Contraceptive “compromise” worse than original mandate: Eliminates any exceptions
UPDATE, 12:14p: More evidence the “compromise” stinks: Planned Parenthood likes it.
UPDATE, 12:02p: From a House source:
This “new policy” is a distinction without a difference. The services the religious organization opposes won’t be listed in the contract, but the insurance companies will give it the employees anyway. Insurance companies will justify providing the coverage that the religious charity opposes by swearing that birth control coverage doesn’t actually cost anything because it’s cheaper than pregnancy services, so it’s just a free perk. The administration will argue that people of faith should be fine with this arrangement, because they can tell their conscience that they aren’t really paying for the objectionable coverage and they didn’t really sign up for it anyway.
The way the gimmick works might be best understood the way it is described on the radically pro-abortion website, RHRealityCheck [JLS note: Tweet from which referred to below]….
Under this plan, every insurance company will be obligated to provide contraceptive coverage. Administration officials stated that a woman’s insurance company “will be required to reach out directly and offer her contraceptive care free of charge. The religious institutions will not have to pay for it.”
Moreover, women will not have to opt in or out; contraceptive care will be part of the basic package of benefits offered to everyone. Contraceptive care will simply be “part of the bundle of services that all insurance companies are required to offer,” said a White House official.
“We are actually more comfortable having the insurance industry offer and market this to women than religious institutions,” said the White House official because they “understand how contraception works” to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce health care costs. “This makes sense financially.”
The way it works is this: Insurers will create policy not including contraceptive coverage in the contract for religious organizations that object. Second, the same insurance company must simultaneously offer contraceptive coverage to all employees, and can not charge an additional premium. This provides free contraceptive coverage to women. The reason this works for insurance companies is because offering contraception is cost-neutral; companies realize the tremendous cost benefits of spacing pregnancies, and limiting unintended pregnancies, planned pregnancies and health benefits of contraception.
UPDATE, 11:53a: Email from Eric Scheidler of Pro-Life Action League, posted with permission:
At the end of the day, religious employers are still required to provide health plans that offer free contraceptives, sterilizations and abortifacients.
And the cost of those “free” free services – ostensibly now to be born by the insurer rather than the employer – has got to come from somewhere. From where? The premiums paid for those plans.
Insurance companies aren’t stupid. They’ll quote employers a premium for their plans that takes into account the number of employees likely to demand these “free services.”
11:48a: All you need to know is that the abortion lobby likes Obama’s contraception mandate “compromise”:
Here’s a link to that RH Reality Check post.
More from Reuters:
The White House announced a compromise on birth control coverage on Friday to respond to religious groups’ objections, saying it would shift the costs of providing contraceptives to health insurers when religious employers object to it.
“Under the new policy announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works,” the White House said in a statement.
“If a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge,” it said.
A senior Obama administration official said the change would ensure women get access to preventive health care while also protecting religious liberty.
No it doesn’t. Now Obama is forcing religious institutions to purchase group insurance policies that include contraception. It’s a shell game. Now NO employer can provide a plan that does not cover contraception.
Furthermore, and just as importantly, it isn’t enough to (supposedly) exempt religious institutions from the contraception mandate. That is to say only people of faith are allowed to have, or are capable of, consciences. What about secular conscientious objectors?
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
So, wait, instead of paying the woman to get ‘free’ birth control…they pay the insurance company to give the woman ‘free’ birth control. How is that any better? If I pay Jane to kill John or if I pay Jessi to contract Jane to kill John I’m still just as much part of the resultant murder. This does absolutely nothing to alleviate an objection to paying for contraceptive/birth control.
The Obama administration’s mouthpiece, i.e. the New York Times, ran a front page story earlier this week in which they made very clear that the president has no intention to rescind the ruling. These so called compromises will all be made within the context of advancing the real political agenda behind the ruling which is their belief that this is a winning issue among women. Even in today’s stories we see and will continue to see in upcoming statements from the White House how they are attempting to leverage the issue to make it look at though the president is fighting for women’s rights against all nefarious forces. This is pathetic, but do we expect anything else to come from the most proabortion president ever?
Does Obama think we’re intellectually impaired that we cannot read through the lines?
“If I tell you don’t have to pay for it, but I mandate the insurance to cover it, that will make you feel good with your conscience”
President Obama, are you kidding me?
Catholic organizations will still be required to provide insurance plans that cover contraception, and will still pay for it indirectly. This is the same nonsense they have used to force us to fund abortions through Planned Parenthood. We pay for PP to feel up women’s breasts and call it a “cancer screening”, and that frees up money for PP to advertise and perform abortions.
This IS A FANTASTIC EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY BUT A CRUMMY COMPRISE/SOLUTION.
The Right should not blow this opportunity to explain the concept of fungibility to the public and how and WHERE it is currently being (mis)used [Planned Parenthood, etc..].
FINALLY, THE WORLD WILL COME TO UNDERSTAND THE SIMPLE CONCEPT OF FUNGIBLE FUNDS/MONEY/DONATIONS.
Tyler,
this a matter where NO compromise can be attained.
The only acceptable solution is for Obama to rescind the mandate in total.
It still comes down to one issue – which is the complete irrationality of Obamacare.
I agree with Tyler and Dr. Nadal in his oost at Coming Home – Lipstick on a Pig – this entire debacle still comes down to the bundle of junk shoved through in the middle of the night.
Obamacare was, and always will be about control. Liberals usual semantic games need to be identified as complete crap and Americans need straight forward honest answers about where money goes and how it is used – fungibility and all.
I agree with you Richard – no comprise is possible.
I like Mr. O’Reilly on Fox news but he even failed to understand the concept of fungible donations. In the Komen debate he thought it possible that Komen could restrict its donation to PP for breast cancer health related issues only. The controls required to be in place to make this possible (such as separate bank accounts, good accounting records, and proper reporting) are nearly impossible for honest people to manage let alone for people, like those at PP, with an agenda. If/when donations are restricted they are often not restricted sufficiently whereby some of the restricted funds are used to cover shared overhead costs, such as rent, etc… Very few donations are truly restricted, and not prone to being fungible.
The fungibility of “pooled” and “restricted” (in name only) money is the biggest threat to freedom in a society that has an affluent economy and competing social values. It is an unfortunately common feature among many social programs. The Left embraces the concept fungible donations, the Right should not. Fungible money leads to socialism. It is a necessity for big corrupt governments and dishonest NPOs.
The Left wants to make the accountant in charge. Who is monitoring the accountants?
Or rather the left want to pretend to the Right that they have put the accountants in charge, but they know they haven’t, can’t, and shouldn’t. The Right should not be hoodwinked by this ploy. The Left will have no problem telling the accountants what to do.
Why was the Obama administration allowed to define birth control as health care? One stupid idea leads to another.
Do public officials have any integrity left?
It really shows how much contempt they have for people who value life and freedom of religion when all they did was repackage the same mandate into allegedly more flexible language.
Note how they can — and probably will — do the same thing with abortion funding (“You don’t have to pay for it, your insurer just has to give it for free. And they will gladly do so because it is cheaper than childbirth.”)
Neil – they are already doing that – especially through the Universities – students (parents) are paying tuition and fees, without realizing that their daughters can get a ‘free’ abortion, without them knowing about it. And if the student body complains, the school says – no change! So if you can not in good conscience support abortion/contraception/free sex ‘without consequences’ – tough.
A bully is still a bully when they throw their weight around … and this administration certainly fits that description.
I just called my congressman on the phone and urged him to mobilize Congress on the HHS Manadate.
I told him the “compromise” of this morning by Obama is even worse then the previous mandate and that they need to intervene and make sure the mandate is rescinded.
I told him that we’re “loosing our freedom”!
I encourage everyone on this blog to do the same. Call your representative.
Speak up.
Isn’t this exactly what I predicted Obama would do? One, he would never back down, and two, he would try to make his opponents think he is backing down. People are outraged and shocked. I’m just saying ho-hum.
Sometimes folks I even amaze myself.
Years ago a movie came out about two cops recruited to hunt down an exceptionally brutal international terrorist. At their training session the young cops, cocky as ever, thought they knew exactly what this guy would or wouldn’t do. Exasperrated, the instructor shouted at them: “Dammit man, you have to get inside this man”(terrorist’s) head, you have to think like he does.” They would eventually see the wisdom of these words, but not before more people die.
Folks, do not project onto this man. That is the biggest mistake you make when dealing with PDs. Get inside Obama’s head, the mind of a sociopath/narcissist, think as he does. That’s our only way to defeat him.
Obama is betting that women (plus men) will want free abortions and birth control so badly that they will divide churches over it. He’s not betting on churches being unified against him.
I am so very disappointed in how this is being percieved by the other side. We have been hearing people chant separation of church and state for years and years. But bullying the churches and leaving them no choice is the kind of BS that put the pilgrims on the Mayflower. You want the goverment out of your bedroom exept to pay for it, and you want churches out of governement until you want their healthcare insurance dollars. You can’t have it both ways.
Obama is trying to divide and destroy the greatest, free-est nation on the planet. His anti-American sentiment must be very, very deep indeed.
I ran out of editing time, but please don’t tell my 5th grade teacher I mispelled government so many times!
Don’t worry ninek. You are not to bad at spelling.
Obama is spelling it “dictatorship”!
The contraceptive mandate in any form is the Obama administration version of Kristallnacht…a test to see how much they can bully religion. In the absence of a unified condemnation from the rest of the world…this sort of thing will continue and expand to all who they deem unworthy of rights.
If the electorate copulates and re-elects Obama you can be sure we will all be paying for “free” abortion, suicide, and euthanasia.
Am I overstating the case?
First clue: if the covens at NARAL and PP like it, it’s by definition REALLY bad.
There is no law that says employers have to provide healthcare insurance.
Catholic hospitals and colleges and other religious employers could simply not offer medical benefits and then increase their hourly wages to employees so they can afford to pay for their own healthcare, either as a case by case basis or to purchase their own private plan.
Problem solved.
apostate: “There is no law that says employers have to provide healthcare insurance.”
Yes, under Obamacare there is a law that requires employers offer health insurance….or pay fines that will effectively shut down the business.
Problem not solved.
Apostate, sure, paying draconian fines that get funnelled into the healthcare they oppose until they get fined out of business, the fine for non compliance starts at something like $2,000 an employee and goes up from there, totally fixes the problem. If the problem is ‘religious people have morals they want to follow’.
Jespren, I think you’ll have to explain to Little a what “morals” are.
I’m surprised that more haven’t raised the issue of those who do not run “religious” institutions but would still object on moral/religious grounds. My husband and I run a small business and as Christians are opposed to providing this kind of coverage to our employees. Aren’t our First Amendment rights being trampled too, even though we are not a religious business?
The president’s choice of words: “some folks want to make this a wedge issue” were astoundingly condescending. But he topped that when he managed to keep a straight face as he trotted out the idea that religious organizations would not have to pay for the services in question but their insurance carriers would.
“Aren’t our First Amendment rights being trampled too, even though we are not a religious business?”
Katie S, absolutelly YES! Everybodies rights are trampled. Even atheists should be “up-in-arms”, because today is this mandate, tomorrow is going to be another mandate.
Recently I have read a comment that made me think, a lot.
Someone said that Hitler got to the peak of his power because people said “he’s not affecting me, why should I care? Why should I act?”
I hope we have learned from that time and we DO care and DO act!
“Apostate, sure, paying draconian fines that get funnelled into the healthcare they oppose until they get fined out of business”
As of right now there is no requirement for employers to offer healthcare. Effective 2014 “The employer only pays a penalty if at least one employee enrolls in a health insurance exchange and also qualifies for premium subsidies and/or other tax credits from the federal government.
If at least one employee receives federal subsidies due to purchase of health insurance through an exchange in a given month, the employer must pay a monthly penalty based on the number of full-time employees employed during that month.”
http://www.zanebenefits.com/blog/2010/07/245/Employer+Mandate+-+What+Happens+If+a+Company+Does+NOT+Offer+Health+Insurance
Note this gives the Catholic church plenty of time to break up their holdings into smaller bits (50 employees each) to avoid being considered large enough to be eligible for fines. If their employees end up on government sponsored healthcare, they deserve to be fined.
Maybe the Church should focus on actually paying its employees so they don’t end up on Medicaid.
Of course this assumes the Catholic hospitals and universities will go to that kind of trouble, they won’t, since their money, according to the compromise this morning, does not pay for contraceptive services. They have nothing more to object to.
apostate 3:14PM
The insurance I get at the Catholic hospital where I work at covers my husband’s diabetic condition and has for years. Without it I might not have been able to find insurance for him. It also covered my children. Do you suppose I was the only Catholic hospital employee who’s spouse or child had medical needs? What would happen to people like this under your brillliant suggestion?
Get real. I bought my own contraception, as well as my own food, paid my own mortgage, and made my own car payments. I also paid for child care and college.
It never occured to me that my Catholic employer owed me anything more than a paycheck.
Tyler sez:
“ The Right should not blow this opportunity to explain the concept of fungibility to the public and how and WHERE it is currently being (mis)used [Planned Parenthood, etc..].
FINALLY, THE WORLD WILL COME TO UNDERSTAND THE SIMPLE CONCEPT OF FUNGIBLE FUNDS/MONEY/DONATIONS.”
Tyler: we liberals know this. We know it when the issue favors us; when it doesn’t favor us, we are suddenly clueless.
To our credit, back in the 1980s, on the college campuses, we protested that our campuses were racist: why? Because our universities, as most do, had invetment money: endowment funds, etc. And this money was partially invested in companies that to some degree made money by conducting business in South Africa, with their apartheid.
So, we called it “blood money,” and made a big deal about it. There eventually came a big change where a fair portion of universities did “divest” from these companies. It eventually did come about that the South Africa apartheid policies ended. Not thru revolution (nowadays with the marxism making such headway, we would simply call for revolution), but thru international political pressure.
So, we liberals have no problem grasping a once-removed relationship, or a shell-game pass-thru arrangement.
We simply either have no values except by a negative definition – hating what conservatives like – or we have marxist values, and carry on with the facade that there is no marxism in the united states – and if you point out that people in OWS have signs declaring they are marxists, and the marxists have websites enthusiastically supporting every Obama move, we accuse you of simply practicing misguided McCarthyism blacklisting.
The very word ‘mandate,’ gives me the willies.
The Church has been absolutely right on the issue of birth control.
For those who wish to learn why the Church is correct on this issue, an excellent commentary and further resource links can be found here:
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-catholic-church-opposes.html
Obama’s contraception “compromise” is worse than the original mandate…
The media is saying Obama “backed down.” He did no such thing. He made the mandate worse….
Wow, Obama just “moved the goalposts” without even a single person even knowing it. The landscape of this debate shifted from “Contraception is immoral, wrong, and Griswold vs Connecticut should be overturned” to “Fine, let women have access to contraception but we won’t pay for contraception we find objectionable”.
There are now dozens of video clips and soundbites of the most Conservative leaders in the US saying “We’re not arguing that women shouldn’t have access to contraception and other birth control, we just don’t want to PAY for it”.
Now any time a Personhood Amendment comes up for a vote, or there’s a chance a State can pass a law to challenge Griswold, the other side can play hours and hours of footage, sound clips, and Press interview statements of the Pro-Life leaders saying women should have access to hormonal birth control and the morning after pill, just don’t make religious institutions pay for them. Rick Santorum himself said these very things. What video and web Ads do you think contraception proponents are going to play in the upcoming Personhood Amendment votes??
The chance to ever get abortofacients off the market and out of the hands of people just went to below Zero.
It is time to put some creative thought towards civil disobedience.
It could be like Prohibition (or more like the Soviet Union, since this is socialism) — lots of people running black-market businesses, avoiding taxes, and attempting to do well for our families without violating our principles.
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I could hear it now “Hail Obama”! (sounding like Hail Hitler)
Father Frank Pavone from Priests for Life (who is suing the Obama Admin. because of all of this nonsense, GO FATHER PAVONE!!) had a great response to this ‘compromise’.
http://www.priestsforlife.org/articles/3955-father-pavone-rejects-white-house-compromise-on-contraception
Also, an accountant that I know put it this way: Obama did an old accounting trick with this so-called compromise – he took the expenses from one column and put them in another column to make it look like it wasn’t there. Thanks for insulting the American intelligence there, Mr. O! Maybe if you tried reading the Constitution instead of playing golf or taking 17 vacations our country wouldn’t be in the state that it is!!
It’s NOT the Catholic Church that is Obama’s way…It is the U.S.Constitution that is blocking his way…and one old Supreme Court Justice, if I have the vote count correct….No Problem…after the thug election is STOLEN, the Second Constitutional Convention will institutionalize an international law like has never existed – So we won’t need the Constitution anymore! as for that old Justice…well…that’s not a problem either….
The money that pays for this comes from employee’s benefits. It is in lieu of salary and is equivalent to salary, therefore it is rightly the property of the employee. So, why shouldn’t the employee be free to choose how to spend her salary? It is the employee’s conscience that really counts here. She is the one choosing whether or not to have these services. By what right does the employer get to dictate how the employee will spend the money she earns? It is the conservatives who are against freedom of religion and freedom of conscience here. Consider the reverse. Would YOU want your private employer telling you that you couldn’t spend YOUR money by donating to a church or pro-life cause? That is essentially what the Republicans are arguing for. They want to prevent women from having the freedom to use money they earned (in the form of insurance benefits) to pay for contraception and the like.
Jerry M wrote:
The money that pays for this comes from employee’s benefits. It is in lieu of salary and is equivalent to salary, therefore it is rightly the property of the employee.
You’ve made a few errors here, I’m afraid. First: saying that health benefits are “in lieu of salary” makes very little sense, since no employer (until the attempt known as “Obamacare”) is obligated to offer “health benefits” at all; you seem to be suggesting that, if the health benefits were removed, the employer would somehow be obliged to raise the salaries commensurately… which is simply not true. Second: as I mentioned to EGV, the “benefits” offered by an employer need not be unconditional; an employer is free, for example, to penalise an employee who lies in order to use a “sick day” (which, by your apparent argument, is also “the property of the employee”). But more to the point: do you truly not see the difference between the evil of using one’s salary to hire a hit-man, versus *forcing the employer to hire the hit-man FOR you*?
It is the employee’s conscience that really counts here. She is the one choosing whether or not to have these services.
She is… but her employer should not be forced to buy it for her, any more than the employer should be forced to do her grocery shopping for her.
By what right does the employer get to dictate how the employee will spend the money she earns?
The employer does not do so; rather, the employer wants the freedom not to be an obligatory and direct participant in supplying that “end product”.
It is the conservatives who are against freedom of religion and freedom of conscience here.
This is hardly a “liberal vs. conservative” issue; this is an issue of raw ethics; no one (whether corporate or individual) should be forced to supply and/or participate in the direct procurement of that which he/she knows to be evil.
Consider the reverse. Would YOU want your private employer telling you that you couldn’t spend YOUR money by donating to a church or pro-life cause?
No. But I would not object if my employer were to refuse to donate directly to that Church or cause. Surely you see the difference, now?
That is essentially what the Republicans are arguing for.
I’m afraid that’s not true in the least.
They want to prevent women from having the freedom to use money they earned (in the form of insurance benefits) to pay for contraception and the like.
Again: you falsely equivocate two distinctly different things (salary, in which the money is turned over to the employee for him/her to choose to use in whatever way, and insurance benefits, in which the company pays for such services directly). Surely you see the difference in the level/proximity of complicity?
Wow Jerry M, you really don’t understand this whole healthcare mandate at all. Obamacare takes ALL individual conscience away and dicates what we *must* buy. Everyone *must* buy insurance, all insurance *must* cover these mandated services. So if I, Jane down the street, or Joesphine don’t want to pay for what we *personally* consider an evil (in this particular conversation contraceptives, birth control, et all) we are being forced, by pain of draconian fines and even criminal charges, by the government to purchase and pay for them anyway. This is why Obamacare is, on it’s face, unconstitutional. The ferderal government has no legal or moral right to force me, or any other citizen, to engage in commerce we do not want to participate in. The fact that it is *also* now forcing organizations, specifically religious ones, to also engage in business they are morally objecting too is just another example of their unconstitutional power grab.
You are right that it is every individuals right to choose whether or not to purchase an item or service…Obamacare takes that right away.
Paladin says:
“You’ve made a few errors here, I’m afraid. First: saying that health benefits are “in lieu of salary” makes very little sense, since no employer (until the attempt known as “Obamacare”) is obligated to offer “health benefits” at all; you seem to be suggesting that, if the health benefits were removed, the employer would somehow be obliged to raise the salaries commensurately… which is simply not true. ”
Actually, it IS true and it’s simple economics. Ask anyone who has studied economics. Of course employer would have to raise salaries if they didn’t offer health care. Think about it… if two otherwise equal potential employers offered you a job for the same salary, and one offered health benefits, but the other did not, no one would pick the company who doesn’t offer health benefits. They would have to offer enough more money in salary for you to go out and buy insurance yourself before you would consider taking the job. (everything else being equal). To use one poster’s term, the two are fungible. They are completely interchangeable. So I say again, it’s the employee’s money.
The employer really isn’t doing anything but choosing an insurance company. That’s it. And that should be the end of their say so. The employer does not have to perform the services, arrange for them to be performed, or really anything else. No money will go to services they might object to UNLESS the employee so chooses. If you have health insurance provided by an insurance company, you are already providing funds for contraceptives and abortions because your money is co-mingled with everyone else’s. No insurance company says “this is Joe’s money, it can go to pay for this type of service, but this over here is Jan’s money, so it cannot go to pay for these services.”
No matter what the source, everyone’s money is all the same to the insurance company. The only thing that matters is what the insured person chooses to do with her benefits. If we listened to the religious opponents plan, women who work for religious affiliated employers would have fewer choices. The administrations plan gives her choices and really does not make the religious institutions do anything they should have any objection to.
Jerry M wrote, in reply to my comment:
[Paladin]
“You’ve made a few errors here, I’m afraid. First: saying that health benefits are “in lieu of salary” makes very little sense, since no employer (until the attempt known as “Obamacare”) is obligated to offer “health benefits” at all; you seem to be suggesting that, if the health benefits were removed, the employer would somehow be obliged to raise the salaries commensurately… which is simply not true.”
[Jerry M.]
Actually, it IS true and it’s simple economics. Ask anyone who has studied economics. Of course employer would have to raise salaries if they didn’t offer health care.
I think you misunderstood my point: I did not say that such a “salary raise in lieu of health benefits” would be *unexpected*, financially; rather, I said that such a “commensurate raise” would not be OBLIGATORY (i.e. legally required). Of course, many employers would likely offer a higher salary in lieu of such extras, simply in order to be competitive; but that sense of “would have to” (i.e. in order to compete with other companies) is starkly different from my point (i.e. they would not “have to”, under the law, as if health insurance were some sort of legal right which an employee could demand, and even sue if denied it).
Think about it… if two otherwise equal potential employers offered you a job for the same salary, and one offered health benefits, but the other did not, no one would pick the company who doesn’t offer health benefits.
That may well be true; I do not argue against that. But see above: your specific point in your previous comment (about the health benefits being the employee’s “property”, to which he/she has a “right”) is not true. Only if the employer freely agrees to be bound by a contract which PROVIDES such services does any such obligation arise; no one (save perhaps for the Obamacare mandate, which I suspect will be found unconstitutional–it’s certainly immoral) legally obliges the employer to offer such things in the first place.
They would have to offer enough more money in salary for you to go out and buy insurance yourself before you would consider taking the job.
I’ll point out, again: you’re using the phrase “would have to” in one specific sense (i.e. or else lose business to a competitor), while implying that this makes it “obligatory in general”; but that there is no obligation. You’re falsely equivocating two distinct definitions of “obligation” (i.e. financial prudence vs. legally bound), and that simply won’t do.
To use one poster’s term, the two are fungible. They are completely interchangeable. So I say again, it’s the employee’s money.
And I’m saying that you’re tripping over at least one fallacy, in saying so. Here, so far as I understand it, is your position:
1) An employer typically offers both money and health “benefits” to employees.
2) Our economy places a financial value on health benefits, so it is possible to “convert” one (money or health benefits) to the other.
3) The fact that one (money or health benefits) can be exchanged for another means that there is no significant difference between them, at least legally.
4) When an employee receives his wages, the money is then considered “his property”.
5) Given the above, health benefits are to be considered the employee’s “property”.
6) It is unjust for one party to restrict how another party disposes of his property.
7) If a company refuses to honor claims for contraception in its health “benefits”, it is equivalent to restricting how the employee disposes of his earnings/salary/property (i.e. equivalent to saying “here’s your money, but we forbid you to buy contraceptives with it”).
8) Therefore, it is unjust for a company to deny claims for contraceptives in its health “benefits”.
(Do note: I’ve not addressed the idea of “how profitable it would be for a company to refuse to offer thus-and-so salary and/or benefits”; that is utterly separate from your central claim, which is that “it is unjust for a company to refuse to honor claims for contraceptives in its health insurance package”… specifically on the grounds that you find it equivalent to having the company micro-manage how an employee spends his earnings. Is that quite clear?)
#1 is true (but note that it is neither universal nor obligatory).
#2 is also true, financially speaking.
#3 is false, unless you add several strict qualifiers. First: there’s a vast difference between a health package which never offered contraceptive coverage in the FIRST place, and a health package which DID offer such coverage, but which (for whatever reason) was denied to an individual. Second: The general principle (i.e. that “anything with a monetary value must be treated exactly as one would treat money”) is provably false; one need only consider restricted items such as uranium, illegal narcotics, and the like–most of which have very high “equivalent monetary worth”–to see this. I daresay you aren’t able to buy and sell plutonium at your local lemonade stand or flea market!
#4 is true.
#5 is ambiguous enough to be false; one could argue that any health benefits promised to the employee under a contract are OWED to him by RIGHT (i.e. it would be unjust to deny them, once promised), but they would not be his “property” until he acquired them. An employee could not, for example, demand the “monetary equivalent of health care” at his retirement, on the basis that he was never sick (and did not “receive the property which was due him”).
#6 is false, without significant qualifiers. When there is a sufficiently grave need, a civil government may licitly restrict the way one spends one’s money (e.g. one cannot hire a prostitute, one cannot purchase illegal drugs, one cannot hire a hit-man [save for abortion… but I digress], etc.).
#7 is false. In addition to my comments about #3,5,6, above: this completely forgets the fact that it is unjust to compel any agent to participate in an objectively immoral act, and it is also unjust to compel any agent to participate in that which violates his sincere convictions of conscience, unless there is sufficiently grave reason (e.g. it is morally licit to save a girl from being burned to death by a mother who is deluded into thinking that such a holocause is a religious obligation). There is a stark difference between taking one’s earnings and buying one’s own contraception, and forcing the company (or the insurance provider) to buy it FOR you… especially if alternatives exist.
#8, due to invalid connections between steps and due to a number of false premises, is therefore false.
Note: had you said that “a company which agreed under contract to supply contraceptives, but then reneged on the deal, is being unjust”, I would have agreed with you. But you are not saying that.
The employer really isn’t doing anything but choosing an insurance company. That’s it.
Since you find contraception to be morally good (or at least morally neutral), I can understand why you treat it with such nonchalance. I doubt, however, that you’d be so blase about a company “merely choosing an insurance company” whose plans included “pest control/extermination of Jews”, for example. Your own nonchalance is–forgive me–due to your own bias, and since you can’t imagine why any sane person would be upset about contraceptives, you wonder equally how anyone could possibly object to their mandatory sale/provision.
And that should be the end of their say so.
May I ask why? How would you prove such a claim?
The employer does not have to perform the services, arrange for them to be performed, or really anything else.
Come, now! The same could be said of a company whose “health benefits” provided for the assassination of an irksome spouse or children (perhaps on the pretext that “reduction in stress will save health-costs and preserve health”).
No money will go to services they might object to UNLESS the employee so chooses.
Very well, then! You will not object to the “family killers for hire” as a required part of all health plans, as I described above? You will be able to keep your hands (apparently) lily-white, after all, since you would not be pulling the trigger, nor would you need to take on the distasteful task of calling the assassin, yourself…
If you have health insurance provided by an insurance company, you are already providing funds for contraceptives and abortions because your money is co-mingled with everyone else’s.
You don’t seem to understand the current mandate: the government is FORCING insurance providers, who would normally have EXCLUDED contraceptives, etc., to PROVIDE them now! Isn’t that clear?
No matter what the source, everyone’s money is all the same to the insurance company.
Surely you see that, in the case of an insurance company which does not WISH to provide contraceptives, abortions, sterilisations, etc., it makes a great DEAL of difference?
If we listened to the religious opponents plan, women who work for religious affiliated employers would have fewer choices.
And you find this to be intolerable, I take it? Would you be equally indignant at “denying the choice” to exterminate Jews, or irksome family members/neighbours? This is a key problem with abortion-tolerant logic: the euphemisms (such as “choice”) are far too vague to have any logical weight, and they are used only to inflame emotional fervour in those who don’t pay much attention to logic. Some “choices” are ALWAYS denied, in a sane society.
The administrations plan gives her choices and really does not make the religious institutions do anything they should have any objection to.
I hope you can now see why this statement (of yours) is simply not true at all.