Supreme Court strikes down contraception law

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_268798/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=vMFBDQdc


This pretty much is what it sounds like. The Supreme Court has just ruled that corporations can choose to provide healthcare compensation that does not cover contraception. This was based on the religious freedoms clause of the First Amendment.

I want to be the first to say that Supreme Court is dead wrong. Corporations are not people and therefore cannot practice religion. All there is a profit-seeking entity and how they compensate their employees. This ruling makes me sick. It's just another way for the wealthy to force their views and religions on us.

The whole "corporations are people", thing will be struck down someday, and looked at with a disgusted head shake in history by future generations.
I just don't think I'll live to see it.
It's one of those "like passing an iceberg", things, like slavery.

I hear that many traditional branches of Christianity condemn interest on borrowed money as usury.

Jehovah witnesses don't believe in blood transfusions organ transplants. Can a JW employer now provide health insurance that doesn't cover blood transfusions and organ transplants? This ruling is so absurd.

Shit, let's all just skip to the Christian Science health plan, and pray the cancer away.

Actually, it's not the ruling that is absurd, but the practice of health coverage being provided by the employer. Once you go down that absurd path, you should not be surprised that it leads to other absurdities.

The biggest gripe of all that I have concerning Obamacare is that it did not address that fundamental problem in American health coverage. It even makes it more official, by fining employers that don't do it. Having lived almost all of my adult life in France, that just strikes as such an outlandish way of providing health coverage that I can't imagine why people still insist on it. Why not give employees the money and let them buy their own health coverage, either through a government option or a private option?

Agree with Async -- there is no way for employer provided healthcare not to be packed with all manner of absurdities. Hopefully by making the fines lower than premiums, ACA can over time cause a transition away from the practice.

The ruling is still pretty bad, we shouldn't be confused by the topic area. Essentially it opens the door to all workplace rules being contested on religious grounds.

Not unsurprisingly, I am in favor of the ruling.

Just out of curiosity, why don't you advocate for the fines to be HIGHER than the premiums? That way someone who purchases health insurance has a REAL financial incentive to buy health insurance AND winds up with health insurance.

I don't know why, but this made me LOL

Are you talking about the fines to businesses or individuals? If individuals, I agree, higher fines would make sense if the goal is behavior modification. But I'm talking about business fines. I want employers to stop providing health insurance. We have a law that requires that they do so or face a fine. If the fine is less than the cost of insurance, then they should opt to be fined. Employer involvement massively distorts the market. Get rid of it!

"How dare you object citing your personal beliefs to avoid doing that thing I'm commanding you to do?"

Coverage of the decision has said that they explicitly mention that a company couldn't refuse to cover blood transfusions, but I'm having a hard time understanding the reasoning. Perhaps it's just that the conservative justices share Hobby Lobby's beliefs regarding contraception.

Which is really insidious, because the court is essentially saying that religious based employment discrimination is not okay, except when it targets women. So women are a distinctly second class category per SCOTUS.

Hopefully hobby lobby and chic filet can stop serving gays and minorities now. In the name of religious freedom.

And don't even get me started on how great it will be to go shopping and not have to see a Muslim welcome in the store.

Allah ackbar!

No employer should be forced to cover contraceptions. Having sex is a CHOICE and that responsibility lies with the employee.

I can't wait to see what happens when a company owned by Moslems tries to compel female employees to wear a hijab.

As long as my kosher hot dogs keep getting made I'm happy.

1.) Millions of rape victims disagree that having sex is a "choice" in at least some circumstances.
2.) If an employee does something stupid and injures themselves at home, requiring hospitalization, should an employers insurance policy be required to cover that? After all, it was the employee who made the choice to be irresponsible, so is it fair to make the employer cover that cost?
3.) If the employer doesn't cover the cost, are you prepared to bear the various social costs involved in poor women giving birth to children they can ill afford?
4.) Even if there's no additional tax dollars associated with caring for those kids, are you prepared to live in a world where humans are just cast out into the streets to diew, or left to bake in hot cars?
5.) Do you agree with the following statement: "One of the reasons why we have police is because humans cannot be trusted to always do the right thing."? Why or why not?

I would not really be opposed to this. I am that much in favor of freedom, that I would be willing for them to be able to do it. (And willing to see them have a hard time getting workers and/or competing with companies that seem more "American" to their customers).

And, somewhat off-topic, I thought "Moslems" was supposed to be a racist term? I used it once (back when I lived in the States, that's simply what the word was) and it raised a whole storm of protest about how racist I am (not from you, I know, but from a number of others) for using that instead of "Muslims." Was that just for the fun of criticizing me, and the term is actually as ordinary as I had thought it was?

Interesting idea. I guess now that Obamacare is real, there isn't a reason to require businesses to cover insurance.

Good luck getting businesses to "pass on" those savings to employees, though.

Fox News uses "Moslems" and "Usama Bin Laden."

1.) Why isn't that tragedy the responsibility of the rapist?
2.)No
3.) That's already happening.
4.) See above.You don't catch much local news do you.
5.) Yes, but highly irrelevant to the subject.

Oh yeah, muthafucka? I can out-freedom you.


Unlimited freedom.

Religious human sacrifices, everything.
But, I have an equal right to kill everyone I disagree with.
But, you can kill me back.
So, I'd better be quicker on the draw, or have some good booby-traps.

Howzat for liberty, eh?

And yet Hobby Lobby has millions of dollars worth of investments in their employer provided retirement portfolio related to the production or sale of contraceptives, even though there are companies out there that will help you screen any investments for such things. So apparently contraceptives are only a problem to Hobby Lobby if they are being offered to employees.

Behavior modification should never. Ever. be a goal of any government policy.

Not even if the policy involves things like making kidnapping illegal?

That's a policy designed to discourage malum in se offenses. Behavior modification to discourage malum prohibitum offenses is Orwellian villainy and not to be tolerated.

This is a horrible ruling that will have effects far beyond allowing companies whose owners are personally opposed to morning - after pills to disallow coverage.

I agree with Alphaman, the concept of corporations as "people" that can assert religious beliefs is absurd and dangerous. The slippery slope here is steep and wide.