uses his negligence to commit crimes.
Ally suggests that they shared a common goal and worked towards it in a cooperative fashion. As does your rhetoric about how Gosnell was just on the extreme fringe of the pro-choice movement (as opposed to being a criminal who *harmed women*- you may want to adjust your understanding of the pro-choice movement if you think that someone who kills women is somehow emblematic of it).
If the local police fail to close down a crack house (despite signs and warnings from neighbors) *because they’re lazy*, that doesn’t mean they have an ideological belief in the Healing Powers of Crack or that they’ve become anti-drug-law libertarians. Just that they’re lazy.
I don’t think they did fail. I think they succeeded. It’s just that the thing they were trying to do was not the thing the law said they were supposed to be doing….
If somebody who’s pro-choice is put in charge of regulating abortions, and they end up rather spectacularly NOT being regulated, I’d assume this was what they’d set out to do.
If you imagine that being pro-choice is all about the joy of executing fetuses (and who cares if some women are hurt in the process), then this could possibly be correct. Since it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with that, this is a bizarre fantasy scenario out of some seriously messed up place in your head.
examples?
Well, the Newton shooter is obviously on the fringe of the pro-choice movement, amirite? Although typical liberals won’t acknowledge their own extremists.
This is the dry run. Let’s be honest and have this conversation
Oooh, Ive got a better idea- let’s be honest and talk about what we’re talking about, rather than treating anyone’s conspiracy theory as if it were the only reasonable topic of conversation.
Any limit on the timing of the abortion–9th month/healthy baby, ok to abort?
Yeah, that’s *totally relevant* to whether the RFRA protects corps when they want to exercise conscience to not provide mandated healthcare. How is every thread on ObWi not actually an abortion thread? Since clearly everything liberals do is aimed at killing womb babies since that’s our favorite thing.
Carlton, I’m afraid judges are kind of stuck inquiring into whether these things are “compelling state interests”, given the RFRA.
I am saying that reading “compelling state interest” as “what do I personally, as a judge, think the government ought to do in this situation” is wrong. If considerable deference isn’t given to the legislative and executive branches concerning what constitutes a compelling state interest, then there’s no other consistent standard to apply.
Where is this conscience located?
On a server?
I don’t believe that Christian Scientists believe it is immoral for others to use medicine, so that hypo doesn’t really work. ditto Jehovah’s Witnesses and blood transfusions.
They don’t act like mainstream fundies in trying to push their religious prohibitions on everyone else- perhaps through an excess of good manners and common sense, perhaps through a recognition of their relatively small numbers & how this would be both futile and harmful to public perception of their religion.
But those are both strong prohibitions in the religions themselves: Christian Scientists believe that all illness is spiritual illness, not just that all illnesses of Christian Scientists are spiritual illnesses. And Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that transfusions are prohibited by the Bible.
Like the “compelling state interest” issue above, I think one can only be in favor of this if one imagines that it’ll be limited to ‘my’ side. If anyone’s religion can be the basis for objecting to the law, or if any judge can decide for themselves what the government “ought” to be doing, it’d being the kind of chaos only an anarchist could love. So I suspect this is one of those Bush v Gore things, where the decision is convenient in the moment but absolutely does not apply in other cases.
How is every thread on ObWi not actually an abortion thread?
No worries, when Brett gets tired of Gosnell we’ll start in on the guns.
Where is this conscience located?
On a server?
I’ll go code one up right now!
Carlton:
“I am saying that reading “compelling state interest” as “what do I personally, as a judge, think the government ought to do in this situation” is wrong.”
AND
“That isnt (or shouldnt be) license for judges to impose their political views of the ‘correct’ political resolution to problems, just a way of preventing the state from failing to try to reach a reasonable accommodation, imposing something that isn’t actually necessary to the matter at hand.”
Yeah, agree with all that. There is a lot that goes into determining what is “compelling.” I think the opinion is actually a good read on that, to see what goes into determining “compelling”. I know I learned something.
Admittedly, I glossed over the complexity of it all with a phrase like: ‘if the judge found it compelling’ or something like that. I didn’t mean to imply that it was up to a coin flip or the judge’s personal views. If that’s what you took from it, I agree 100% that that way lies madness and a hodgepodge of laws passed from the bench, not democracy.
On the specific case, I don’t find it legally “compelling” for a number of reasons. One, I’m not compelled (in the personal sense) by either of their claims. Beyond that, the law has a number of exemptions. Fewer than 50 employees. Grandfathered plans. Religious employer exemptions. Etc. In that context I find it hard to say that relaxing the mandate against Hobby Lobby is really changing that much in the application of the law.
The exemptions doesn’t mean there isn’t a compelling interest in Hobby Lobby providing contraception. But I think it makes the argument a little harder. YMMV.
“If considerable deference isn’t given to the legislative and executive branches concerning what constitutes a compelling state interest”
Yep. I agree. I think part of the complexity of this lies in action of the executive in applying the ACA *potentially* conflicts with the RFPA. I’m not suggesting that judges should run roughshod over legislative decisions based on their personal mores.
“Im not sure if many people are *for* this [employer-based healthcare] as a general proposition.”
Yeah, I’ve never gotten the impression a lot of people are for employer-based healthcare in general. Just that’s its the middle ground we ended up with. And that there is political power in an appeal to the devil you know. I think it was an appeal made by both sides before and after the ACA was passed. “Like your plan, you can keep it” or general appeals
“I think it’s not so much disagreeing on the general point- I think we’d both agree that this can be at most no more absolute than the individual’s right to exercise their conscience.”
I was trying to leave open that some people probably disagree if a corporation has a right to exercise their conscience. I agree most (I’d say all, but I’m sure someone has a counterpoint) people don’t want to interfere with right to conscience unless necessary.
Russell:
“For any publicly traded for-profit company this idea would become absurd virtually immediately.”
Yeah, I agree it would in 99.99% cases. I’m willing to leave the door open to the concept, even though I’m not entirely clear how a publicly traded company would demonstrate a “sincere belief” or a “conscience”.
In other words, I don’t see how it would work, but I’m not going to dismiss it out of hand. Exxon is free to bring the suit…I just doubt they will convince anyone that they hold a “sincere belief”.
It’s a lot more clear cut for me how it would work for a privately held company. Where the “conscience” is located? In the actions and beliefs of the executive officers, and a consistent history of such. Which brings us to ‘should Free Exercise apply to for-profit corporations?’ Which I’m pretty sure we disagree on, but that’s fine.
It’s probably the most contentious point, and its one of the first ones to tackle. Really, if it doesn’t apply, there’s not much more to say.
In my mind, a lot of the nitty-gritty details of the case, like “compelling interests” and “sincere belief” only come up if you assume Free Exercise and the RFPA do apply. So, I apologize if when I discuss those points, I implicitly assume they do apply. In my mind, if they don’t…well, this case gets boring very fast.
“On a server?”
Heh. I’m sure there’s a linux distro that supports conscience.
Windows Server? Not so much.
The government is mandating the coverage that the Greens don’t like because OTHER PEOPLE WHO ALSO LIVE HERE want it.
Yes, rule of the majority. The minority can just suck it up.
If there we no constituency for birth control coverage in insurance plans, then there would be no issue.
Everybody likes “free” stuff.
…, they can choose to pay the penalty rather than provide coverage they object to.
Employers taking this route take a double hit. They not only have to pay the penalty, they also have to increase wages to offset the lost of the insurance benefit.
…forcing everyone to serve in the military is unfair to pacifists.
Forcing anyone to serve in the military is unfair.
Can you explain why it makes sense to include BC and maternity benefits in a single male’s coverage? Other than “because the gov’t says so”?
Yes. I can, rather easily. I’m glad you asked, in fact, because I read this sort of argument fairly often and find it, pardon me, annoying.
When a woman becomes pregnant there is normally a male, surprisingly often a single male, involved in the process. While it is true that the woman bears the entire physical burden of the pregnancy there is no good reason she should have to bear the entire financial burden as well. It seems quite reasonable to me to say that the father should bear, say, half of the cost of prenatal care, childbirth, etc. perhaps the percentage might be adjusted, in either direction for various reasons, but 50-50 is surely a fair starting point.
I’d add that if you want to identify those treated unfairly by having to pay for maternity benefits you might note that a man may be fertile well past the age when a women can no longer bear children.
In the actions and beliefs of the executive officers
Why just the executives? What about the owners (if they are not the same as the executives), or other investors?
Why not the creditors, don’t they have a stake in what the company does and does not do?
Why not the employees, they actually implement the operations of the company, doesn’t their point of view come into the “position of conscience” of the overall organization?
A group of people associating specifically for the purpose of advocating a point of view can plausibly be said to embody the “conscience” of the group, at least as regards that point of view. Because that’s the basis of the association.
So, the directors of the NRA on the topic of 2nd Amendment rights, the directors of the Sierra Club on environmental issues, etc. All OK with me.
Other than that, I’m not seeing it. Not at a level that requires all of the rest of us to make allowances for it.
You could make a stronger case for Mardel, maybe, also owned by one of the Greens, which sells, specifically, Christian lifestyle stuff like homeschooling materials etc.
Hobby Lobby sells crafter stuff. They’re not a religious organization.
If we want to grant corporations recognition of a conscience, under the law, which the rest of us must respect and observe, then I want a conscientious lever, under law, which all must respect and observe, with which to push back when corporations due the kinds of callous destructive inhumane crap that they do every day.
If the executives’ personal conscience is to be expressed through the corporation, than I want access to the executives, *personally*, when they do stuff I object to, for my own moral and religious reasons.
Do you want my list? How much time do you have?
What’s good for the goose, right?
Corporations do stuff every day that would land my natural human @ss in jail if I tried it on.
“That’s just business” is what we hear at those times.
If that’s just business, this is just business. You can’t have it both ways.
I’m sure there’s a linux distro that supports conscience.
Ubuntu.
“Like the “compelling state interest” issue above, I think one can only be in favor of this if one imagines that it’ll be limited to ‘my’ side.”
I think people can be in favor of allowing for a balance between conscience and state interests, even with full knowledge that it will mean sometimes exceptions and accommodations for others are carved into laws that mesh with their conscience.
To use an example that has come up…I have no problem granting a pacifist an exception during a draft. Even though its unfair to people that don’t share that view.
I’m sure everyone on the board can think of laws that are overall good but they wouldn’t mind having exceptions for a small number of people based on sincere convictions.
“If anyone’s religion can be the basis for objecting to the law, or if any judge can decide for themselves what the government “ought” to be doing, it’d being the kind of chaos only an anarchist could love.”
I think it can be, but that those objections have to be hashed out based on sincere belief, burden, and compelling interests. And that will be determined by judges and justices. Hopefully on the basis of law and precedent, not on their personal opinions.
I don’t see a good way of cutting the courts of the loop without either (a) rejecting all claims of conscience (basically assuming that the legislative is the way to determine these claims) or (b) accepting all the claims (which I think would be a bad idea for a whole host of reasons that people have already pointed out).
Everybody likes “free” stuff.
Insurance coverage is being offered by Hobby Lobby as part of the employee’s COMPENSATION. Which is the employees’ DUE, because they EARN IT, by WORKING.
Don’t be a jerk.
“I’m sure there’s a linux distro that supports conscience.
Ubuntu.”
Not since Unity
But it’s more The Free Market, and not so much The Government, that compels you to provide “financial wherewithal” to people who work for you.
Lies. You take away those communist regulations forcing captains of industry to provide benefits, minimum wages, and suchlike, while simultaniously getting rid of the morally despicable government “social safety net”, and we’ll see in a hurry that the Free Market is certainly not what’s compelling takers to receive the financial wherewithal to do anything more than commute, eat, and purchase the minimum shelter necessary to stay healthy enough to work their sixteen-hour shift.
(The Secure Compensation Receipt for Individual Purchases cards come next.)
Yes, I’m sure that’s why I make several times the minimum wage: Because there’s an obscure regulation setting the wage for engineers higher than for janitors. Otherwise my employer would pay me in kitchen scraps and a fresh refrigerator crate each year.
Yes, rule of the majority. The minority can just suck it up.
Under most circumstances, this is exactly what takes place. Do you have a problem with this, Charles? (bobbyp asked good naturedly)
What is the minority being asked to do here? They are being asked to provide health insurance that covers particular things. In return, they get a huge tax break.
It is perfectly OK for them to not offer health insurance to their employees. They have choices….unlike those who happened to be born, you know, female.
On the specific case, I don’t find it legally “compelling” for a number of reasons. One, I’m not compelled (in the personal sense) by either of their claims. Beyond that, the law has a number of exemptions. Fewer than 50 employees. Grandfathered plans. Religious employer exemptions. Etc. In that context I find it hard to say that relaxing the mandate against Hobby Lobby is really changing that much in the application of the law.
Any time the government sees fit to offer an exemption to prevent a one-size-fits-all law from causing harm in edge cases, it would then be open to the claim that those accommodations with edge cases make the core of the law inapplicable to anyone who can make a religious claim against it (ie basically anyone, unless the state is going to start being the arbiter of ‘reasonable’ religious claims).
The only solution I can see to that problem would be the government *not* allowing for exemptions in edge cases where everyone agrees the costs outweights the benefits, lest a precedent be set. And I admit, I can only see that sort of situation being useful to libertarian types who would use that as a jumping-off point for attacking the entire law- ie make it unwieldy, and then blame it for being unwieldy.
Examples: if the government allows for a religious organization to kill animals without some of the normally mandated health or safety protections, all corps will be able to claim the right to avoid those protections on ‘religious grounds’ + existing exceptions. Religious groups that can currently discriminate by religious affiliation in hiring would open the door to any corporation claiming the right to do that on religious grounds + existing exceptions.
I think it can be, but that those objections have to be hashed out based on sincere belief, burden, and compelling interests. And that will be determined by judges and justices.
I admit to cringing a little bit at this. Who gets to decide ‘sincere belief’? What constitutues an ‘undue burden’? I suspect that, despite your best intentions, these become ways of smuggling in majoritarian beliefs while keeping the ability to discriminate against minirity beliefs. Catholics can serve wine to minors, but peyote is forbidden. Christians can object to paying for birth control, but Christian Scientists cannot object to paying for hospitalization cos that’s just ‘unreasonable’.
I don’t see a good way of cutting the courts of the loop without either (a) rejecting all claims of conscience
Well, I do think there are plenty of claims where the state obviously can’t show any possible compelling interest, where I think we can all agree. The earlier example of baring one’s head in the courtroom being an example. I recall as well a case where a city (or county) tried to inconvenience a hindu temple out of their jurisdiction via zoning-type laws, and again as long as they could show a pattern of discrimination I think we can agree that the state doesn’t have a compelling interest to do that.
But where the state has a clear purpose that it’s allowed to pursue and there isn’t an easy way around it, Im not at all sure that allowing some claims of conscience to proceed while blocking others based on ‘sincere belief’ etc is a good idea. Some ideal of a judge might be able to do this impartially; the actual judges that we have are IMO almost certain to err dramatically on the side of conventional thinking, belief systems, and personal political preference.
If there is a place for picking and permitting religious accommodations where the state *does* have a compelling interest, it’s the legislature IMO. Let it be done in sunlight, in plain text, for everyone to see. Better than than some Alabama judge deciding that kosher or halal are acceptable choices in prison but hare krishnas are a cult and don’t get to pick their diet.
Russell, I’m not sure what you mean by magic, but taxing and spending is the most typical way we launder conscience issues. We consider the distance provided by that process as enough that we don’t allow conscientious objection. So for example I can’t avoid paying taxes for the immoral drug war, but I don’t have to turn in my friend for having a joint and if I run a business I’m usually not required to drug test and turn my employees in to the cops. Muslims don’t have to directly buy pork, but they have to pay for pork inspectors if we decide to spend tax money on them.
As for compelling state interest, we allow conscientious objection from the draft, even knowing that will mean some other person will get drafted and have to fight and perhaps die.
If we are going to move away from the tax and spend model of avoiding conscientious objection, we are going to need to look seriously at how mandates work unless we are just abandoning the virtue of tolerance. Maybe we need less tolerance in society. I’m not convinced.
topical: Oklahoma legislature finds itself trying to reject a Satanist monument after approving Ten Commandments monument. IMO better to avoid religious displays by the state, but if you’re going to have them, there are consequences…
[Part of me desperately hopes to see this reach the Supreme Court, if only for the guilty pleasure of reading Scalia’s opinion].
AFAIK, the idea that fully-human life is present from *conception* — such that killing it is homicide, and causing miscarriage is manslaughter — is purely 20th century.
Tertullian was hardly writing in the 20th century, and yet, he believed life began with conception. This was hardly a non-trivial consideration among the early church fathers, as it had important bearing on the doctrine of original sin. Augustine disagreed with the position, and Aquinas settled on quickening.
“If that’s just business, this is just business. You can’t have it both ways.”
The Mafia, drug dealers, hackers, and the porn industry (that one always gets me, that “industry” is what the porn folks are up to) all say, “We’re businessmen”, or “We’re trying to run a business here” or “It hadda be done, that’s the way business is done.”
Just as nearly all goods and services are slotted in the big bin called “product”. “We need to get product out the door, people” they declare, about I-pads, condoms, literature, religious music, skyscrapers, Priuses, extension cords, ice-making equipment, vaccines, underpants, machine guns, torture chambers named Strawberry Fields .. you name it.
It’s all the same to them. Nothing is special. You gots your inputs, your outputs, your debits and your credits. You gots your molecules, your protons, your neutrons.
Move that inventory. What inventory? Whatever it is you got. Move it.
The vig is all you need to know.
All can be justified by using the word “business”, including government.
Citing Gosnell in this discussion is identical to citing Eric Rudolph, Scott Roeder or other anti-choicers who murder the abortion doctors. If Gosnell is allegedly mainstream as suggested by some here, then these murderers would also represent mainstream anti-choice beliefs.
In other words, citing to the most loony extreme examples of behavior by one side proves nothing and demonstrates the lack of merit in your position.
taxing and spending is the most typical way we launder conscience issues
Just about every government regulation implicates someone’s conscience or sincere religious belief. When the government restricts how much mercury you can emit into the air, that violates the conscience of Christians who believe that they have a Biblical injunction to profit form industry and let God take care of the Earth.
When the government requires you to pay for workman’s comp for your employees, that violates the conscience of employers who believe accidents only happen to the sinful and that those who are right with God suffer no accidents.
These aren’t hypotheticals; I’ve know people who sincerely believed these things.
I don’t see on what basis you, or any court for that matter, can decide which of these beliefs are sincere or heart-felt. And I don’t see why it should matter. Can someone, anyone, explain what objective test determines which of these things are sincere religious beliefs that should merit exceptions?
We consider the distance provided by that process as enough that we don’t allow conscientious objection.
Yes, Seb, that’s the point I thought you were making.
My reply was basically that being required to contribute to an insurance plan, that included coverage for birth control methods you find objectionable, which might or might not be used by other people, to pay for products or procedures that *they* might or might not use, is sort of an equally remote distance.
I personally pay for stuff that hits a lot closer to home than that, and which I find objectionable, via taxes.
I was just trying to understand if there was some aspect — some “magic” — whereby this happening via mandated employee coverage, as opposed to taxes, was especially bad.
If it’s just a matter of the distance, I’m not sure the Greens have a strong case.
We consider the distance provided by that process as enough that we don’t allow conscientious objection.
Apparently some groups have religious exemptions from paying into Social Security (IRS Form 4029:Application for Exemption From Social Security and Medicare Taxes and Waiver of Benefits).
And, of course, there are *all kinds* of laws that demand behavior, not just taxation to subsidize the state’s actions. Depending on jurisdiction and relationship you may have a ‘duty to rescue’. You are compelled to report some crimes or events (eg child abuse, death, arson). You can be compelled to comply with police directives under some (non-arrest) circumstances.
A white supremacist (even one with religious grounds) can be compelled to hire minorities. A Muslim woman could be compelled to show her face to strange men in the context of a police lineup or courtroom.
And once you’ve decided to open a business, you’ve opened yourself up to a large number of legal compulsions. The ACA is just one of literally hundreds of legal obligations to employees, customers/clients, government agencies, etc. Obligations that the government *could* tax and handle for you, but it doesnt, because this is just not a legal/moral principle that our society uses.
If we are going to move away from the tax and spend model of avoiding conscientious objection…
So I think that this is not the case at all now. On the one hand, we don’t typically allow conscientious objection to general federal spending, but it is not the case that this is our mechanism for *resolving* issues subject to conscientious objection.
I cant think of a single example of something that is funded via taxation *expressly* for the purpose of laundering the moral taint, as it were.
You don’t give up all your rights just because you open a business. The government can regulate business things for businesses. Regulating minimum wages makes sense because paying wages is an integral function of employment. Providing contraception isn’t. No one thought it was until about eleven months ago, and it never would have passed Congress (so invoking democracy and minorities should just get over it seems a bit much).
Carleton:
“I admit to cringing a little bit at this. Who gets to decide ‘sincere belief’? What constitutues an ‘undue burden’?”
I can go on about this for a long time, but I’m not an expert, the terms of art are delicate, etc etc I can try, if you want.
I again thank bobbyp for linking the court opinion, repeated below for your convenience. I bring it up because the answers to your questions are, fairly clearly, in the opinions, both majority and dissent.
http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/12/12-6294.pdf
Give it a read, I found it really fascinating and educational. Not saying you’re going to find it persuasive one way or the other, but it gave me some fluency with the legal framework and supporting case law is.
” I suspect that, despite your best intentions, these become ways of smuggling in majoritarian beliefs while keeping the ability to discriminate against minirity beliefs.”
I think that’s a concern, certainly, but in the opinion they cite precedent where its used to protect minority practices. And I think in general the courts can act as a check against disenfranchising a minority. It’s not a perfect one, I know I have my complaints about it…but I hardly think courts are more sensitive to the tyranny of the majority than the legislature.
“Catholics can serve wine to minors, but peyote is forbidden.”
I’m pretty sure peyote is legal for use in native american church practices. Could be wrong…someone who knows more want to weigh in?
Or if you mean in general, I think peyote should be legal. But I think that’s probably off topic.
But I really encourage you to give the opinion a read.
I’m pretty sure peyote is legal for use in native american church practices.
Yes, it is, and in fact was one of the issues leading up to the passage of the RFRA in the first place.
You don’t give up all your rights just because you open a business.
You don’t give up any of your rights just because you open a business. That’s not the question.
The question is whether the *business* has rights, and what they are. Hobby Lobby is owned by the Greens, and run by the Greens, but it is not the Greens, and it’s not the Greens’ money paying for the insurance.
Further, in this particular case, we’re talking about whether the business inherits *your* rights, just because you own it or run it. Because businesses per se are incapable of having a religious faith, or expressing one.
Regulating minimum wages makes sense because paying wages is an integral function of employment. Providing contraception isn’t
And, remarkably, no-one is asking the Greens to provide contraception.
They are being asked to contribute to a health insurance policy that might reimburse whoever actually does provide contraception, should a covered employee decide they want it.
And, they are not doing so to be nice people, they are doing so as part of the employee’s compensation.
Why is it legitimate to make rules about the minimum wage that you may pay an employee, but not what must be in an insurance policy you offer as part of compensation?
Last but not least, the Greens have options other than knuckling under to the tyranny of the state. They could simply not include health insurance as part of the compensation, which would be a giant PITA for everyone, but at least their consciences would be clear.
I’m not trying to be dismissive, and frankly I would be fine with Hobby Lobby being given an exemption as long as that did not become some kind of precedent establishing freedom of religion for for-profit corporations.
Because, FWIW, IMO that makes a farce of religious faith. Who will have strong religious convictions next, Exxon? Monsanto? The Bank of America?
Spare me, please.
I’m just pointing out that there are a number of sides to this.
···Yes, rule of the majority. The minority can just suck it up.
Under most circumstances, this is exactly what takes place. Do you have a problem with this, Charles?
Supposedly, the constitution and the rule of law prevent tyranny of majorities over minorities. That doesn’t always seem to be the case.
They are being asked to provide health insurance that covers particular things. In return, they get a huge tax break.
They shouldn’t be required to provide insurance that covers any particular thing. Or required to provide insurance all. And they shouldn’t be getting any kind of tax break at all.
….unlike those who happened to be born, you know, female.
So, being born female is a disability requiring redress under the law?
Where is this conscience located?
On a server?
Actually, because we’re old school, we’ve got it backed up on tape. But if we ever decide we need it, we can restore it to a live file. Only temporarily, however, because we don’t want it around inhibiting our other business practices….
thompson: I have no problem granting a pacifist an exception during a draft. Even though its unfair to people that don’t share that view.
But what we actually do is provide for pacifists to do non-combat service. That actually does support the military’s activities, for example by doing medical stuff that someone in the military would have to do. It just doesn’t require them to personally fight. But they still have to serve in some capacity.
Which would seem to be analogous to telling Hobby that they don’t have to personally perform abortions, but they do have to pay into the pool of funds which does so, just like everybody else.
Actually, because we’re old school, we’ve got it backed up on tape.
Wow! Even more old school than the federal government!
But what we actually do is provide for pacifists to do non-combat service.
Or, go to jail. Which not a few folks have done, in order to honor their conscience.
I’m reading the opinion cited by bobbyp and thompson, and where they land is that the RFRA applies to Hobby Lobby, because the RFRA simply mentions “persons”, and the rules of interpretation as laid out in the US Code are that, in the absence of anything saying otherwise, the word “person” is intended to refer to corporations of all sorts as well.
Just ask the authors of the 14th Amendment, they’ll tell you so.
So, IMVHO, the law is on the side of the Greens. Unless the feds can demonstrate a compelling public interest, which is not out of the question.
Can’t wait to see who sprouts a robust religious conscience next.
“the Greens have options other than knuckling under to the tyranny of the state. They could simply not include health insurance as part of the compensation, which would be a giant PITA for everyone”
Also cost the company around $26 million a year in additional taxes. Oddly, if they offered a deficient plan it would be over 400 million/yr.
That would be quite a PITA. Whether or not that rises to the level of “burden” legally is the question.
And, of course, the larger question of can a for-profit corp exercise religion.
I’m pretty sure peyote is legal for use in native american church practices. Could be wrong…someone who knows more want to weigh in?
I think it is now- it was a court case a while back that overturned this (and the reasonable Sherbert test) in favor of government-can-do-what-it-wants. Thus leading to the RFRA.
So that should’ve been ‘peyote was forbidden’ (although it wasn’t actually forbidden in the Smith case either, exaggerated for dramatic effect 🙂 ).
Sherbert wasn’t a bad place, but I do have a problem with it. And the peyote case goes to the core of it- some people can claim a religious faith and take peyote. Others can claim a religious faith and aren’t permitted, bc the court decides that their religious belief isn’t “sincere” enough. And no one can have a religious faith that allows them to take LSD, despite it’s profound (religious-like, even) effects.
I don’t like government making those kind of choices. But I *particularly* don’t like judges making those kind of choices.
Where I feel the court needs to step in is where eg a legislature attempts to discriminate against a belief indirectly (eg the hindu temple example from above).
Thanks for the link- can’t read now, but hopefully tomorrow. And, as usual, enjoy talking with you.
You don’t give up all your rights just because you open a business.
You give up the right to not be compelled to do some things eg associate with black people, people of other religions, etc when you run a business. So the argument that, as a society, we handle compulsory issues exclusively by taxation and government spending is not correct. This is particularly true when engaging in a voluntary activity- want to drive, then you need to get a drivers license, and if that means getting a picture taken of your face, then so be it.
The government can regulate business things for businesses. Regulating minimum wages makes sense because paying wages is an integral function of employment. Providing contraception isn’t.
That seems like argument from assertion. Providing healthcare is now an integral function of employment, per the US Congress, regardless of whether you regard it as ‘making sense’. It is a new law, but all laws were new laws at one time.
“US Code are that, in the absence of anything saying otherwise, the word “person” is intended to refer to corporations of all sorts as well.”
First, I’d emphasize that the Dictionary Act is an act of congress, as is the RFRA, and you can lobby your congresscritters to change those laws.
I wouldn’t, of course, because I like them. But revising the RFRA to concern natural humans only isn’t as hard as revising the constitution, say.
“So, IMVHO, the law is on the side of the Greens.”
I’d keep reading. I’m inclined to agree with the statement, but the non-majority opinions had some good points against as well. Or maybe you have, and not found encouragement in them.
They shouldn’t be required to provide insurance that covers any particular thing. Or required to provide insurance all. And they shouldn’t be getting any kind of tax break at all.
Im not really sure where to do with a bunch of “shoulds”. One of the least useful conversations I get into repeatedly is with libertarians who assert their absolute right to private property etc and think that this is the starting point for a debate or discussion.
All I can think to say is “should too!”
But no, that’s beneath even me.
Carleton:
“I don’t like government making those kind of choices. But I *particularly* don’t like judges making those kind of choices. ”
Yeah. There really are no great answers to this. Allowing reasonable accommodation for sincere belief REQUIRES some measure of sincere belief. And that’s not an easy thing to judge. Either in law or in court.
I don’t have an adverse feeling regarding judges making that decision in the context of legislation like the RFRA. Congress put the guidelines in place, but someone has to assess them. I don’t think congress can put every possible situation in the law and how to handle it.
Would an executive agency be better than a judge, in your mind? Department of Determining Sincerity or something like that?
I think we need a new executive department like we need a hole in the head…and I don’t view the religious objector issue as a huge problem for our society at the moment…so I’m ok with judges getting the job. Even if they suck at it, I don’t really see it crippling our society.
I’m just spitballing…who gets to decide sincerity in your ideal system? Do you think congress can actually make the law with enough granularity to accomplish that? If not, who would you propose?
I’m just spitballing…who gets to decide sincerity in your ideal system?
Without giving it a lot of thought:
1)Judges should be free to mandate reasonable accommodation within the law- as you say, Congress can’t be expected to consider every edge case. This is without considering whether any individual is sincerely religious- assume that they are.
2)Any religious exception of type #1 should be available to anyone who requests it; I should not have to prove to a judge that my conversion to Islam is sincere before getting halal food in prison.
3)If a judge can’t create a reasonable accommodation without short-circuiting the intent of the law, then the law stands (ie the legislature is presumed to have found a compelling state interest in any Constitutional law that they pass).
4)*Unless* the judge infers an unreasonable bias for or against a particular belief.
Id do away with church-based tax breaks too (they can have whatever breaks are currently available to secular nonprofits), and in general laws that support a particular religious viewpoint (eg blue laws).
Is that workable? I dunno. It’d require some changes to the laws as well as the courts.
Also, the Amish strike again, this time from behind bars.
But what we actually do is provide for pacifists to do non-combat service.
Or, go to jail. Which not a few folks have done, in order to honor their conscience.
One other interesting point: we do actually make decisions as to whether someone claiming contientious objection is “sincere.” And if they aren’t, they can be drafted and end up in a combat unit. How do we decide that? Your local Draft Board has a process for making that determination. (Want details? Your local board probably has openings — most do. If you volunteer, you can get familiar with the whole thing. http://www.sss.gov/fslocal.htm )
So it isn’t just abortion or contraception which gets this kind of judgemental decision made. And we’ve been doing it for a long time.
This is so silly. No one is requiring anyone to use birth control. The “conscience” that needs to be protected is that of the person who’s making the choice whether or not to engage in the act of using birth control. There is absolutely zero difference between providing insurance benefits and providing salary. None.
“They shouldn’t be required to provide insurance that covers any particular thing. Or required to provide insurance all. And they shouldn’t be getting any kind of tax break at all.”
One more “shouldn’t” there, Charles, and I think you may have yourself a new religion, which later you can refer to as “business as usual”.
You know it’s interesting that we’ve brought up military service, seeing as how that’s one place contraception is readily available.
It’s hard to tell whether we’re coming or going at this point.
You know it’s interesting that we’ve brought up military service, seeing as how that’s one place contraception is readily available.
Does that mean that I can refuse to pay the part of my taxes which goes to the military, on the grounds that part of it may be used for contraception? It seems like a logical extension of the Hobby position….
They shouldn’t be required to provide insurance that covers any particular thing.
Yes. Young healthy people can just buy cheapo catastrophic insurance and start an HMA. Everybody else?….well too bad for them. No matter how many times this is pointed out as classic adverse selection and, as a public policy, leading inevitably to insurance death spiral, it comes back like a bad penny.
Or required to provide insurance all.
You know, it’s g-damnned ‘effing amazing that it has been pointed out here more than once that nobody is required to buy insurance. Nonetheless….
And they shouldn’t be getting any kind of tax break at all.
Oh, please. There are thousands of tax breaks in the tax code. Where do you want to start? When it is argued that one should be both entitled to a tax break AND receive a conscientious exemption from a requirement flowing from that policy it tells me you are just bargaining about the price….nothing more.
Conscientious objection has a long and storied history in this country…Henry David Thoreau, Gene Debs, Martin Luther King. When it came time to stand up for conscience these heroes showed they were willing to back up their stand with deeds, deeds that could cost them dearly. They were willing to pay the price.
So what do we get from conservatives regarding this so-called terrible conflict of conscience? We get pleas for exemptions and no price paid.
This is a moral travesty, and frankly, in my opinion, abject moral cowardice.
Just to put it out there……
First, I’d emphasize that the Dictionary Act is an act of congress, as is the RFRA, and you can lobby your congresscritters to change those laws.
Great, problem solved!
Thanks for the tip.
“Allowing reasonable accommodation for sincere belief REQUIRES some measure of sincere belief. And that’s not an easy thing to judge. Either in law or in court.”
Hey, it’s easy! Just set ’em up on a lie detector and ask the questions.
Why, I’m sure that if someone does that with the Hobby Lobby corporation, that…oh, wait.
O.K., so Iowa will expand Medicaid but perhaps enforce a pretty strict regimen discouraging drinking, smoking, Oreos, etc, with the approval of the federal government.
Peas never make this cut, for some reason.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum
They are ostensibly telling people to improve their habits or face, well, we don’t know what, but one can imagine denial of healthcare benefits.
Let the music begin again and we’ll see if everyone, including me, ends up sitting in the same chair when it stops.
“Great, problem solved!
Thanks for the tip.”
I do what I can.
But seriously, my point is, as I understand it (IANAL), most of Hobby Lobby’s case rests on the RFRA, not the free exercise clause.
It’s not easy to change laws but its easier than changing the constitution.
And I find it unlikely that the SC would try to reach the constitutional question when they could rule on the more narrow question of statute.
So I think there is a lot of room for legislative and electoral action. That’s all.
Moreso than just that, if you’re already in the armed forces and develop conscientious objections, we have procedures in place to judge the hell out of the sincerity of them. I had the dubious pleasure of being peripherally involved with two CO boards last year when the brigade I was assigned to deployed. It was a lot of fine-toothed examination of the precise character and sincerity of the alleged CO’s beliefs, the circumstances leading to their formation, etc. Although it’s worth pointing out that the word “board” might be misleading, in that it’s a single (basically untrained) officer making the determination, with the advice and guidance of the unit’s JAG personnel, and final approval of a senior officer.
I appear to have dropped another (sidebar) comment into the spam trap…
“So it isn’t just abortion or contraception which gets this kind of judgemental decision made. And we’ve been doing it for a long time.”
Yeah, and its probably never an easy decision. With the draft board, my understanding is you have to write essays and get statements from people that known you to evaluate the sincerity. Which seems reasonable to me.
Yes, I’m sure that’s why I make several times the minimum wage: Because there’s an obscure regulation setting the wage for engineers higher than for janitors. Otherwise my employer would pay me in kitchen scraps and a fresh refrigerator crate each year.
Ya know, Brett, I was mostly just being a smartass, but you did a pretty nice job of making my point for me. The reason you get the financial wherewithal you do from your employer is because of the Free Market. The reason the janitor or other “unskilled labor” does is most certainly not: it’s because the government has artificially elevated the bottom to which the wonderous Free Market is able to race when purchasing interchangeable parts of the human variety.
most of Hobby Lobby’s case rests on the RFRA, not the free exercise clause.
In order for Hobby Lobby to rest on the RFRA, there has to be a finding that the RFRA applies to non-profit corporations, which means the question of the free exercise clause is relevant.
I made a flippant reply, because your comment seemed equally flippant.
Nobody is going to re-write US Code Title 1, Chapter 1, paragraph 1. Think “Jenga”.
The question here is whether the Congress intended for RFRA to cover for-profit corps. If it is determined that they did, that will represent an expansion of the pre-existing reading of the scope of free exercise.
Expanding the scope of pretty much any Constitutional protection as it applies to corporations appears to more or less be the brief of this SCOTUS, so I’m not optimistic.
there has to be a finding that the RFRA applies to non-profit corporations
FOR-PROFIT corps.
D’oh!
Okay, judging by thompson’s last comment, maybe my comment in the spam trap is less of a sidebar than I was giving it credit for. OTOH, this means it’s superficial and only teasing at meaningful discussion, and that I should go find a reference link to give more context and expand upon the procedures I vaguely alluded to. So, behold, in all its resplendent and riveting majesty, Army Regulation 600-43: Conscientious Objection.
russell:
“In order for Hobby Lobby to rest on the RFRA, there has to be a finding that the RFRA applies to non-profit corporations, which means the question of the free exercise clause is relevant.”
I agree there has to be a finding that the RFRA applies to for-profit corporations. But that rests on the use of “persons” in the RFRA and the Dictionary act. There is no need to invoke the Free Exercise clause, because congress passed a law that seems to say (pending interpretation) corporations are covered by the act.
Free Exercise clause is not required for that. As is my understanding, but IANAL. My understanding is courts are supposed to avoid reaching constitutional questions unless they need to.
Which implies to me, even if they are covered under RFRA, the constitutional question should not be answered. And the RFRA could be modified by to specifically bar for-profit corporations.
“I made a flippant reply, because your comment seemed equally flippant.”
I didn’t mean it as flippant. I meant it more as “jovial.” But I’m bad at this internet thing.
NomVide:
Thanks for the link. After skimming it, maybe determining sincerity isn’t that hard. The army has regs for it.
I can’t determine how sincere you’re being, but I’ll latch onto “completely” IOT justify hearing the sound of my own typing. Determining sincerity beyond reasonable doubt can be damned near impossible. However, determining that there is a preponderance of evidence of sincerity is reliably achievable, albeit nothing resembling an exact science. The latter evidentary standard is the one in play in military matters of the administrative – as opposed to judicial – variety.
“Ya know, Brett, I was mostly just being a smartass, but you did a pretty nice job of making my point for me.”
Vide, I understood, (Perhaps misunderstood?) your point to be that, absent a minimum wage, everybody would get paid starvation wages. My point being that the existence, in rather substantial numbers, of people who get paid more than the minimum wage, is visible demonstration that wages do not, in a free market, automatically drop to starvation levels. Not all the negotiating power is in management’s hands.
There’s a natural floor to wages, indeed for anybody but dependents, it’s the starvation level. There’s also a natural ceiling to wages, which is the economic benefit you’re bringing to an enterprise. An employer will lose money by hiring anybody above THAT level.
That level varies between one person and the next, as a result of things such as skills, the work environment, and so forth.
Between that floor, beneath which nobody can afford to work, and that ceiling, above which nobody can afford to hire, wages float in a free market, based on supply and demand.
The minimum wage is an arbitrary second floor, imposed by the government, which has no necessary relationship to any of these factors. If it happens to be lower than your economic contribution to an enterprise, (That upper ceiling.) but higher than your free market wage, (Perhaps you’re a bad negotiator, or there’s an over-supply of unskilled labor.) it can indeed increase what you get paid. (While having some marginal influence on how many people get hired, of course.) Lucky you.
If it happens to be HIGHER than your economic contribution to the enterprise, you end up unemployed. Unlucky you.
Then you go on the dole, and become a natural constituent of the Democratic party, and cynical guy that I am, I think that is one of the reasons Democrats want a higher minimum wage.
Anyway, since it isn’t really true that wages automatically drop to the starvation level absent a minimum wage, maybe what we really need is to find a way to make employees more valuable, rather than set a wage below which you’re not allowed to hire them? Tough to do, but it’s the real answer.
IANAL, but when Federal law has restrictions on when “a person” may or may not or must have a medical procedure (such as an abortion), I don’t think that a sane judge would have a problem with the idea that such laws ONLY apply to actual biological persons.
“Dictionary Acts” notwithstanding.
While religions have differed on their view of the “location of the soul” (brain, heart, whatever), I don’t think any of them have ever said “in articles of incorporation”.
“Then you go on the dole, and become a natural constituent of the Democratic party, and cynical guy that I am, I think that is one of the reasons Democrats want a higher minimum wage.”
I”ll play along with this.
Cynical guy that I am, within this conflatus (actually a word, but I’m inventing a new meaning, with if you think about it, is amusing), there lies a series of measures that would prevent large swathes of the population from becoming natural Democratic constituents and that would be in the deepest interests of the Republican Party, the conservative movement, and businesses, but these latter three overlapping fools rarely seem to understand what it is and instead keep on grinding working faces in the other direction.
I’ll bet everyone can guess what I’m getting at.
I alluded to this some time back when I pointed out that the private sector could rid the country of great gobs of government by getting rid of unemployment and provided health care insurance to everyone in this country themselves, in a concerted effort, but since they don’t, then shut up.
At any rate, instead we must experience the immutable by-laws of business and experience purposeful efforts to lower the wage base of large number of the working population, squeeze benefits, if they exist at all, and generally leave many people with few alternatives.
Throw in a steady drumbeat of Randian trash talk regarding the 47% and parasites to go with fire-at-will and such and you have the conservative program for the country.
Absent the Democratic Party, even in its current movement to the Right so that it too can get a look out of the frequently moved Overton window, folks would have no choice, at some flash point, but to join various militant political parties that begin with the words “United Front”, or “People’s Movement” and whose sole platform would be to blow up our neat little world.
Hat tip to Steve Forbes, of all people, for providing me with the basis for this crackpot theory years ago when Communism fell and history was said to end, who postulated (rubbing his hands together and smacking his lips like a cannibalistic chimpanzee) that now the West could dismantle the social safety net, including Medicare, destroy unions, erase the minimum wage, pretty much remove all taxation. and wash the hair of the government in a very small wash tub, because, after all, who will the put-upon and the downtrodden have to turn to, now that the threat from Communism is gone.
Why he would continue to give guns to everyone, as wages, etc were cut under such a scenario is beyond me, but he’s not called a Tool for nothing.
I am struggling with concept of a corporation having a moral conscience. I was involved with a corporation providing building energy improvement and they were religious in enforcing green morals. Can’t think of any exemptions or special privileges they wanted other than tax breaks, but they were very discriminating in their hiring practices. One had to be a true believer.
(pending interpretation)
Yes, and per the dissenting opinion in the cite, “interpretation” has never extended free exercise of religion to for-profit corporations.
Only to non-profits, and maybe only to those organized specifically as religious organizations.
A lot of the main opinion appears to rest on considering Hobby Lobby to be a sort of for-profit religious organization, which is also somewhat novel.
In any case, I’m simply repeating stuff that is expressed more thoroughly in the cited opinions. So, in other words, enough from me.
My point being that the existence, in rather substantial numbers, of people who get paid more than the minimum wage, is visible demonstration that wages do not, in a free market, automatically drop to starvation levels.
This would be a convincing argument if everybody was paid the same wage.
Since they’re not, it’s not.
The reason people aren’t starving and living in the streets in very high numbers is because we, the American public writ large, cut them checks to make up for the piss-poor compensation they receive.
It’s great that you have a technical skill that takes you out of that category. Not everyone does, and we don’t actually need 150 million engineers.
…and we don’t actually need 150 million engineers.
And we certainly don’t need another engineer who thinks he’s an economist. It’s bad enough we have economists who think they’re economists.
The ideal gas law works pretty well at predicting what will happen in the real world. There is no equivalent for labor markets, appealing as the idea might be.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t disagree with the assertion that the “natural” wage floor is lower than the legal minimum. But all the rest of that little dissertation, put on paper, can be rolled up on little cardboard tubes and mounted in some public loo.
Sincerly,
hairshirthedonist, engineer (who thinks he’s an economist)
I agree there has to be a finding that the RFRA applies to for-profit corporations. But that rests on the use of “persons” in the RFRA and the Dictionary act. There is no need to invoke the Free Exercise clause, because congress passed a law that seems to say (pending interpretation) corporations are covered by the act.
As you pointed out, there are very significant arguments presented that the RFRA does not apply (see Briscoe’s opinion (Part III, Section B)). Those arguments are persuasive, not only on their own, but because the effect of allowing for-profit corporations to claim religious exemptions would present the kinds of absurd results mentioned in Footnote 8 of Briscoe’s opinion (which have also been mentioned in the comments:
I’ll be surprised if the Supreme Court, even with its current right-wing justices, will want to open that can of worms.
But more important than the RFRA issue is this: the decision about medical care is not the employer’s. It’s the patient’s. It is no more a violation of religious principles to require them to provide health insurance than it is to require me to pay taxes for things I’m personally opposed to on the basis of conscience.
“I’ll be surprised if the Supreme Court, even with its current right-wing justices, will want to open that can of worms.”
I disagree.
The Justices you speak of were placed on the Court to “Release the Worms!” and so worms we will have.
Eventually, of course a vigorous de-worming will be necessary and the patient may not survive.
NomVide:
I can’t determine how sincere you’re being, but I’ll latch onto “completely” IOT justify hearing the sound of my own typing.”
Well, granted it is quite difficult. But I thought the regs you posted laid out a pretty good format for coming to a reasonable judgment on sincerity.
“Determining sincerity beyond reasonable doubt can be damned near impossible. However, determining that there is a preponderance of evidence of sincerity is reliably achievable, albeit nothing resembling an exact science.”
Yeah, I would agree.
“The latter evidentary standard is the one in play in military matters of the administrative – as opposed to judicial – variety.”
Actually I don’t think the judicial standard is “beyond reasonable doubt”. My impression (impression only, IANAL) was that there was a lower standard of evidence for sincerity. It wasn’t discussed that much as it wasn’t contested in the injunction.
So, in summary, I thought, after skimming the regs, they had a pretty reasonable system for determining sincerity. To some level of accuracy, albeit not beyond reasonable doubt. Which gives me some confidence that various judges or administrators could apply the law equally. Which is not to say there isn’t bias in the system, but its easier to avoid and detect bias if there is a framework.
On the other hand, it’s the sincere ones you’ve got to watch.
Dick Cheney is sincere.
“In any case, I’m simply repeating stuff that is expressed more thoroughly in the cited opinions. So, in other words, enough from me.”
Yeah, that’s been what I’ve been doing for awhile. Again, I’d like to thank bobbyb for posting the link.
Without commenting on the morality aspect, I think McKTx is dead on, here.
Compensation packages, to the extent that they are not controlled by law, are a negotiation between the employer and the employees. There’s probably some descriptive language that’s been devised for this, specifically, but if so I am not fluent.
I note that I am aware that a lot of people don’t get that power of negotiation. I am simply pointing out the obvious that there are things about employment that are neither contractual nor otherwise bound by law, and are therefore subject to change.
A company can, at any time, change any part of your compensation package. Your pay can be reduced. Your insurance can be augmented, slashed, or you can see a change in carrier or choice of carriers. You could see dental added or removed from your coverage, or prescription eye care added or subtracted. Same for life insurance, long term disability, dependent life insurance, etc. Probably few Hobby Lobby employees are getting that sort of thing; just trying to be thorough.
Because even when I am speaking plainly and bluntly, there are people that suspect me of being cryptic.
None of these moves are equivalent to companies controlling how you spend your wages, but some of them may affect how much of those wages (in terms of total compensation) you get. Which is still perfectly legal as far as I am aware.
So, sapient’s statement:
I would suggest could be better put as:
In other words: it’s a discernment issue.
that’s all good, slarti, but what prompts the issue in the first place is that, under the ACA, the “extent that they are controlled by law” has been expanded.
it – the specific areas of coverage under discussion – is no longer a matter of negotiation.
Slarti, I think the point that you’re missing is that we’re not talking about businesses just paying for health care as part of compensation. When businesses provide health care to their employees, they get a tax break: in other words, the government is giving them something. Given that the government is effectively paying businesses to provide their employees with insurance, it seems like the government should get a say in what qualifies as insurance.
After all, can I as an employer say “hey, here’s a bottle of tylenol, that’s your insurance” and get the exact same tax break that businesses who pay real money for real insurance plans get? Obviously not.
So sure, companies can choose whatever compensation they want. But they can’t take tons of money from the feds for providing insurance (as the feds define it) and then refuse to comply with the feds’ requirements. If you take the king’s shilling…
“Because even when I am speaking plainly and bluntly, there are people that suspect me of being cryptic.”
In my defense, what you said was irrelevant, so I charitably assumed you had some deeper meaning.
With respect to your present misconceptions, Turb nicely states the point that you are missing.
A company can, at any time, change any part of your compensation package.
Not true, there are aspects of it that are controlled by law. Minimum wage. Overtime pay rates. Pay discrimination due to race, religion, gender, age, pregnancy/childbirth, etc. Adjustments to your compensation due to bringing harassment charges. Charging an employee for a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. There are hell of rules around issuing stock options.
Plus, all kinds of state laws interfere with this. Apparently in Maryland it’s illegal to pay most employees less frequently than twice a month.
IANAL, but when Federal law has restrictions on when “a person” may or may not or must have a medical procedure (such as an abortion), I don’t think that a sane judge would have a problem with the idea that such laws ONLY apply to actual biological persons.
The intro to the Dictionary Act says that it only applies when context doesn’t guide the solution. I think that, in those cases (and in this case IMO), that is the rationale. Of course, the court has increased the number of contexts where ‘person’ can mean ‘corporation’ since then, but that’s just originalism at work.
Then you go on the dole, and become a natural constituent of the Democratic party, and cynical guy that I am, I think that is one of the reasons Democrats want a higher minimum wage.
Rational guy that I am, I look at the preponderance of evidence that minimum wage doesn’t significantly affect unemployment. You appear to be falling into that weird ideological fallacy where you believe that everyone else secretly thinks like you do and therefore any stated deviations from your ideological preferences are down to bad faith.
It would make more sense to assume that other people who profess to think differently that you are sincere in their beliefs. Plus, it makes for more interesting discussions when you don’t have to accuse everyone else of acting in bad faith.
When businesses provide health care to their employees, they get a tax break: in other words, the government is giving them something.
No, the government is foregoing taking something it could otherwise take. That is, unless you believe all wealth belongs to the government except for such wealth it magnanimously allows us to keep.
I’ve been and continue to be slammed. So, very quickly:
1. BC and morning after are the product of executive fiat, not the democratic process. In addition to being a known moral issue for a well defined segment of society and in addition to having 1st Amendment overtones, it is just the executive branch engaging in heavy handed cramming a policy it could never pass democratically down people’s throats.
2. This is all a run up to imposing abortion coverage.
3. Gov’t does not pay the private sector to provide insurance–it allows a deduction. As someone pointed out in a recent thread, paying a dollar to save 35% (the corporate rate) doesn’t make much sense. Gov’t also allows us to interest we pay on our homes (thank you, Gov’t!!), does that mean it gets a say in square footage, color schemes, whatever?).
4. It is ridiculous to impose the cost of maternity coverage on single males (whose policies do not respond if their GF gets pregnant–whoever thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken) or, in our case, two married adults, both of whom have been surgically fixed and are incapable of procreation. As for other medical tests (prostate, mammography), these are not specifically covered items. They fall within the general grant of whatever preventative testing coverage the policy allows. Some policies may specifically exclude specific treatments, but no policy is written that enumerates the finite things it will and will not cover.
5. If Hobby Lobby can restrict women’s access to certain contraceptives for religious reasons, is there any limit to the restrictions they could place on women’s health care? Could they refuse to provide HPV vaccine, because they sincerely believe it encourages sinful promiscuity? Could they refuse to pay for treatments for cervical cancer, which is normally caused by HPV, which is transmitted through sexual promiscuity? Could they insist that contraceptives be only accessible to married women? Could they insist that they only be accessible to married women with their husbands’ permission
Back when I had my own shop, I didn’t buy my employees groceries, yet they still had access to food. Go figure. Not insuring for BC, or abortion, isn’t denying access–it is declining to pay for something. If you want something that someone else won’t pay for, pay for it yourself. As for the straw people raised by the rest of Doc S’ series of questions that absolutely no one else is raising as conscientious exceptions to coverage, why don’t we cross these highly unlikely bridges when we come to them?
We are talking about three issues: BC, morning after and eventually abortion.
Nothing else is in issue re coverage, other than the stupidity and unfairness of sticking people with coverage they will never, ever need. But, that’s just a financing measure. Good thing that didn’t get mentioned during the debate on ACA–not likely it would have passed had there been that level of transparency.
2. This is all a run up to imposing abortion coverage.
And your evidence for this would be . . . ?
BC and morning after are the product of executive fiat, not the democratic process
wasn’t the Executive elected by the democratic process ?
part of being the (democratically-elected) President is managing rules and regulations. and, the people elected Obama, in part, to do that.
other than the stupidity and unfairness of sticking people with coverage they will never, ever need
i am compelled to pay school taxes, despite never having (and never planning to have) children.
why?
because educated children are good for current and future society.
so, presuming maternity care in general leads to healthier children and that healthier children do better in school, which is better for current and future society, sick children or healthy children ?
It is ridiculous to impose the cost of maternity coverage on single males
With respect, this just seems willfully dumb to me.
Any group insurance plan is going to include coverage that doesn’t apply to everyone in the plan. Period.
If you’re a man, you’re going to be covered for various OB/GYN procedures and for various forms of birth control.
If you’re a woman, you’re going to be covered for prostate and testicular cancer.
If you have no children, you are going to have coverage for pediatric medicine.
Because it’s not efficient to roll plans tailored to the particular details of each individual person in a group plan, and because that’s basically the way insurance works.
We all understand that you DO NOT WANT to contribute to the cost of abortions. Noted.
Most of the rest of your post I’m basically tired of arguing about.
But the whole “why does a man have to pay for birth control” thing is nutty.
The plan is what it is, you use what you need. That’s how insurance plans, especially group plans, work.
For the record, the Federal Employees Healthcare marketplace prohibits abortion coverage by any of the providers.
I know one couple who had to pay out of pocket to remove an early trimester fetus that was near death because her federal plan refused to pay for it, fearing the language in the law.
They’ve since had a beautiful son.
McKT, I am curious about the substance behind your insistence that all of this is prelude to mandating full abortion coverage in healthcare plans.
I’m a little steamed that I didn’t get the memo.
I’m curious as well to know if Hobby Lobby’s disallowal of chemical birth control coverage extends to menopausal women whose doctors prescribe birth control to regulate hormones, in some cases as disease prevention, in other cases to control the very real symptoms of menopause, though the tradeoffs between the two are unclear, or at least beyond my pay grade, which is below minimum wage.
These women may or not be still able to bear children.
It is ridiculous to impose the cost of maternity coverage on single males
In a group insurance plan, you are going to be covered for stuff you don’t use.
The plan is what it is, you use what you need.
That’s the way they work.
No, the government is foregoing taking something it could otherwise take. That is, unless you believe all wealth belongs to the government except for such wealth it magnanimously allows us to keep.
Do you honestly think that without government, your wealth would be remotely the same as it is now? The government makes it possible for people to have wealth. I really, really wish that all of you libertarians would try your luck in a part of the world where your wealth and privileges weren’t so solidly protected. I’m not saying “love it or leave it.” I’m saying that it would be possible for you to test out your theories, but you seem to very reluctant to do that.
Which is to say that we live in a large interconnected community where people share wealth under laws, rules and conditions which create great inequality. “Your” wealth is a result of these conditions.
I’m sure part of the reason for mandating coverage for items that individuals may not use is to broaden the insured base to lower costs for everyone.
Maybe one of the babies we don’t want aborted but for whose birth we don’t want to pay will end up pulling us from a burning wreck on the highway some day.
More likely they’ll grow up to run as Republicans and ask “why do I have to pay for this geezer’s retirement”, the little ingrates.
I no longer have any direct need for public schools, but here comes the property tax bill nevertheless.
Quite frankly, there are sidewalks all over town that I don’t use, but they build them and make me pay for anyhow.
I took a deep breathe this morning and filled my lungs with fairly clean air that I really don’t require, being completely satisfied with the dirtier variety we used to have, but do I have a choice of whether I pay for that clean air? No sirree.
I’m holding my breathe right now.
I’ll await the series of “shouldn’t”‘s from the other side.
Actually I don’t think the judicial standard is “beyond reasonable doubt”. My impression (impression only, IANAL) was that there was a lower standard of evidence for sincerity. It wasn’t discussed that much as it wasn’t contested in the injunction.
Well. Military judicial evidentary standards for findings most certainly are “beyond reasonable doubt”. To wit:
Uniform Code of Military Justice Article 51, para. (c):
However, yes, sincerity arises moreso in matters of admissibility of evidence (e.g., M.R.E. 311(g)(2)), and in those situations admissibility is held to the standard of preponderance of the evidence.
But again, these are judicial matters, where the formal Military Rules of Evidence apply. CO status is determined by an administrative board, and thus would be judged by the more forgiving “preponderance of the evidence” standard. It’s an imperfect system, but fairly fair, under the circumstances.
…”why do I have to pay for this geezer’s retirement”, …
A legitimate question with senior citizens being the wealthiest segment of the population.
Gov’t also allows us to interest we pay on our homes (thank you, Gov’t!!), does that mean it gets a say in square footage, color schemes, whatever?).
Regarding whatever, yes. There are certain conditions that apply to the deduction – what counts as deductible interest on the right kind of debt, secured by your home, and what counts as such a home. Having a say in square footage or color scemes would be more analogous to the ACA, as interpreted by HHS, determining which specific medical practice could perform a given procedure or which pharmacy could provide a particular drug – which it doesn’t do.
How many businesses with group health plans tailor each employee’s coverage to that employee’s current circumstances? Do you really think the ACA is novel in this regard?
No, the government is foregoing taking something it could otherwise take. That is, unless you believe all wealth belongs to the government except for such wealth it magnanimously allows us to keep.
I think it would be more forthright to say “that it is legally owed”, as the government could honestly take everything I own, to include my life, without noticeably inconveniencing itself. It would not have a right to take very much of that at all, though, as I owe it very little, legally speaking. Baring an applicable legal deduction, the government would, however, be owed the taxes it’s letting aforementioned corporation write off.
NomVide:
“Well. Military judicial evidentary standards for findings most certainly are “beyond reasonable doubt”. To wit:”
I’m beginning to suspect you are far more educated on this than I am, so a follow up question.
You’ve cited the evidence standards for court marshal. Is that consistent across all forms of military law?
Frex, civil cases are decided on the preponderance of evidence (I think, or at least that’s what I was told as a juror) not on “beyond reasonable doubt”
Isn’t the sincerity determination in the objector regs more to the preponderance standard?
Or maybe that’s what your saying? I’m not quite following.
If so…I think we may be saying similar things…just that I’m not good at saying it in legally specific ways.
If I misspell “breath” as “breathe”, is there a loophole about paying those EPA bills?
I’m planning on having my heirs (disappointed as he might be) suing my insurance company for huge premium refunds after I croak from natural causes because I plan NOT getting cancer, which I’m paying every month to get, in all of its forms.
I’m paying for it, dagnabbit!. When do I get the product? I put good money on the barrel head for chemotherapy, radiation, transfusions, and the lot, but when I inquire about when I might receive these products, I’m continually put off with lame excuses about “your time might come” or “maybe you won’t need these services.”
Then why do they need my money?
Healthcare, as a product, is just like all other products, isn’t it, governed by the immutable by-laws of business, right? If I order a car from the factory, do I have to wait the rest of my life to have it delivered, if ever, while other people drive around like there’s no tomorrow, even though my demand and money have helped lower the cost basis for cars for everyone?
I’d like to see the color schemes in McKT’s home before I judgement on the need for regulatory intervention.
Plaid ceilings are a non-starter, let’s just know that upfront.
Meta du jour: Reading some of the back and forth here, you’d think there was no problem needing to be solved regarding access to and the costs of health care in this country. Maybe the solution we’re now attempting is far from ideal, but you’d also think it was just an excuse for, I don’t know, Obama, I guess, to mess with people. If only he had a moustache to twist.
3. Gov’t does not pay the private sector to provide insurance–it allows a deduction. As someone pointed out in a recent thread, paying a dollar to save 35% (the corporate rate) doesn’t make much sense. Gov’t also allows us to interest we pay on our homes (thank you, Gov’t!!), does that mean it gets a say in square footage, color schemes, whatever?).
Kinda (pedantically) parroting hsh, but if the government passed a law making mortgage interest deductions claimable only by those meeting the square footage, color schemes, whatever specified therein (or specified TBD by an executive agency), then, um, yeah. The government is offering an incentive to behave in a certain way. Of course it’s going to want the behavior to follow what it determines it should be, and it’ll either specify that in the law, or give up that discretion to an agency, possibly with stipulations. But in either case, if you want the incentive, the government is within its rights to require criteria be met, so long as your rights are not violated by how it does so. In this case it still amounts to the government reducing corporate debt in exchange for offering a certain standard of health insurance to their employees. It’s very much intended as a tit-for-tat matter, so vehement protestations that they’re not paying corporations to provide health insurance are hardly warranted. De jure, de facto, etc.
…”why do I have to pay for this geezer’s retirement”, …
A legitimate question with senior citizens being the wealthiest segment of the population.
Yes, for some retirees that would be a legitimate question if we had a legitimate political system.
I know this trick.
Means-test the wealthy, while still collecting their SS and Medicare payments, and pretty soon Barbara Streisand is joining the Koch Brothers and changing her affiliation to Republican so that Steve Stockman can catch her ear with soft cooings of “Hey, why should you be paying for all of the other geezers’ retirement, and I mean all!
I may have been born a whole lot of yesterdays ago, but I haven’t fallen off the turnip truck yet.
it was just an excuse for, I don’t know, Obama, I guess, to mess with people
odious ODS exists.
“If only he had a moustache to twist.”
Unfortunately, the moustache penciled in on Tea party placards is of the non-twistable Hitler variety.
Which is why the President has resorted to goosestepping and mad gesturing in his speeches.
Sometimes it’s a Stalin ‘stache’ on account of the similarities between starvation in the Ukraine and Americans receiving barely affordable health insurance.
you’d think there was no problem needing to be solved regarding access to and the costs of health care in this country.
I blame short-term memory loss. There’s a lot of it going around.
Plaid ceilings are a non-starter, let’s just know that upfront.
C’mon man, take a walk on the wild side.
Another possible parallel to the requirements for what kinds of insurance coverage must be offered. The Federal government does not mandate seatbelts in all cars. What it does do is require that, if a state wants Federal highway funds, the state must require them. And, of course, all state have duely done so.
Is requiring that health insurance coverage provided by a business be of a particular type, in order to qualify for a tax deduction, any different? If so, how?
wasn’t the Executive elected by the democratic process ?
I forgot. So, we have an Imperial Executive. Good thing he didn’t run on that platform.
You’re still missing the point, or just being obtuse.
Do you really think we elect our presidents to make laws that bypass congress? How do you feel about going to war?
McKT, I am curious about the substance behind your insistence that all of this is prelude to mandating full abortion coverage in healthcare plans.
I’m a little steamed that I didn’t get the memo.
I’m curious as well to know if Hobby Lobby’s disallowal of chemical birth control coverage extends to menopausal women whose doctors prescribe birth control to regulate hormones, in some cases as disease prevention, in other cases to control the very real symptoms of menopause, though the tradeoffs between the two are unclear, or at least beyond my pay grade, which is below minimum wage.
These women may or not be still able to bear children.
Count, no one on Team Obama is saying one way or the other, but if BC and morning after were the end of the story and if abortion wasn’t on the undisclosed horizon, then the easy and smart thing to do would be to pre-empt: to tell everyone, mainly Catholics, that no-way, no-how is abortion ever going to be on the table. No one is doing that. Ergo, the reasonable inference is that once this current round survives judicial scrutiny and once the dust settles, abortion is next.
As for therapeutic use of BC and other meds, I don’t know what the answer is. If it was me, and IF I wasn’t highly confidant that this is all a prelude to my having to indirectly underwrite abortion, I wouldn’t give any more of a damn about being on the hook for BC than I am for being the hook for anything.
If anything, my concern with the Hobby Lobby is that complaining about BC is pretty small beer and hard to make much of a case for on 1st Amendment grounds. Abortion, to me, is qualitatively different.
A fair compromise for all of this–but compromise is not on the table–is to allow coverage for everything including abortion, but put abortion/BC/morning after in a separate coverage grant, and let employers opt out of that coverage grant if they wish. That is the present status of health insurance; it would eliminate debates like this; and it would solve Doc S’ fears that if they come for BC, they will come for every aspect of women’s health. Policies should also provide for coverage for BC/abortion if independently necessary for the life or health of the patient–this would solve the therapeutic issue.
But, we won’t see this. It’s too easy.
In a group insurance plan, you are going to be covered for stuff you don’t use.
Two things. First, not so. Under a group policy, there are different rates based on sex, marital status and dependents–I know this from having bought group policies as recently as last year. Second, single policyholder policies now impose maternity coverage on each and every insured. You cannot opt out and pay less. Some people might want that choice. When it comes to ‘choice’ progressives can be highly selective.
As for the straw people raised by the rest of Doc S’ series of questions that absolutely no one else is raising as conscientious exceptions to coverage, why don’t we cross these highly unlikely bridges when we come to them?
We are talking about three issues: BC, morning after and eventually abortion.
Hilarious lack of self-awareness here.
BC and morning after are the product of executive fiat, not the democratic process.
Also, not for nothing, but I am getting a whiff of “liberals want to rule my life” off of this comment.
Does Congress have to rule on every detail of every law and policy at the federal level?
Does the executive have any responsibility or discretion here?
And just for the record, are you under the impression that executive rulings which meet with widespread objection are somehow uniquely “liberal” phenomena?
You can’t always get what you want, McK.
Under a group policy, there are different rates based on sex, marital status and dependents–I know this from having bought group policies as recently as last year.
What do you mean by this? Because I don’t see how this necessarily means that people don’t get coverage they won’t use or might not need under a group plan. It sounds like the cost of the group plan might change given what people are likely to need, but that’s not the same thing.
Or maybe that’s what your saying? I’m not quite following.
If so…I think we may be saying similar things…just that I’m not good at saying it in legally specific ways.
Yeah, that was what I was saying in the last paragraph, or at least trying to say. The rest was me waxing pedantic. Alas.
Actual findings of innocence or guilt in courts-martial are held to the standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
Admissibility of evidence is generally held to the standard of preponderance of the evidence. There are exceptions, but I cannot think of an example where the bar is raised to the disadvantage of an accused. This is the context where most judgements of sincerity will occur within judicial contexts (barring of course the overall judgement of whether that “Not Guilty” was sincere).
Administrative boards are not governed by the formal Military Rules of Evidence. Their evidentary standard is preponderance of the evidence. Determination of CO status is an administrative matter, not a judicial one. Thus, an alleged CO’s sincerity would indeed be determined according to preponderance of the evidence.
I realize I’m still being terribly pedantic, but hopefully I’m at least being clearer. A slim hope, but a hope none-the-less. In retrospect, I regret my late-night absolutism – I didn’t mean to disagree with you, I was just inclined to be carefully precise about how easy it is(n’t) to prove mental states. And by precise, I mostly mean “obtusely verbose”.
“Gov’t does not pay the private sector to provide insurance–it allows a deduction.”
Giving a deduction reduces government revenue and increases the amount of money a business gets to keep. If you want to die on the hill of insisting that a deduction is not a payment because you’re merely keeping your own money, go ahead, but it doesn’t make a difference to this debate. If your salary is 100k and you get a 3% deduction for something, that is essentially the same damn thing as not getting the deduction and having Obama show up at your house with $3,000.
“As someone pointed out in a recent thread, paying a dollar to save 35% (the corporate rate) doesn’t make much sense.”
You are completely wrong (didn’t it occur to you that if it made no sense, no business would be doing it?) Here is why you are wrong:
Like salaries, health insurance premia are deductible by employers as a cost of providing compensation. However, employees are not required to include their health insurance as part of income. This arrangement means an employer can effectively pay its employees in a way (health insurance) that lets employees avoid some taxation. So every dollar an employer pays employees in health insurance goes slightly further than every cash dollar it pays, because cash dollars are taxed and the health insurance isn’t.
Here’s an illustration.
Andrea is an employer. The tax rate is 25%. Andrea has employees Beth and Carl. Beth and Carl both want to be paid $1 salary and they are (ignoring tax consequences for the moment) indifferent as to whether the $1 comes in the form of health insurance or cash.
Andrea decides to pay Beth $1 in health insurance. Beth is content, because Beth got her dollar, and Andrea saves $.25 due to deducting Beth’s salary.
Andrea pays Carl $1 cash. Andrea still gets to save $.25 due to her deduction; Carl, however, is unhappy, because he gets to keep only $.75, and quits. Paying Carl in cash is penalized, and to keep Carl while still paying him in cash, Andrea would have to pay Carl $1.333…
This is why companies like to make their compensation include health insurance. It is also why many companies that pay close to minimum wage DO NOT pay in health insurance: health insurance is not counter toward meeting minimum wage requirements.
Count:
“disallowal of chemical birth control coverage extends to menopausal women whose doctors prescribe birth control to regulate hormones”
My understanding (not a doctor or a lawyer) that of the two chemical BCs under discussion (Plan B and Ella), the active ingredient of Plan B is used as one component of some hormone replacements and Ella has some other medical use which is escaping me at the moment. Here is where I’m getting legally fuzzy, but I don’t think not covering them as contraception would mean they aren’t covered for other uses. Especially in the case of Plan B, where it’s an entirely different preparation. I could be wrong.
Not trying to argue there, just trying to add discussion.
Sapiant:
“Do you honestly think that without government, your wealth would be remotely the same as it is now? The government makes it possible for people to have wealth. I really, really wish that all of you libertarians would try your luck in a part of the world where your wealth and privileges weren’t so solidly protected.”
Sapient, I make 40K a year. Which is more than many, and I’m grateful for my fortune in life, but I wouldn’t describe it as “wealth” by US standards. And no, I don’t think I’d be way richer if I bought an AK and moved to Somalia, or anywhere else the government has little impact on peoples lives. And I’m not planning on it, regardless of your wishes.
In return, I wish that I could register disagreement over what I fully admit is a democratically passed law and the ensuing executive regulations without being told to leave.
I like to think we can disagree on the scope and method of government in our lives without tearing it all down.
We’re both here, in the US, and we’re going to have to sort out some system to resolve our differences. Fortunately, our current system is pretty good at that.
You’re going to have to deal with me and people like me on the soapbox, at the ballot box, and in the jury box. And I’ll have to deal with you and people like you. And both of us will have to deal with people neither of us agree with.
Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
NomVide:
“I realize I’m still being terribly pedantic, but hopefully I’m at least being clearer. ”
No, you are being clearer and I appreciate you taking the time.
Do you really think we elect our presidents to make laws that bypass congress?
when did Obama “make” a law?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0
the executive is free to implement rules that Congress has decreed it shall make. nothing “Imperial” about it.
Under a group policy, there are different rates based on sex, marital status and dependents–I know this from having bought group policies as recently as last year.
Not mine. I think I get a choice of “single” and “family”. Nothing based on gender or age.
I’m completely covered for any maternity services I should ever require.
Could be you got more flexibility because you were running a pretty small shop, or maybe you paid extra for the flexibility.
It’s not the norm.
HL is about 550 stores and about 21,000 employees. They’re not likely to get roll-your-own coverage on an employee-by-employee basis.
wj:
“Is requiring that health insurance coverage provided by a business be of a particular type, in order to qualify for a tax deduction, any different? If so, how?”
It depends on what you mean by different. Putting aside the RFRA for the moment.
If you mean they both are things the gov can ask/insist of corps. Yeah, I agree.
But where I draw the line is: clearly the gov can use tax policy to compel behavior X, so we should use tax policy to compel behavior Y.
Not saying that’s your argument, but for me that’s the difference. X and Y aren’t the same, and we are free to evaluate them differently. I might think sidewalks across town are useless but very much care about clear air (thanks Count!). Or vice versa.
The ACA is a passed law, and the regs HHS wrote are under the authority of the law.
I don’t have to like the law or the ensuing regs, however. I just have to follow them or, if I feel they conflict with other laws to my detriment, challenge them in court.
No, the government is foregoing taking something it could otherwise take. That is, unless you believe all wealth belongs to the government except for such wealth it magnanimously allows us to keep.
What I believe is that it’s the fundamentally the same thing whether the government gives a tax break or taxes the money and then gives it back as spending.
Pretending that tax breaks aren’t effectively spending is a way of laundering some ‘spending’ so that it doesn’t have the appearance of a government giveaway. eg, if the government wrote big checks to everyone depending on the size of their mortgages, that’d be transparently weird and regressive. Even weirder and more regressive if you only qualify for the mortgage bonus check when you already make a lot of money.
Now, there are cases where using targeted tax breaks makes sense, Im not suggesting that we flush them down the toilet. Just flush the idea that targeted tax breaks are somehow more virtuous than other forms of spending, from a budgetary perspective.
This is all a run up to imposing abortion coverage….
Count, no one on Team Obama is saying one way or the other, but if BC and morning after were the end of the story and if abortion wasn’t on the undisclosed horizon, then the easy and smart thing to do would be to pre-empt: to tell everyone, mainly Catholics, that no-way, no-how is abortion ever going to be on the table. No one is doing that. Ergo, the reasonable inference is that once this current round survives judicial scrutiny and once the dust settles, abortion is next.
Also, they haven’t disavowed mandatory organ harvesting on people who don’t sign personal loyalty oaths to the Obama dynasty, so by your reasoning that is also clearly on the horizon.
And you, sir, have not disavowed the idea that you’re building up relationships here on ObWi in order to later sell us Mary Kay cosmetics; you could disavow this doomsday scenario at any time but you’ve failed to do so. J’accuse via reasonable inference!
Another thing I find interesting is that HL could not provide any insurance and be taxed an additional $26m or they could provide most of the required insurance (except for the 4 methods they are contesting) and be taxed over $400m.
I’d have structured it differently…you want to provide most of the coverage? Ok, your tax penalty will be $1m instead of $26m.
Or even, yeah, no, that plan doesn’t qualify, so you’re still going to take the full $26m hit.
The dramatically increasing penalty for going partway just seems silly.
actually, my wife needs some lip gloss, so if somebody’s selling….
But why wouldn’t they pre-empt the challenge to the thing they have no plan on doing? It would be smart and easy!
More seriously, pre-empt what? I don’t follow.
sorry, russell, i think my wife bought it all.
McT,
It is ridiculous to impose the cost of maternity coverage on single males (whose policies do not respond if their GF gets pregnant–whoever thinks otherwise is sorely mistaken)
I do not think otherwise.
What I think is that if a single male’s insurance policy covers maternity care then his premiums will be somewhat higher than if it did not. Or, to put it another way, the premiums needed to cover the insurer’s total outlay for maternity benefits, along with associated administrative costs and profits, is divided among a large group which includes single males rather than a smaller group which includes only females.
Hence the premium is smaller than it would otherwise be, and the pregnant woman, whose costs are covered by insurance, has paid less, and the father more, to the insurance company, which is paying the bills. Of course this is imperfect, since there will be copays and the like. But the critical point is that you pay the costs of maternity, or most of them, when you pay for insurance, not when the insurer starts picking up tabs.
I also think, by the way, that if in fact the father is not responsible for part of the bills, and cannot insure against them, then that is a flaw in our system.
Carleton:
“Pretending that tax breaks aren’t effectively spending is a way of laundering some ‘spending’ so that it doesn’t have the appearance of a government giveaway.”
Yes! 100 times yes! I quoted only part of the post but I agree with all of it.
I think this is something that’s often missing in the public forum. A discussion of “tax expenditures”.
Although, a side note on the current discussion maybe.
Obviously. After all, a bottle of Tylenol is worth less than a real insurance plan, no?
As for the business about the tax breaks: I disagree with your logic. I also disagree with this whole tit-for-tat business with tax breaks, in that it tends to hide some of the cost of insurance.
All of this is somewhat an aside from the main point, which is that not all kinds of compensation are alike. Some kinds of compensation come with strings attached that lead back to the government. Like stock options. Not saying that is anything like insurance, just that a) insurance is not like wages, and b) strings attached to what you can do with compensation is not some shocking new violation of personal freedoms.
b) strings attached to what you can do with compensation is not some shocking new violation of personal freedoms.
But, quoted by sapient upthread:
I think the point isn’t that any and all strings that might be attached to some form of compensation are objectionable, rather that there are good reasons not to allow some strings to be attached.
There are strings, and there are strings, and never the ‘tween shall meet.
Here is where I’m getting legally fuzzy, but I don’t think not covering them as contraception would mean they aren’t covered for other uses. Especially in the case of Plan B, where it’s an entirely different preparation. I could be wrong.
We don’t have to speculate. This issue is exactly what Sandra Fluke was testifying about when conservatives went completely batshit insane about her. She very specifically said that her Catholic law school had a “conscience” clause that prohibited birth control but had special exemptions for non-contraceptive uses of birth control. In practice, the school didn’t respect these exemptions. She spoke about her friend who had a serious medical condition that could have easily been treated with birth control but could not get it because the school plan refused to provide it and the school was unwilling to respect their own exemption policy.
Moreover, abortion inducing drugs like Mifepristone have significant non-abortion uses. For example, women who miscarry but don’t immediately expel the dead foetus are often prescribed Mifepristone to force the expulsion since many women find that less traumatic than getting a D&C or spending days or weeks carrying a dead thing inside them waiting for it to naturally expel. Of course, we should force women to endure that in order to satisfy the “conscience” of random corporations.
thompson: But where I draw the line is: clearly the gov can use tax policy to compel behavior X, so we should use tax policy to compel behavior Y.
I think that we have two different questions here. The first, which is what I was trying to address, is whether the government could, validly, compel someone to do something via tax policy etc. There have been those (not you, that I recall 😉 who have been arguing that in saying that health insurance plans must include BC the government is doing something novel and wrong. Which I don’t see. But those who think that the government should not, in general, be able to do this are not going to win that argument here, and so suggesting that their option is to find somewhere else, where the government does not do such things, is not out of line. (Although the phrasing may leave a lot to be desired in some cases.)
The second is whether the government should be taking this particular stand. That’s an argument on the merits, which everyone is certainly free to make. I doubt anyone here is going to be persuaded one way or the other, but you should be able to make it without being told to leave.
I would say the “if you don’t like it leave” suggestion ought not to be made to someone who merely happens to disagree with some policy decision or another. On the other hand, if someone objects to the entire concept of the government doing anything (or, at least, doing anything that he disagrees with and he disagrees with the bulk of what government is doing here), then he might as well go. At least, there is nothing wrong with pointing out those places which have governments which do not do all the things he dislikes. CF the strong libertarians getting pointed to Somalia — that being one of the few places where their perferred level of government interference is on offer.
And I see you are charitably refraining from being even more insulting. Good for you!
Slarti: I also disagree with this whole tit-for-tat business with tax breaks, in that it tends to hide some of the cost of insurance.
Wholeheartedly agree. It is simply bad governance. But that, after all, is the whole purpose of tax breaks — to obscure the costs of doing things. So we are unlikely to get the Congress to stop any time soon.
I just want to hear a good argument for why birth control and contraception aren’t preventative medicine, or how making them more accessible won’t reduce the overall costs of health care.
I’d also like to hear one about why we shouldn’t be enlarging risk pools.
You’d think health economists and insurance companies had no input here, or at least that whatever input they did have was somehow wrong-headed – even within the context of what may have already been wrong-headed political constraints.
As for the business about the tax breaks: I disagree with your logic.
Which part? And why?
It seems like we all agree that if you’re going to take advantage of a government tax deduction, the government gets to decide what qualifies. So I can’t take out a loan and buy a car and then try to apply the home mortgage tax deduction to my car loan. Surely we all agree on that point? So why exactly is health insurance different?
I also disagree with this whole tit-for-tat business with tax breaks, in that it tends to hide some of the cost of insurance.
Sure. I also agree that things probably shouldn’t be financed through the tax code. But the reality is that the ACA is the best option for changing that. The ACA slowly erodes the relationship between employment and health insurance. All other plans that do more to erode that relationship are political suicide.
I also think that on balance the ACA has made the cost of insurance much more transparent than it used to be. Now when I buy insurance, I know it will actually cover me even if I get sick, rather than having to hope the insurance company behaves decently.
Yes, but in one case you are being given something, but are being constrained in how you use it, while in the other the nature of what you are given is being changed.
Let’s take stock options as a point of comparison. Stock options are constrained as to how they are exercised. That constraint is dictated by the government. Insurance, on the other hand, has until now (or now plus some small number epsilon, depending on your current coverage) been constrained as to form by the employer.
So: some kinds of strings good and others bad seems kind of declaration borne of convenience, depending on whose ox is being gored.
But that, after all, is the whole purpose of tax breaks — to obscure the costs of doing things.
I think they’re appropriate sometimes; it we want to encourage eg certain kinds of businesses, but we also want to make sure these are legitimate profit-seeking entities rather than attempts to cash in on a government handout, forcing them to ‘get their handout’ as a deduction makes sense. Easier I imagine than having them fill out 14 oodles of paperwork demonstrating that they’re sincere.
At least, that’s my first thought, I havent considered this very much.
McTex,
BC and morning after are the product of executive fiat, not the democratic process.
But the ACA [1302(b)] says
(b) Essential Health Benefits.–
(1) In general.–Subject to paragraph (2), the Secretary
shall define the essential health benefits…
cite
I was going to write something snarky, but now Im thinking that that’s really not necessary here. Sometimes the riposte leaves enough of a mark on its own, don’t you agree?
@McKinneyTexas
Can you explain why it makes sense to include BC and maternity benefits in a single male’s coverage? Other than “because the gov’t says so”?
Herp-derp! And they have braille on drive-up ATMs! What’s with that? That proves they’re all idiots or something!
Jesus, this particular piece of stupidity will not die.
Maternity benefits are _not_ included in the health insurance of men in any meaningful sense.
Why? Because _health insurance covers actual medical issues_. To be an actual medical issue, it has to _actually exist_.
As men cannot become pregnant(1), they are not, in fact, ‘covered’ for becoming pregnant. (IIRC, men _can_, incredibly rarely, be prescribed specific female birth control pills, so I’m unsure why anyone would think that isn’t _already_ covered.)
As for why it’s in their policy…why *wouldn’t* it be? It has no effect whatsoever either way. The Obama administration said ‘you can’t charge men and women differently’, and hence there’s no reason they should not have identical health insurance policies.
Making two _different_ policies, when they actually cannot discriminate, makes no sense. Write one, makes sure it covers everything. The only reason there _were_ different policies is that insurance companies actively discriminated with higher prices for women, which they justified by having different policies.(2)
Despite what you think, it would probably be perfectly fine for insurance companies, even under the ACA, to sell men insurance that does not cover maternity care. Because they would never actually _deny_ maternity care, they’d be fine. (Although see footnote #1) It just makes no literally no sense for them to _write_ that policy, instead of just writing a more generic one that covers men and women.
Which is, incidentally, exactly the reason there’s braille on drive-up ATMs…because they only make one fricking front panel of the ATM which is used in all circumstances, and it actually costs more to design another panel that leaves off the braille.
1) Barring that weird and fairly unique instance of a female-to-male transsexual who had already legally changed his gender to male, but became pregnant. While that’s not likely to happen that often, if that had happened under the new laws which require maternity costs are covered the insurance company would would be asking for a lawsuit.
2) The different covered things were not actually the difference in price. Women just cost more in general. Offering women different plans was just a way to disguise that.
I’m all for allowing for-profit corporations religions exceptions to the law under the RFPA.
They should be allowed to do so simply by swearing, under oath, about their religious belief.
Of course, as the RFPA clearly says, the free exercise of religion is an _unalienable_ right. unalienable: Not to be separated, given away, or taken away; inalienable
I.e., that right cannot be separated from the entity. Other people cannot claim to have that right on _behalf_ of the entity.
So no one who is not ‘the corporation’ shall be allowed to testify on behalf of the corporation. Not their lawyers, not their owners. No, the corporation _itself_ must show up and testify, so we can judge what is actually in the _corporation’s_ mind.
What’s that you say? Corporations do not have bodies? They do not have minds? They cannot show up in court to testify?
Well, sucks to be them, doesn’t it?
It is simply bad governance. But that, after all, is the whole purpose of tax breaks — to obscure the costs of doing things.
The purpose is to reward some constituencies who have asked for a preference of some kind. The pitch is that the social benefit will exceed the cost. This does not strike me as “obscuring costs”.
Politics is about splitting up the economic pie. Some argue that this should be magically “left to the market” and overlook how deeply markets (and market outcomes) are shaped and/or constrained by politics (i.e., government).
bobby, yes it is about rewarding some constituencies. But the fact that doing so via a tax break makes it hard to see exactly how big the reward is, i.e. what it costs the rest of the tax-payers — that is a feature, not a bug.
My personal theory is more along the lines of: that’s a nice tax break you have there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. Maybe you should contribute to my PAC, so’s I can see about protecting it?
I’d really prefer it if you contributed to my Leadership PAC, which is specifically geared to my more effectively demonstrating leadership in protecting your tax break.
Slarti,
Before rudely condemning your cryptic posts about stock options and reasonable coverage of health care plans, I would appreciate a bit more explanation of what you are getting at. I’m not understanding the stock option part…is it about how the treatment they get as income? The basis on how they are awarded? Tax deferral? When they can be exercised? What government constraints are you referring to?
But I would agree about oxen getting gored…that’s what politics does.
wj:
“There have been those (not you, that I recall 😉 who have been arguing that in saying that health insurance plans must include BC the government is doing something novel and wrong.”
Unless I very much misunderstand what your saying…you recall incorrectly. I’ve said I believe that HL should have standing under RFRA and been very open with that not being an inescapable conclusion. I haven’t accused the gov of doing anything outrageous or even acting outside the scope of the powers granted to the executive in the ACA.
I’ve also argued that mandating these particular 4 methods be covered by HL is not a compelling interest of the state.
“But those who think that the government should not, in general, be able to do this”
I’ve not made that argument, I didn’t see anybody making that argument (not saying they didn’t, there’s been a lot of comments I’ve missed), and if they did I would disagree.
“(Although the phrasing may leave a lot to be desired in some cases.)”
Yeah, and I’m not trying to pick on you. I think we say similar problems and I was bringing up the issue because I thought people were talking past each other.
The can and should are two separate and complex issues. Comments re: can were frequently answered with comments about should and vice versa.
“On the other hand, if someone objects to the entire concept of the government doing anything (or, at least, doing anything that he disagrees with and he disagrees with the bulk of what government is doing here), then he might as well go.”
Sure, ok, but bringing it up, or similar comments, in a discussion that DOESN’T involve professions of anarchy seems like it might be bringing more heat than light.
“Wholeheartedly agree. It is simply bad governance. But that, after all, is the whole purpose of tax breaks — to obscure the costs of doing things. So we are unlikely to get the Congress to stop any time soon.”
Nothing to add other than agree.
wj:
SO SORRY. Completely misread “not you, that I recall” as “including you, that I recall”!
Other than that, I pretty much agree with the post.
Sorry about that!
“My personal theory is more along the lines of: that’s a nice tax break you have there. It’d be a shame if anything happened to it. Maybe you should contribute to my PAC, so’s I can see about protecting it?”
Those theories are not at all inconsistent. My theory? Both are true, with a little bit of actual good governance mixed in. A very little bit.
Ugh, my 4:52 is a mess of misspellings and misunderstandings. Probably better for all to ignore it. Sorry.
that, after all, is the whole purpose of tax breaks — to obscure the costs of doing things.
This seems like an overstatement, to me.
My impression (perhaps naive) has always been that tax breaks are often used to encourage desirable behavior.
Which you may or may not see as a good thing, or appropriate for the government to be doing, but it’s not really the same thing as obscuring costs, deliberately or otherwise.
For example, what cost does a charitable deduction obscure?
You’re correct, russell. It was definitely an overstatement. Not wrong in far too many cases, but still an overstatement.
With that example, I was simply trying to point out that there are in fact constraints placed on compensation that dictate what can be done with them after that compensation has changed hands.
Because there seemed to be concerns about the employer dictating what the employee could do with compensation in the form of insurance. Which isn’t what was being proposed, so: confusion.
Call it fodder for discussion, rather than any kind of imagined, telling, point.
The cost to the taxpayer of encouraging people to give to charities, is my answer.
And now I suspect myself of having argued my way full circle around the tax-deduction question. Over a period of years, I mean; not over the course of this thread.
You’re going to have to deal with me and people like me on the soapbox, at the ballot box, and in the jury box. And I’ll have to deal with you and people like you. And both of us will have to deal with people neither of us agree with.
Not only did you misunderstand my point, but you also failed to notice that I was responding to a particular philosophical point addressed by Charles WT.
I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t interested in exchanging views. You seem to identify as a “libertarian,” but despite all of your many comments, I’m not sure why you object to a health care system that requires everyone to chip in, and in return yields a more equitable health care system (where taxpayers aren’t asked to pay for overpriced emergency room care for the uninsured).
It’s interesting to me that the people who objected to universal health care in the first place are the same ones having a hissy fit over contraceptive coverage. I’ve lost track of whether you fall into that category, thompson.
I will say that people who accuse “government” of interfering with their ability to accumulate wealth, without recognizing the role that government plays in creating the conditions for wealth in the first place, are seriously missing something.
With that example, I was simply trying to point out that there are in fact constraints placed on compensation that dictate what can be done with them after that compensation has changed hands.
Well, I first raised them in response to
A company can, at any time, change any part of your compensation package.
Where the point was that the government does, in fact, have considerable control over what changes can be made to compensation already. So it’s not a legal novelty that they might add another requirement.
I think you’re now using it to argue that *employees* can expect some strings on their compensation, and that whether they’re in the hands of government or business isn’t important. Is that correct?
[I actually can’t offhand think of any post-facto control that corps have over benefits; even those exercised through the corp (eg blackout periods) are derived from government regulation].
Which makes me wonder (in light of the Amish opt-out for Social Security) whether HL supporters think employers could opt out of *other* current legal requirements. Could a Satanist refuse to provide ADA accommodations on the grounds that helping the weak is against their religion? Could a Christian Identity believer discriminate against nonwhites in hiring?
thompson- this goes back to my concern about judging ‘sincerity’; Im just about certain that neither of those would be permitted even if Hobby Lobby wins. Either because majority religious beliefs will be considered ‘more sincere’ or because the state’s need will conveniently become more ‘compelling’ when used against a religious minority.
“This seems like an overstatement, to me. My impression (perhaps naive) has always been that tax breaks are often used to encourage desirable behavior.”
It’s probably a little overstated, but I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. Some things can be both to encourage good behavior and also obscure the cost of doing so.
Tax expenditures can be a useful tool, but since many of the budget debates in DC and around the country are cast in terms of how much we spend vs. how much we take in, and tax expenditures are typically rolled into the equation as a loss on what we take in, this can obscure the cost of encouraging desirable behavior.
For example, charitable giving is a noble goal, and the government decided to fund it. But instead of allocating funds, they instead decide to take a hit in revenue.
Really, this shouldn’t make a difference, except at passing glance, spending isn’t increased but our revenues are down. DC gets to look fiscally responsible (“no new spending!”). It’s not something that holds up to scrutiny, but sadly much of the public debate doesn’t involve scrutiny.
I’m not saying its without value, frex It’s probably a convenient way to do the accounting for both sides…it’s way easier to fill in a number on your 1040 then it is to sign an affidavit or what have you and get the government to mail you a check.
However, as the CBO blog (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/42919) says:
“But because they are not readily identifiable in the budget and are generally not subject to annual reauthorization, tax expenditures are much less transparent than spending on entitlement programs.”
“Not only did you misunderstand my point,”
Sorry, sapiant, I understand that its frustrating to have your point misunderstood. Maybe you could clarify it? It was that taxes (or other revenue generation for the state) is an integral part of having a functioning state, I’d agree.
“but you also failed to notice that I was responding to a particular philosophical point addressed by Charles WT. ”
I noticed you quoted him. But you said “you libertarians”. Unless Charles is actually several people, it seems your comment was aimed at more than just him.
But even if you weren’t aiming at me and just at Charles: I’ve haven’t gotten the impression that Charles was advocating for an anarchy…I was under the impression he didn’t like the way tax law was being discussed. I think wishing him to leave was unwarranted.
“I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t interested in exchanging views.”
I know! That’s what I’m saying! I’m just thought your comment was not indicative of that, and quite possibly indicted something else entirely.
“but despite all of your many comments, I’m not sure why you object to a health care system that requires everyone to chip in”
I made many comments about that on a different thread. My recollection was that you said you were uninterested in another rehashing of the ACA.
Which is fair.
But if you’re curious about my views on it, I’d suggest starting there.
“having a hissy fit over contraceptive coverage. I’ve lost track of whether you fall into that category, thompson.”
I like to think I’m not having a hissy fit. If your point is that there is a purely politically motivated drive backing HL…I’d agree it’s likely. That doesn’t mean that HL and all of its supporters are insincere. Any case against any facet of such a controversial law is going to have pundits climbing out of the woodwork.
“I will say that people who accuse “government” of interfering with their ability to accumulate wealth, without recognizing the role that government plays in creating the conditions for wealth in the first place, are seriously missing something.”
What Charles said: “No, the government is foregoing taking something it could otherwise take. That is, unless you believe all wealth belongs to the government except for such wealth it magnanimously allows us to keep.”
You replied, in part: “Do you honestly think that without government, your wealth would be remotely the same as it is now?”
I’m really unclear how you got there from his statement (which, I also think was a little snarky). If I had to interpret his views, I’d say he was going for people own their wealth, and he objects to the characterization of the government taking less of the wealth as “giving”.
Not that he would have equivalent wealth if the government was not present, or that the government isn’t a factor in the environment that allows him to keep and accumulate wealth.
But I’m not him, and he wouldn’t be the first person I’ve misunderstood.
Carleton:
“thompson- this goes back to my concern about judging ‘sincerity’; Im just about certain that neither of those would be permitted even if Hobby Lobby wins. ”
I think you’re probably right. Minority positions are always going to be at risk of disenfranchisement. I’m just not sure of a better way of protecting them than our courts.
Call it fodder for discussion, rather than any kind of imagined, telling, point.
OK to leave it at that, but I’m still a bit confused about it…I find that happens more often now that I’m north of 60. Hopefully Medicare covers this and nobody expresses a deep conscientious objection.
If your point is that there is a purely politically motivated drive backing HL…I’d agree it’s likely. That doesn’t mean that HL and all of its supporters are insincere.
I would certainly doubt it sincerity.
I think wishing him to leave was unwarranted.
This is what I was referring to about missing my point. Apparently you failed to read my comment carefully enough to know that I wasn’t advocating “loving or leaving” the U.S., but just that people might put some muscle into their professed beliefs by giving it a try. Not because I don’t want to interact with them, but because it might be a good experiment. My impression is that “libertarians” typically don’t have the courage of their convictions. They live in a country with the advantages of a bureaucracy, a tax structure and a safety net, and typically aren’t starving or having to make ends meet by working from scratch. Still, they profess not to support bureaucracy, taxes, or safety nets. They seem reluctant to go to the many areas of the world where they could live their freedom. I’m not demanding that they leave; I’m just wondering why this country is so attractive when so many places exist where they could pursue their dream.
Sorry if that offends, but this is a forum where people can speak their mind.
As to your other gloss on my exchange with the other commenter, I’ll assume he can fend for himself.
They [extreme libertarians] seem reluctant to go to the many areas of the world where they could live their freedom. I’m not demanding that they leave; I’m just wondering why this country is so attractive when so many places exist where they could pursue their dream.
So much better put than my attempts earlier. They profess to love the country . . . just nothing about the way it is actually run.
I think you’re probably right. Minority positions are always going to be at risk of disenfranchisement. I’m just not sure of a better way of protecting them than our courts.
Then, as sort of a corollary- if it’s not an unbearable burden for a Muslim woman to have her picture taken for a driver’s license, and it’s not unbearable for a Christian Identity believer to have to hire a black worker, then I don’t see a reason to view HL’s burden in paying for a healthcare plan than includes things that they (ostensibly) have a religious objection to be so significant as to require protection.
The worst case scenario for the First Amendment in my book is if it not only doesn’t protect minority views, it also becomes a battering ram for pushing majority religious viewpoints into the public sphere- limiting government action to what large religious blocks find acceptable.
The cost to the taxpayer of encouraging people to give to charities, is my answer.
OK, I see where you (and wj and thompson) are coming from.
It took a couple of hours, sometimes I’m slow like that. Thanks for your patience.
wj:
“[extreme libertarians]”
I think that is the key. And I think extremism from all aspects of the political spectrum is pretty much as damaging.
I know several self-described libertarians who advocate in lower taxes, limited government, end to the drug war, no foreign wars of aggression, etc, etc, etc
The “extreme libertarians” you speak of do not represent the views of (in my experience) most libertarians. Nor my understanding of the libertarian party platform.
I have yet to meet an actual person that is extreme enough to advocate for anarchism or anything that should be confused with it. They exist, I’m sure, but I don’t think they represent mainstream thought.
Medicare for all. Private secondary insurance. Uniform federal standards for who qualifies for Medicaid, with COLAs based on locality. Employers pay money to employees, taxes to governments, and get to spend zero time and zero dollars on anyone’s health insurance except their own.
States and localities are free to experiment with their own plans as long as coverage to residents is not less than what the federal government would provide, allowing smaller governing entities to (possibly) achieve greater efficiencies in health care delivery and cost control.
Never going to happen, it wouldn’t be utopia if it did. But is sure seems like it would work better than the ACA or the pre-ACA status quo.
I know several self-described libertarians who advocate in lower taxes, limited government, end to the drug war, no foreign wars of aggression, etc, etc, etc
I don’t know about “extreme” or whatever, but most libertarians I know don’t want to pay taxes. Basically, they don’t want to pay their share, but want to participate in a society that is safe, and where their property is protected. They’re not keen on the government helping poor people or anyone else, including those who live abroad.
In terms of being able to grow stuff in your own backyard and smoke it, that’s okay with me (and it’s okay with a lot of people who agree to pay taxes and support a social safety net).
Priest, sure, what you suggest is fine, and I’m for moving in that direction. Maybe all at once would be pretty difficult for the 2.5 million people who work for the insurance industry (including mostly middle class folks). Migrating in that direction is a great thought, and probably something that’s occurred to a lot of the folks who supported the ACA as a first step.
The cost to the taxpayer of encouraging people to give to charities, is my answer.
Depends. For those who make these sorts of contributions and itemize (90% of those in the top bracket), the cost (savings to them) is quite obvious to the point of starkness.
And since we all know from Mitt Romney, those are the folks who “pay all the taxes”.
If I had to interpret his views, I’d say he was going for people own their wealth, and he objects to the characterization of the government taking less of the wealth as “giving”.
That presumes that individual accumulation of wealth is independent of government policy to begin with. Quite often that accumulation is the direct result of a consciously adopted public policy that shifts wealth or income from one group to another.
In such instance, just “whose” wealth is it?
McKinneyTX: you said:
no one on Team Obama is saying one way or the other, but if BC and morning after were the end of the story and if abortion wasn’t on the undisclosed horizon, then the easy and smart thing to do would be to pre-empt: to tell everyone, mainly Catholics, that no-way, no-how is abortion ever going to be on the table. No one is doing that. Ergo, the reasonable inference is that once this current round survives judicial scrutiny and once the dust settles, abortion is next.
I am gobsmacked. No, this is *not* a reasonable inference. I can’t speak directly for people in the White House, but this is *not* what pro-choice activists are telling each, this is *not* what we’re all thinking.
Maybe Obama hasn’t said that abortion won’t be on the table because IT’S NOT ON THE TABLE, because THAT’S NOT WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT. IUDs and Plan B aren’t the slippery slope to abortion, they’re how we PREVENT abortion.
The problem is that the anti-choice side has re-defined abortion, to include things that happen before there is a pregnancy. To quote from the amicus brief, again:
The slippery slope runs in the other direction, toward increased control by other people over women’s bodies and lives.
You need to realize that your reasoning here is the very essence of paranoia. Because Obama isn’t making an extra effort to deny a plot that exists only in your head, you conclude that you’ve uncovered HIS CUNNING PLAN.
Or, you know, *my* cunning plan — I haven’t exactly made a secret of my backing for Planned Parenthood, among others.
Your logic — that since Obama isn’t disavowing making abortion covered by mandated insurance, it must be what he’s planning — would lead to me, for instance, saying that anyone (you, the Greens, whoever) who claims to be opposed to the contraceptive mandate has to ritually deny agreeing with Limbaugh about Sandra Fluke, or I’ll assume that you do, in fact, believe that women just want it so we can be sluts and prostitutes.
The difference is that Rush Limbaugh’s statements are not a figment of my imagination.
McKinneyTexas hates abortion. He hates it to pieces. He hates it so much that the mere thought of any of HIS money ever ending up in an abortionist’s till is anathema to him.
I accept that he’s sincere about that, within limits. McKinney has been railing against Obamacare here for some years now, so I can safely say that he didn’t need the abortion-coverage-is-next excuse to rail against “executive fiat” one more time. But I do accept that abortion is repugnant to him.
To his credit, McKinney says he has no objection to birth control. Sensible. Pregnancy is a necessary condition for abortion. Preventing pregnancy certainly prevents abortion.
You’d think that someone who wants to actually prevent abortions (as opposed to merely outlawing them; there’s a difference) would be all in favor of birth control being as widely available as possible. You’d think he’d see that the “executive fiat” is in fact an abortion-prevention measure.
You’d think that, but you’d obviously be overlooking something. I know I must be.
The Greens, keepers of the conscience of Hobby Lobby, are objectively more pro-abortion than McKinney. And yet, somehow, their pro-abortion position must be defended in order to forestall an abortion coverage mandate — which would become more necessary if the Greens prevail. Like I said, I must be overlooking something.
–TP
…birth control being as widely available as possible.
…by cutting out the
middlemandoctor and making BC over-the-counter.bobbyp:
“That presumes that individual accumulation of wealth is independent of government policy to begin with.”
It really doesn’t.
“Quite often that accumulation is the direct result of a consciously adopted public policy that shifts wealth or income from one group to another.”
True, that does happen.
“In such instance, just “whose” wealth is it?”
You seem to have someone in mind…and I’m not feeling up to guessing. But I would be surprised if the answer somehow led to a conclusion that:
Objecting to calling tax rebates giving “presumes” accumulation of wealth is independent of gov policy.
thompson: I know several self-described libertarians who advocate in lower taxes, limited government, end to the drug war, no foreign wars of aggression, etc, etc, etc
The “extreme libertarians” you speak of do not represent the views of (in my experience) most libertarians. Nor my understanding of the libertarian party platform.
Being of a somewhat libertarian bent myself, I will accept that there are also lots of other mildly libertarian folks out there. Who subscribe to most of the things in your first paragraph. But there are also (as sapient notes at 9:01) a lot of self-described libertarians (and some who merely describe themselves, somehow, as “conservatives”) who basically expect all the benefits of a stable government without having to pay anything for it or be even mildly inconvneienced by it. Personally, I would include them among the “extreme libertarians.” (And, I must say, among the delusional.) But perhaps you have a different set of criteria for how anti-government institutions one can be without meriting the label “extreme.”
sapient:
“most libertarians I know don’t want to pay taxes. Basically, they don’t want to pay their share, but want to participate in a society that is safe, and where their property is protected. They’re not keen on the government helping poor people or anyone else, including those who live abroad. ”
I can’t contradict your personal experience, but you’ll forgive me if I don’t allow it to overrule my own.
If it helps resolve this, I don’t support that view. I’ve never met someone that does, but you say you have. If I met them I would disagree with them.
“In terms of being able to grow stuff in your own backyard and smoke it, that’s okay with me (and it’s okay with a lot of people who agree to pay taxes and support a social safety net).”
I think that’s great. We’re not going to agree on everything, but I think it is really important to find common ground.
I reject the implication that I am unwilling to pay taxes (I do) and support a safety net (they do).
“As to your other gloss on my exchange with the other commenter, I’ll assume he can fend for himself.”
I’d assume he can as well. However, just because someone can defend themselves doesn’t mean its not right to step up anyway.
wj:
“But perhaps you have a different set of criteria for how anti-government institutions one can be without meriting the label “extreme.””
I would imagine we all do. People tend to have varied opinions about such things.
The details of where person X falls on the scale of “libertarianism” doesn’t really matter. What bugs me, perhaps unreasonably, is that an objection to calling a tax rebate ‘government giving’ [not direct quote] resulted in what is basically, ‘if yah don’ like ‘murica, yah can git out!’.
If someone wants to condemn anarchy, great. But if you do it in response to a comment, an obvious implication is that you believe that comment was advocating anarchy. It becomes more obvious if you than wish the commenter would leave the country and go somewhere where there are no protections of the US government.
I think reasonable people can have disagreements on tax rebates. I don’t think a disagreement on tax rebates is the same thing as wanting the government to disappear.
“a lot of self-described libertarians (and some who merely describe themselves, somehow, as “conservatives”) who basically expect all the benefits of a stable government without having to pay anything for it or be even mildly inconvneienced by it.”
So, what, exactly? There’s some grade-a a-holes in the world so we should be very aggressive about asking anybody that might sorta display some sympathies in that direction to leave?
I’ve met some extreme liberals, some extreme conservatives. That doesn’t mean I ‘really, really, wish you liberals/conservatives would leave’. Because that would be ridiculous.
If you want me to condemn libertarians of the ‘screw you all, I got mine’ variety, sure, I’ll do that. But if you want me to say
“I really, really wish that all of you libertarians would try your luck in a part of the world where your wealth and privileges weren’t so solidly protected.”
is a reasonable and constructive response to Charles comment, or that its made reasonable because some self described libertarian somewhere is an a-hole…I think we will have to agree to disagree.
Something which I’m quite good at, so no pressure.
Carleton:
“if it’s not an unbearable burden for a Muslim woman to have her picture taken for a driver’s license, and it’s not unbearable for a Christian Identity believer to have to hire a black worker, then I don’t see a reason to view HL’s burden in paying for a healthcare plan than includes things that they (ostensibly) have a religious objection to be so significant as to require protection.”
Well, I’m not the one to make that argument. I’ve said a few times I find HL’s case uncompelling. In terms of the legal issues, my understanding is this:
(1) you need to show sincerity. The belief and how ludicrous it sounds is not supposed to be an issue
(2) you need to show burden.
(3) than the gov needs to show they have a compelling need on your case specifically (i.e. Native americans smoking peyote doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have a compelling reason to regulate peyote in general…but that narrow case there isn’t)
under the RFRA, which may not apply, pending ruling, etc etc
“The worst case scenario for the First Amendment in my book is if it not only doesn’t protect minority views, it also becomes a battering ram for pushing majority religious viewpoints into the public sphere- limiting government action to what large religious blocks find acceptable.”
I think a reasonable fear. That’s why I, as a libertarian, would like to limit government action across the board 🙂 But seriously, it’s an important point, and one we can look to our history for examples of. I just don’t know of a better mechanism…I think Leg and Exec, unchecked by the courts, leave you in an even worse position. And our history is full of examples of congress and the executive marginalizing, or worse, minorities.
I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t.
concerning McKinneyTexas’s stated assumption that abortion is next on the mandate list because the administration does not swear holy oaths on a daily basis that it has no such intention: There is nothing the administration could do to dispel that notion, if we take several other examples of the administration ritually denying intent resulting in getting accused of lying and just biding its time to lull the vigilant into a false sense of security before striking hard as a guide.
“(3) than the gov needs to show they have a compelling need on your case specifically (i.e. Native americans smoking peyote doesn’t mean the government doesn’t have a compelling reason to regulate peyote in general…but that narrow case there isn’t)”
IMO, that’s the point where, if the government loses, they lose: Because they haven’t been relentless in the application of the ACA, they’ve been handing out waivers like candy on Halloween. Which is hard to square with it being so important that Hobby Lobby not get one.
…they’ve been handing out waivers like candy on Halloween. Which is hard to square with it being so important that Hobby Lobby not get one.
and now the ‘waviers’ buzzword appears! yay.
no, it’s quite the opposite of “hard to square”. the waivers granted thus far have had nothing to with the conscience of for-profit corporations. the waivers granted thus far have been along the lines of temporarily reducing requirements helping to ease the transition from existing plans to those compliant with the ACA.
of course if HL wants to recast itself as a church, so as to get the religious exemption (and the blessed tax breaks), we’d all love to watch it try.
Reading some of the back and forth here, you’d think there was no problem needing to be solved regarding access to and the costs of health care in this country.
IMO this is the most apt comment in this whole thread.
Most of the comments here (including my own) have been dancing around the legal fine points, but we live in a country that allowed a young boy to die from untreated dental caries.
True story.
And that offends my moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. And, makes me wonder WTF is wrong with us, as a nation.
And if your response is that that’s regrettable, but is simply outside the scope of what government, and / or society at large, is responsible for, then I’ll reply that I find *that* idea deeply repugnant, and in strong conflict with my own strongly held religious, moral, and ethical beliefs.
Crap legislation, passed without transparency? There’s an EPA exemption specifically exempting oil companies from disclosing what’s in fracking fluid. Which gets pumped into the groundwater, and which makes people’s tap water flammable. And, none of us are allowed to know WTF is in it.
Trade secret.
If find that profoundly repugnant, on so many levels that you don’t even want to get me started, not to exclude the religious, ethical, and moral.
And it’s there to facilitate the extraction of fossil fuels, deepening our dependence on their use, and making it that much more likely that we will do nothing of consequence to limit our use of them. Because now all of that gas is a realizable asset, on the books of the oil companies, and they will see us all dead before they’ll give up a penny of it.
In my understanding, that means we’re that much further from reducing the impact of climate change, and that in turn means a lot of people, measured in millions, are going to suffer, profoundly.
Those are my deeply held beliefs on the topic, and they’re rooted in my religious, ethical, and moral convictions.
Rules passed by executive fiat, outside the democratic process? Those rules govern what weird crap can be dumped in the water, or pumped into the air, or what exploitative destructive use can be made of millions of acres of public land, or what weird unpronounceable junk can be put in our food.
Quite a lot of which I find offensive, on religious, ethical, and moral grounds.
The entire current-day libertarian project, for that matter, I find deeply repugnant, and profoundly offensive on religious, ethical, and moral grounds.
The fact that the writings and ideology of a misanthropic freak like Ayn Rand can find their way into public policy, that *I have to live with and pay for*, is not only deeply repugnant to me, it’s profoundly obscene.
For reasons rooted in my own religious, ethical, and moral convictions.
From my point of view, Ayn Rand’s beliefs approach something like the spirit of antichrist.
None of your business why I believe that, but you can trust that I do.
You can disagree with any of the above, and I have no problem with it. But it’s none of anyone’s business why I hold the beliefs I do, nor is it your place to stand in judgement on them.
They’re mine, just like the Greens’ conviction that they are complicit in murder if they contribute to an insurance policy that one of their employees uses to cover the purchase of an IUD.
Speaking personally, I LIVE EVERY DAY with the deep realization that I live in a country and a culture that holds values that I find in many cases morally hideous, for reasons rooted in my own quite deep religious convictions. And, the values I find profoundly wrong and bad are woven into every fabric of our public life.
Laws. policies, practices.
I live with them, I pay for them.
So, I’m sympathetic to the Greens, but it’s hard for me to see why and how their situation is different from mine, or that of almost everyone else in the country.
Everyone’s got something they can point to and say “that’s wrong, and it disturbs me deeply to be complicit in it”.
The legal issues are interesting, but we live in a country where a young boy can die from freaking dental caries, because his family is poor and that makes the simple care he needed unavailable to them.
The ACA is an attempt to do something about that. It’s good to keep that in mind while we’re all dancing around the legal nits, and pontificating about what Our Conscience Will Not Allow.
People’s consciences live with stuff that ought to curl your hair, each and every day. If we’re gonna get along and live together in one society, we’re all going to have to deal with the fact that we don’t all get our way.
You can’t always get what you want.
Thanks, russell.
In case people are confused about the tenets of the Libertarian Party, the first sentence of their party platform is this:
“As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.”
The platform is full of gems. I’d highly recommend reading the whole thing.
There you go again, Russell, saying what needs to be said so that I have to write “what Russell said”.
I’m not so concerned that this thread has been dancing around the legal nits contained in this Supreme Court case, because that’s where the original post led us, but I too welcomed the comment regarding “you’d think there was no problem regarding access to and the costs of healthcare in this country”, because in my gut I believe the Green’s case (and the organizations promoting and furthering the case) is merely part of a piecemeal effort to repeal the ACA (an imperfect vessel, there is no doubt) and vanquish once again (going all the way back to Truman) any effort to ameliorate this ridiculous healthcare system that keeps more than 50 million Americans from affordable access and the rest of us on the anxious cusp always of joining those 50 million.
I’ll go farther than that onto the steepest of slippery slopes (McTX has his slippery slope toward mandated abortion in healthcare plans, which he is entitled to, this being an entitlement state, and I’ve got mine; I don’t implicate McKT in my forthcoming slippery slope however) and write that in fact those who are against the ACA and want it repealed in toto and your little dog too have as their only plan that young boys in fact SHOULD die of complications from caries because THAT, people, is FREEDOM in all of its glory.
What good is the freedom to work hard, and make money, and be able to afford health insurance if any little boy can just have his caries taken care of free of charge, or worse, because his parents MIGHT have been able to afford a government scheme like the ACA as an alternative?
Hunh?
Just yesterday, I read that some jackdaw Tea Party carnivore (from South Carolina maybe, or was it Texas, I don’t know, why don’t those two states merge so I can quit trying to remember which is which) believes that folks who don’t work shouldn’t eat, in a peroration against unemployment benefits.
If the jackdaw doesn’t like it, then quit firing and laying people off, ya jagoff.
If you get heating subsidies, were going to cut your food stamps. And on and on.
It never effing stops.
It’s not minority rights being trampled on, to address another point made up thread, it’s factionalism.
We’re at about 1847, maybe 1852, in this country, and something Antietam this way looms.
thompson:
I think reasonable people can have disagreements on tax rebates. I don’t think a disagreement on tax rebates is the same thing as wanting the government to disappear.
Completely agree. I apologize for having missed the context of your remark.
One of the features of long wandering threads like this one is that we get off into discussions of (sort-of) related topics, and (I, at least) don’t always keep track of the context of where the digression started. I will try to do better.
count: in my gut I believe the Green’s case (and the organizations promoting and furthering the case) is merely part of a piecemeal effort to repeal the ACA
Well, the fact that they didn’t bother to read their employee health insurance policy, which already contained the features that they are now suing over, does tend to suggest that. However deep the Green’s personal beliefs on the matter, they weren’t worried enough to check their policy until the ACA came along. What does that say about them and their case?
What does that say about them and their case?
they’re frauds.
throw them out on their ears.
(my apologies if this has already been covered)
wj: “I think Carleton pretty much nailed it. If the Court rules for Hobby they are pretty much allowing any company to opt out of any law, due to the beliefs of its owners. Medical care, taxes, gun control, drug laws, etc., etc., etc. ”
Actually, this has already been litigated, back in the 60’s and 70’s, over non-discrimination laws in employment and accomodations. An employer in general can NOT discriminate on the treatment of their employees, based on religious beliefs.
I’m a bit worried about this, since the Roberts/Salia/Thomas/Alito/Kennedy court has just overturned long standing law restraining voter suppression – I no longer rest on the idea that they wouldn’t undercut decades-old law on discrimination.
wj:
” What does that say about them and their case?”
In my view? It leads to it being uncompelling. But government lawyers are probably crafting that case. Although they didn’t question sincerity in the injunction for some reason.
“Completely agree. I apologize for having missed the context of your remark.”
No, quite alright. Threads like this involve a lot of people talking across each other. The price of accessing such a diverse spread of opinions.
Hypothetical: What if the Greens hadn’t been providing the coverage they’re now objecting to and knowingly excluded it from the insurance they provided their employees from day one? Would that make it okay for them to not to provide it after the ACA took effect?
And would it make it okay for me to type phrases like “to not to”?
Barry:
“Actually, this has already been litigated, back in the 60’s and 70’s, over non-discrimination laws in employment and accomodations. An employer in general can NOT discriminate on the treatment of their employees, based on religious beliefs.”
What’s changed is the RFRA. HL is arguing this covers their corp, although that’s hardly settled law.
In addition, even if they are covered by the RFRA, blocking employment discrimination would probably reach “compelling interest”, and would continue not to be allowed. The same thing could be ruled for the BC requirement, that is that its a compelling state interest. In which case, HL loses, regardless of their standing under the RFRA.
hsh, if the Greens had previously been deliberately excluding the coverages that they are now objecting to, it wouldn’t necessarily make it OK. But it would certainly strengthen their case for why they should not be required to do so now. Consistency being, IMHO, an important part of making a case for sincerity of belief.
I have yet to meet an actual person that is extreme enough to advocate for anarchism or anything that should be confused with it.
Not to accuse you of this, but I do relatively often meet libertarians willing to deploy *arguments* that lead to anarchism, but only follow them partway down the path. eg “taxation is theft” (or similar statements about how taxation is illegitimate), but then some taxation is acceptable if it funds programs they approve of.
Which mirrors this case, in a way- an argument about religious freedom is deployed that if followed to the letter could force us to discard quite a lot of what the government does today, but no chance that the genie will be allowed to escape the bottle. It has one job to do, and successful or not it’s not going to see the light of day unless it’s needed again for a specific role.
I suppose in one sense we all do this- when we pick the balance point while weighing competing interests, we often locate it at our preferred policy outcome. This just seems like too much of a nakedly egregious case (just as with the Supreme Court- I understand that judges generally jsut follow their political preferences, but it’s ugly when the best argument they can deploy is a gesture at the Constitution and “it’s sort of implicit in the structure of the document”).
[Also, it’s easy for me to rail against principle, since Im more of a pragmatist towards government. But then, Id not be a pragmatist if I thought there were principles that could be followed sincerely that lead more or less unerringly to good outcomes…]
What’s changed is the RFRA. HL is arguing this covers their corp, although that’s hardly settled law.
I think the RFRA just gets us back to the Sherbert(?) test, which is what would’ve been used in that period. Of course, it’s technically different which at a minimum mean stare decisis wouldn’t apply (directly, anyway).
Medical benefits are of course a special case, but corporations can and do change coverage coincident with annual enrollment.
Also, corporations can add to your wages as they please. I don’t have any personal knowledge of pay cuts, though, so that may or may not be possible.
Anyway. Not all compensation is alike, and some compensation does in fact have controls on it. That’s a compact restatement of my point.
All good questions that I don’t have any answers to. It can get complicated. But I don’t think you’re permitted to discriminate based on race or disability, irrespective of your own personal beliefs.
Consistency being, IMHO, an important part of making a case for sincerity of belief.
So let’s say everyone in the universe agreed that they were sincere. I guess we’d just be back to whether or not there’s a compelling state interest.
Or is there some sort of “reasonableness” argument to be made, such that objecting to contraception only presents a true hardship of belief if one is either forced to use contraception or to provide it directly – kinda, sorta getting back to what russell and some others have mentioned?
How oblique or indirect an affront to your beliefs can you claim is truly harmful to your free practice of your religion?
Not to mention whether or not your religion is also your for-profit company’s religion…
How oblique or indirect an affront to your beliefs can you claim is truly harmful to your free practice of your religion?
This gets into the question of “distance” raised by Sebastian.
At a certain point, at some number of degrees of separation, things like this start to get kind of homeopathic.
Not saying the issue isn’t real for the Greens (or whoever), just pointing out that in most matters of interpretation of law, a standard of some kind of “reasonableness” usually applies.
Maintaining a pure conscience, unsullied by any taint of association with what other folks do or do not do, may require a degree of separatism that is simply incompatible with operating a two-and-a-quarter-billion dollar retail enterprise.
You can’t have everything. Or, at least, not exactly the way you want it.
The other thing I’d say is that if the Greens can have this, there are lots of the other things that lots of other folks are going to believe they deserve as well.
And those other folks will have a strong point.
Be careful what you wish for.
Bryan Fischer, yeah that one, was giving off force fields of sincerity when he said this:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/12/11/1262027/-Bryan-Fischer-If-we-say-religion-really-just-means-Christian-we-re-done
Only Christian sincerity is permitted in the public sphere. Satanic sincerity can go blow, and it can as far as I’m concerned, but do it over there with the rest of the religions, including Christianity, not that there is anything wrong with Christianity.
What I love about America, and I do love America, and I mean that sincerely, is that our commercial culture relies on battalions of Eddie Haskell-like car salesman to sincerely put forth the insincerity of sales pitches for every conceivable product (the basement does not leak, why would would I be insincere about that? Four out five dentists agree; yes, but it is that fifth one the SINCERE one) and televangelists can sincerely fake healing on TV and collect millions of sincerely believed dollars in the prosperity gospel ruse (a sincere ruse, I don’t doubt) and yet, the green’s expect to combine religion and a for-profit enterprise.
Who do think they are, the Vatican? 😉
If Hobby Lobby wants everyone under their influence to practice the Green’s sincerity regarding values, put steeples on all of the Hobby Lobby stores and tell us the cost basis of Chinese labor of each and every knick-knack in the stores and then give the stuff away to the needy, who could use a hobby.
I know my rant sounded quite sincere (must be the volume), but only portions of it were, I mean, who would believe it let alone defend it’s substance in the Supreme Court when really only every other word or so is sincere and the rest is a negotiating position, a first offer, if you will, a mere pretense of a lie of a pretense.
By the way, I think this new Pope is sincere. I notice the conservative Catholic community is this country has gone pretty quiet about sincerity and Pope, preferring the sincerity of the last Pope, except for the painfully sincere Larry Kudlow, who lectured the new Pope from his perch on a business channel, where sincerity is measured by price, which changes every millisecond at the hands of Wall Street traders, a sincere bunch if there ever was one.
Oh, and by the way, if sincerity is Hobby Lobby’s hallmark and the limbo bar by which all of us must be inflexible, then why don’t the stores have lobbies, I ask you?
They have something that might be construed as a foyer of sorts, a sort of mudroom, but no lobby in the sincere sense of the word.
Not like Walmart, which HAS walls. Now, to their credit, there’s a sincere for-profit corporation if there ever was one.
You know a sincere guy? George W. Bush. You could always tell when he was being sincere when he smirked.
Not like Walmart, which HAS walls
Yeah, but go ahead and try to BUY one.
What kind of a wall mart is that?
And how much luck (and what varieties) can you find on offer amongst the groceries at Luckys? 😉 Too bad, I could probably use some.
Carleton:
“Not to accuse you of this, but I do relatively often meet libertarians willing to deploy *arguments* that lead to anarchism, but only follow them partway down the path. eg “taxation is theft” (or similar statements about how taxation is illegitimate), but then some taxation is acceptable if it funds programs they approve of.”
Yeah, and I think there are two things going on with that.
One, there are a lot of people out there that are unreasonable and have principles of convenience (I personally don’t think libertarians are special in this regard, and not saying anyone is making that argument).
Two, a perfectly reasonable, logically consistent person can overstate (or fail to appropriately qualify) a stance. Which is a problem, but really, you can only add so many qualifiers before the cable news cuts you off.
I think Two feeds into a lot of the ‘echo chamber’ effect that has been mentioned recently (along with other things). It’s really easy to converse with people that mostly agree with you and your assumptions. They are unlikely to call you out on an overstatement that basically agrees with their beliefs. If you say something that involves a lot of underlying value judgements, and they make the similar value judgements, you will not be challenged.
It’s much harder to talk with people you disagree with, in part because you don’t have a set of shared assumptions that people take for granted, and misstatements can’t be glossed over with a ‘eh, I knew what you meant’.
hsh:
“Or is there some sort of “reasonableness” argument to be made, such that objecting to contraception only presents a true hardship of belief if one is either forced to use contraception or to provide it directly”
My understanding of the law, which is very limited and heavily colored by the opinion on the injunction (so don’t attach any particular weight to it), is that there isn’t a reasonableness standard separate from establishing sincerity. In other words, a belief does not have reasonableness associated with it.
I think practically, a very foreign belief will fall victim to what Carleton pointed out…a judge would probably just say, ‘I can’t imagine someone being sincere about that.’
Than you get to burden, and compelling interest, and those both have to be reasonable.
For example, if instead of a 26m/400m+ fine, it was the HHS refused to give their stamp of approval to the HL health plan, they probably would not be reasonably burdened. I don’t know that I would consider the 26m a burden for an organization of that size, but its a good chunk of change.
And than the government can argue, sure, we’re burdening them, but we have a compelling interest to do so.
And, as always, all that depends on the RFRA applying, which is not settled law.
“Yeah, but go ahead and try to BUY one.”
Heh. At least we still have radio shack. Which in my experience at least both has radios and is generally a shack.
See what happens to you when you ask to speak to Wendy at Wendy’s. Some guy named Carlos is in your face.
There’s one joint on I-70 somewhere between Denver and Pittsburgh that swears up and down with ever more emphatic signs that they will serve the biggest Best Hamburger in the world.
Did I say one? I meant hundreds. Put the sincerity meter on these people and connect it to cattle prod and we’ll find out all of them have the same marketing and advertising firm: Honest Pete and Sincere Associates, esq.
Maybe Consumer Reports, sleuths of sincerity can do a full issue on for-profit religious corporations and the relative authenticity of their sincerity, along with the relative price of their sincerity and you can get what you pay for.
You may not beable to speak to Wendy. But at least there was (is) a real Wendy after whom the founder named his first restaurant. Which puts them ahead of the game.
But do they have the Double Meat?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublemeat_Palace
Has anyone seen the Count and Belle Waring at the same time?