Posted on 02/09/2012 12:28:40 PM PST by iowamark
Critics are missing the main point...
When the administration affirmed last month that church-affiliated employers must buy health insurance that covers birth control, the outcry was instant. Critics complained that certain institutions should be exempt as a matter of religious freedom. Although the ruling was meant to be final, presidential advisers said this week that the administration might look for a compromise.
Critics are missing the larger point. Why should the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decree that any of us must pay for "insurance" that covers contraceptives?
I put "insurance" in quotes for a reason. Insurance is supposed to mean a contract, by which a company pays for large, unanticipated expenses in return for a premium: expenses like your house burning down, your car getting stolen or a big medical bill.
Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses. There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn't add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn't charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste. You'd have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you'd end up spending more...
The critics fell for a trap. By focusing on an exemption for church-related institutions, critics effectively admit that it is right for the rest of us to be subjected to this sort of mandate. They accept the horribly misnamed act, and they resign themselves to chipping away at its edges. No, we should throw it out, and fix the terrible distortions in the health-insurance and health-care markets.
Sure, churches should be exempt. We should all be exempt.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
No, the real problem is that the State is trying to assert the authority to define just what is (and what is not) the “real” ministry and mission of the Church.
The assertion is that only those narrowly defined activities pertaining to and supporting worship and explicit religious teaching are worthy of exemption.
What part of “free exercise thereof” do they fail to understand?
No, the problem is as stated in the article. We will all be forced to pay for contraception and abortion practices whether we believe in them or need them.
As a “fixed” 57yo, I don’t wish to pay for this foolishness. Neither do I wish to pay for yearly mammograms or pap smears. Obumocare is tyranny thinly disguised as compassionate.
At the risk of being accused of "derailing" the subject of this thread, I must make a correction (ommission) in that definition.
If the premium is not risk based, it is NOT insurance.
Doesn't matter how the total risk cost is paid. That could (should?) be the subject of a separate thread.
The label "insurance" is fraudulent in this and many other "health care" program discussions.
the problem is with employer buying health care packages for their employees.
everyone should get to buy their own health care.
If a “waiver” is granted (and where’s the authority for that?) it will be a clear violation of equal protection under the law.
IMHO, the bedrock “problem” is not “birth control.” It is conception control, or copulation control, or even foreplay control. But once some consequential combination of any or all of the three take place, there should be no allowance for “birth control.”
Once a LIFE is conceived, there should be no question of its continuing to term and being brought forth into the world. As to cases of rape or incest; if the mother is not able or desirous of keeping the child, there are thousands of barren married couples with yearning empty arms who would compete for a chance at adoption.
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