I’m looking forward to Vermont’s upcoming venture into a single-payer system.
Falchion, your explanation may very well be correct. If it is correct, then it all boils down to this: the Obama Administration is demanding that the Little Sisters sign a meaningless piece of paper, and threatening to impose ruinous fines if they don’t sign it. (‘Meaningless’ defined here as 'will have no effect on any person’s insurance.) Which is what I said in the OP.
This is surely against the letter and spirit of what the founding fathers had in mind when they gave us the First Amendment.
Its just that they did not anticipate the election of Obama. Many of them didn’t even believe in an Anti-Christ.
If I’m interpreting your garbled post correctly, you seem to believe that birth control is illegal in Haiti, or perhaps that it’s legal but very difficult to get. You’re wrong. In Haiti, the government requires all doctors offices and hospitals to offer contraceptives.
No, the First Amendment is utterly silent on the issue of forcing people to sign meaningless pieces of paper.
I would think that your constitutional freedoms are, actually, at their weakest when you’re being “compelled” to do something meaningless.
I agree that this is stupid. But, to me, that cuts against the nuns, not the administration. The administration wants to force employers to provide this coverage, I think they’d happily force religiously objecting employers to provide this coverage, they certainly have no sympathy for the “deputizing sin” argument. What are they supposed to do? Carve out an exception in the HHS rule for people with church plans, I suppose, but there’s already an exception there for the plan in ERISA. It seems to me (again, unless I misunderstand the whole thing) that the nuns are pursuing a “if my aunt had a cock” legal theory. I don’t find it very persuasive (and I say that as someone who would be very much inclined to support the nuns if they were getting their insurance from a company that was, in fact, being compelled to provide the payments).
It’s not meaningless to them. Being forced to sign something seems like it’s First Amendment material to me.
The thing people seem to miss in a great many of these debates is the nature of a democratic republic. We vote people in to represent us but that isn’t an excuse to boot stomp our wishes into the ground because one party hit a little over half the seats representing us. It’s suppose to improve on the efficiency of a pure democracy in that citizens don’t vote on every little thing. But this isn’t a little thing. It’s a really big thing and public sentiment wasn’t accounted for. It’s probably one of the most expensive and invasive thing ever voted on. This was legislation that forces everybody into actions regarding their personal well being. It forced businesses into actions that have absolutely nothing to do with the business. It forces people with religious convictions to engage in activity they find at odds with their beliefs.
And there is no excuse for the losing party to automatically oppose everything that the one chosen by the majority does, either.
What makes you think so?
What public sentiment do you know of that favors the ability to choose disease and death and the financial ruin of entire families?
Businesses have always had the option not to offer health care insurance. They still do. What has “forced” them into it historically is the Great God Free Market - they can’t get employees if they don’t. And now, there is another option available to both employers and employees - is there another reason for that being bad other than party identification?
And that is why the exception was put in place - as a sop to them that nevertheless does not relieve them of their obligations under the social contract.
The Little Sisters of the Poor get their insurance through a Catholic group set up particularly to ensure groups like them. It will not provide coverage of contraception, to state the obvious. If the Little Sisters sign the paper, then the third-party administrator legally could provide coverage but, in practice, will not. Hence the paper is meaningless, in the sense that it will not change anything about any person’s insurance. This is what I’ve said all along, and you’ve insisted throughout the thread that I was wrong. (See post #115, for one of many examples.) Now apparently you’re reversing and acknowledging that the paper is meaningless and doesn’t change anyone’s insurance in any way.
Of course that contradicts what you’ve said earlier. In post #142, you wrote a long post, quoting many sources, arguing for the opposite: that if the Little Sisters signed the paper, then their employees would get contraception coverage. You specifically quoted:
The nuns refuse to opt out, however, because opting out on paper will allow their employees to get that contraception coverage.
The law requires insurers or the health plan’s outside administrator to pay for birth control coverage
You reiterated that claim specifically in many posts. You used that claim to label the nuns “assholes”, “trying to push their beliefs on their employees”, “should be punished”, etc… You were wrong. It was the Obama Administration who specifically wrote the rules such that the employees would not get coverage of contraception. If you were really at all upset about that fact, then your anger would be directed at the Obama Administration.
Can I get a clarification on “meaningless” here? Specifically, this analysis seems to imply that it is meaningless only for the nuns and their employees.
But if the administration doesn’t “force” the nuns to sign, could that be used by other groups looking for a more serious exemption? “Hey, you let the nuns get away with it, why not us?” Sort of like the way companies defend their trademarks under the most bizare circumstances in order to avoid a precedent allowing its free use.
I seriously don’t know, and wopnder if some legal expertise can be brought to bear on the question.
I think that’s exactly what should occur when such an objectionable piece of legislation is voted on.
the sentiment that says don’t fuck me in the ass in order to help someone else. Legislation to help one person shouldn’t hurt other people and businesses. Millions of people lost their insurance or had their costs raised. It was suppose to lower premiums.
this is rather disingenuous. They have to pay a fine if they don’t offer insurance. They are absolutely forced to pay for this.
Do you also think the reasons for the objections need to be responsible? That they need to be presented and discussed in a responsible way? Or is simple oppositionism enough for you if it’s the other guys doing it?
IOW, no, you cannot support your statement that public sentiment is against the legislation. Got it.
Do you have any idea how a society even works, much less how it is paid for?
You know better. Or ought to.
No. It was supposed to broaden and guarantee coverage.
As opposed to their previous position of having to pay for employee health insurance before? Cry me a fucking river.
Yes, how it’s paid for is everything. We live in a global economy and added expenses to companies competing in this environment automatically makes them less competitive.
This goal was never a question and there were alternatives to achieving that goal. We were promised significantly lower premiums. It wasn’t a mis-peak by the President. It was made repeatedly. This apparently doesn’t mean anything to you but to those of us who got hit with the higher premiums it’s a big deal. And the people who most needed that reduction were more likely to get their hours cut in order to slide under the 30 hr a week rule.
It’s not you I cry for, it’s the people who were harmed financially over this.
So far this is an unfunded mandate. People have lost their coverage over it. People have lost working hours because of it. Hospitals are rejecting those newly insured under medicaid. And og help anybody who thought they signed up for it but the computer system didn’t register them properly. It’s just a matter of time before it gets hacked and another layer of stupid reigns down on the needy.
This was a badly constructed piece of legislation which in turn was badly executed. It’s caused a great deal of harm and it shouldn’t be that way. This was nothing but good intentions hung in effigy by the people who voted for it.
Somehow, I’m not entirely confident on your ability to interpret either the Obama Administration’s words or mine. You make assumptions of the 3rd party insurance company that is unsupported, and assume the possibility of contraception coverage means they are going to do it, or not. Stop doing that, seriously.
Maybe take a look at your own reasons for this topic. Maybe look at the posts where a guy like Bricker, a staunch conservative, has repeatedly told you that this isn’t a 1st Amendment issue. Maybe realize that there is more than simply bullying some nuns that the administration wants. Ok, we get it, you hate Obama, but think this through: why would he want to risk bad publicity on purpose by fighting nuns? You can think he’s evil, but he’s been elected twice, he’s got health care passed, and even pushed through some treaties. You cannot assume he’s stupid, so what is his plan? Just to exercise his power to bully nuns? Unless you do think he’s totally stupid and just wants to mess with nuns for shits and giggles.
There’s a plan to this. I don’t care if you believe it or not, but whatever you think he says or he means, Obama knows that he will be able to free these employees from the nuns’ religious fundamentalism. No, it doesn’t matter if you can’t see it, everyone else sees it, that’s good enough. The employees will be able to get their coverage somewhere else, that’s the plan. And it starts with the nuns losing this lawsuit because they are clearly in the wrong. And assholes.
And even as the lives are ruined and the corpses pile up, the liberal media remains muted and quiet as the horror unfolds.
why you’re right. I googled all the major liberal news organizations regarding problems with ACA and not one hit.
The 80% of Haitian’s are RC they are taught that it is a big sin to practice Birth Control refraining from sex only during a wife’s fertile tine. The Most unnatural kind of Birth control there is.
Just because it is legal and available the One’s who follow the church’s dictates out of fear of hell or offending God don’t use it.
Years ago on the TV they showed a man in Bali, teaching the people how to use a condom, helped a lot of people get out of poverty. They had thought they had to have many children to feed their family on their 2 acres of yard, he taught them that having smaller families they wouldn’t need as much food.
Well that settles it. If an anonymous internet user claims that years ago he saw something on TV, then it must be true.
What’s your better idea, Magiver? What do you want to replace it with after you repeal it? Anything? Is there any good part of this law at all? What *do *you want to do now, other than whine?