Yes, social grace lessons should be included in health care. Rationally speaking, this conclusion is totally inescapable once you accept that the condition of having your entire body go into “other human production” mode when you don’t want it to can have health consequences.
I’ll respond after you actually answer the questions I asked you.
Contraceptives - in this case ‘the pill’ - serve more purpose than just contraception and/or ‘preventing pregnancy’. Even if that was their only purpose, there are legitimate medical reasons why pregnancy might need to be avoided, and this is the safest alternative for that to happen. For those people that are so inclined religously that ‘abstinence’ is their answer to that scenario, they wouldn’t take (or need to ) advantage of the prescription in the benefits anyway.
Even a little research on your part and you would know that.
and I’m a guy - and I know that.
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of health care as only including post-incident treatment. Preventive treatment, such as wellness visits, quitting smoking treatments, vitality screenings, cancer screenings, prostate exams, and yes, contraception, are not only part of health care, but they’re also money savers in the long run.
While you can certainly spew out a host of example of actions that could prevent injuries/health issues that aren’t considered health care, I’m not so sure the link between driving lessons/social grace/and self-defense classes and injuries are as closely linked as a colonoscopy, mammogram, quit smoking treatment, or contraception to health care issues. Luckily, I have the majority of health care providers on my side.
I am pretty sure driving lessons and helmets would save as many lives (if not more) than mammograms and colonoscopies. Or contraception, for that matter. And the link between bad driving and “health issues” is about as direct as can be, with ~30,000 dead and ~2.5M injured every year. Yet those are not included in health care. How come? And should they be?
Driving lessons are already required to get a driver’s license, and many States require additional classes for repeat violators, so I am having a problem seeing the additional driving classes you posit as having any significant savings to health care. If you have any actual studies, by all means inform the insurance companies, because they would love to have any recommendations that would obviously save them money. I eagerly await the new Terr plan coming from Allstate.
I think the wisdom of contraceptive coverage is a hijack to the legalities of this thread, so perhaps a new thread would be best. I know I’m quickly losing interest in your topic.
I’m thinking it is time to get Planned Parenthood to do a condom give away outside of Hobby Lobby.
Back in the pre-PPACA days there were several policies on the market that treated a normal pregnancy different than all other health care. This was in a mindset that divided a person’s health status into one of three broad categories normal, diseased, or injured.
A normal pregnancy was viewed as a normal state of existence of a human body and not a disease condition. Generally, such a normal state was not covered unless specifically contracted for by payment of additional premium.
However a complicated pregnancy could devolve into a rather difficult to distinguish series of medical procedures, some covered and some not covered. The insurer might, for example, treat gestational diabetes through not cover routine pre-natal care to support the pregnancy (ultrasounds, pre-natal vitamins, a normal delivery).
The same normal/diseased/injured mindset was used in evaluating drugs. Monthly ovulation was viewed as a normal state and insurers did not pay for drugs to prevent a normal bodily function. However a woman with endrometriosis might find her oral contraceptive pills covered as they are an effective treatment of a diseased state.
The PPACA has mandate a change of mindset with regards to certain preventative care including contraceptives. This runs counter to longstanding business practices within the insurance industry.
The socially conservative view of why birth control shouldn’t be covered is usually, in my experience, based on some variant of, “keep your legs closed, and you don’t need birth control. Why should I pay because you want to be a whore?”
As is typical of most conservative thought, it’s clumsy. The better way to look at it, is that most adults are going to have fairly regular sex. Since most adults are going to have fairly regular sex, the mediation of pregnancy is a reasonable health issue for any sensible health care system to address.
Pregnancy lowers your mobility, is dangerous in and of itself, involves hospitalization at the end, and numerous doctor visits during. Of course mediation of that condition is a medical issue.
As many as one third of oral contraceptives are prescribed for non-birth control purposes. Generally that means regulating severe menstrual symptoms but there are lots of others.
Do you propose that a person should need a doctor’s prescription for self-defense classes or driving classes? That would change my opinion on the matter.
On the overall issue, I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that Hobby Lobby probably has the law on their side. The stupid, short-sighted, chock-full-of-unintended-consequences law. If the Court does go that way, I hope that it is a narrow enough ruling that businesses cannot simply flash a religious text like a detective’s badge to exempt itself from a long list of labor, environmental, civil rights, and other laws.
If they were covered by insurance, I guess yes. Why wouldn’t the doctor write that “prescription” though? Everyone can benefit from such a class, so why not.
Which law is that?
Yes, it’s a medical issue.
But why should it be an issue that I have to pay you for? Why don’t you buy your birth control, and I buy my birth control?
Answer: because the Congress of the United States has mandated otherwise.
OK. I don’t think that’s a wise decision, but I accept that in a system of representative democracy, that’s how we make rules. I don’t get to personally approve every single rule.
But the Congress of the United States has ALSO mandated that any time it makes a rule that infringes on a person’s religious practice, that infringement must be narrowly tailored to advance a compelling interest. And the Congress of the United States has further mandated that when it says “person,” it means natural flesh-and-blood people, and corporations.
For some bizarre reason, you don’t accept this rule with the same grace I accept the first rule. You want the courts to re-write Congress’ express language to differentiate between for-profit and non-profit corporations, despite the total lack of such language in the laws the Congress passed.
You’re happy to use Congress’ rules when you like them, and happy to disclaim them when you don’t. Your system of government is: “Whatever Lobohan thinks is the correct rule, IS THE RULE.”
The main difference between the birth control pill and tae kwon do classes isn’t the relative impacts on health or how they are treated by insurance, it’s that a doctor’s prescription is required for one of them. That automatically makes it a health care and insurance issue in my mind.
RFRA.
Have you noticed that the main thrust of opposition here does not actually address the law or what is says? Have you noticed that the main thrust of the opposition here is to push for the court to rule against Hobby Lobby regardless of what the law says?
Doesn’t that alarm you?
I mean, seriously – if the law is shortsighted and has loads of unintended consequences, as you say this one does – then surely the correct answer in a representative democracy is to change the law, isn’t it? Not to ask the court to pencil in a for-profit/non-profit distinction to steer the law the way you want it to go…right?
Okay, here’s some things:
Bricker, you’re right about the Dictionary Act’s definition of people and that it applies to Hobby Lobby. I can’t even believe there would be an argument otherwise.
However, I think Hamlet is right that in no way did any (yes, I mean zero) legislator who voted for RFRA or President Clinton think that this would ever, could ever, be applied to a corporation.
BUT, I can’t see how the SCOTUS would be able to rule against Hobby Lobby; the language of the Dictionary Act and the RFRA both seem very clear to me, however poorly thought out the wording may be for conveying actual intent. Frankly, I doubt that more than .01% of the population had ever given thought to whether or not a corporation could have a religion before this case was brought, so it’s difficult to find much fault with the authors of the bill, it’s supporters (all but 3 members of Congress voted in favor of it), or President Clinton for what seems to be an unintentional consequence here.
Bricker, do you believe there was an intent, either with the RFRA or with the Dictionary Act or with any other act of Congress passed into law, to try and actually equate corporations with flesh-and-blood people so that they enjoy ALL the same rights, possibly including but not limited to religious, reproductive, and/or voting rights?
Menstrual cycle regulation is something of a red herring since Hobby Lobby is neither opposed to the pill nor against offering insurance that provides it.
The text of the Dictionary Act includes “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise … the words “person” and “whoever” include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals;”
The Dictionary Act itself includes language the requires courts to go beyond the simplistic “well persons = corporations, We’re done with out analysis!!!” argument and look to the context of the act. The fact that, as you point out, there is no indication whatsoever that they intended the RFRA to apply to for profit corporations (and legislation that tried to allow it to for profit corporations was defeated). And the very stated purpose of RFRA was to overrule legislatively the Supreme Court ruling in Employment Division v. Smith, without a single mention of extending free exercise protections to for-profit corporations. When the intent of RFRA is perfectly clear, the status of the law when RFRA was enacted didn’t allow for free exercise by for-profit corporations, and the very stated purpose of the RFRA didn’t include a change in that law, it becomes perfectly clear that the context of the term “people” did not, does not, and should not, include for-profit corporations.
While the “persons=corporations” argument is nice in it’s simplicity, it also ignores the very requirements of the Dictionary Act itself, which requires a consideration of the context. And one the major reasons for that is to avoid cases like this where legislative intent is usurped by simplistic term substitution.
Do you expect this to be the end of the issue? Do you imagine that no other corporation would object to coverage of contraception itself violates their rights? Should we allow these corporations to decide what is an abortificiant and what isn’t?