This is truly disgusting. Time to change the name of the country to Christian Talibania if crap like this passes.
In their latest move in the battle over contraception coverage, top Republicans in Congress are going for broke: They’re now pushing a bill that would allow employers and insurance companies to pick and choose which health benefits to provide based simply on executives’ personal moral beliefs. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the top GOPer in the Senate, has already endorsed the proposal, and it could come to a vote this week. The measure would make the religious exemptions to President Barack Obama’s health care bill so large they’d swallow it whole.
“This is about gutting the Affordable Care Act and the protections it was meant to establish,” says Leila Abolfazli, a lawyer focusing at the National Women’s Law Center who focuses on health and reproductive rights.
[…]
But Blunt’s proposal doesn’t just apply to religious employers and birth control. Instead, it would allow any insurer or employer, religiously affiliated or otherwise, to opt out of providing any health care services required by federal law—everything from maternity care to screening for diabetes. Employers wouldn’t have to cite religious reasons for their decision; they could just say the treatment goes against their moral convictions.
Suppose your boss believes bloodletting and voodoo are the only morally permissible medical treatments. Should his beliefs be allowed to prevent you from getting treatment for cancer?
I’ll just say: “dogma.”
Each and every rant I have made on the subject applies.
If evil wasn’t always relevant, irrelevant is what these fools would be.
Yep it’s a sad turn of events. If this passes we can kiss more of our freedom good bye. Thanks Republicans for initiating into law what is in your lobbyists best interests. Thanks Democrats supporting it.
What freedom? The government decides what you get and don’t get and its going to hand you the bill. If you don’t like that you can drop dead. They don’t care.
You thought it was free? So did the Greeks but then the bills came due. They’re so happy now with minimum wages cute 25%, massive government firings, reductions in services, etc. that they could just cry…or burn Athens down.
The rich are going to pay for it? You make me want to laugh till I cry. Even if you take it all they can’t cover what is being blown by the Fed Gov. now.
Stop treating health coverage as an employment benefit. We are bending over backwards to resolve problems with an antiquated system that is problematic *because* its antiquated.
I’d rather my boss — whom I chose to work for or not — have a say over what procedures would be covered rather than the US Gov’t, from whom I have no recourse.
One way or another, I’ll make certain all other avenues are exhausted before I submit my children to being dealt with by a government insurance program.
So easily led to slaughter, pity your meat is rancid.
So you choose to work for your boss?
On my planet, the boss chooses the employees that work for them, usually based on a pre-screen job interview.
Then when they are done with you, they lay you off.
I think I will migrate to your planet where you get to choose who you work for.
It is a mutual agreement. One provides services and the other pays for them.
If the terms no longer appeal to either party, then that party is welcome to cancel the agreement whenever they want.
What planet do you live on that you can’t leave your place of employment?
You’re being disingenuous. You know very well its not easy to “just find a new job” if the old one isnt optimal, especially in this job market, and especially for less skilled, lower wage workers.
What gets me is this phenomena of being trapped due to health concerns affect entrepreneurs too. How many workaday stiffs might have an idea and start a business if not for the concerns of the cost or access to adequate healthcare?
What a bunch of whiners!
If you don’t like your job, get another one somewhere else, even if you have to do something different.
Job market or not, it is YOUR decision to stay where you are at.
I have no sympathy for someone who whines about their lot in life and does nothing to fix it.
I live on planet Earth, in a capitalist country where the economy was virtually destroyed by the unregulated private financial sector.
To make a long story short, I cannot leave my place of employment until I secure employment elsewhere, but there is no employment that is available elsewhere.
In short, I am a slave.
I hear my Massa calling. I better be good, or I will be kicked into the street and my family will starve. I’ve gotta run.
Please don’t tell my Massa I was talking to you.
What a whiner. Sounds like you are blaming your your own shortsightedness on your boss.
Instead of relying on him, why not take possession of your own destiny.
I’m also thinking someone has hacked that user name.
Will Left please stop this BS?
If your boss (or company in general) PAYS for part or most of your health insurance – THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT to pick and choose what you get or not. Notice that you are NOT banned from accessing any other health care you may want/need: pay for it from your own pocket either by saving or purchasing additional coverage.
Present tyrannical Obamandate is not a freedom. It is slavery to the Government. Government attempts to control what you can get, Government that control what you must get. No freedom for you alone to get what you want covered and what not. Good for sheep and cattle, not for the free people.
As for type of people offering you this newfangled “right”… just ask yourself a question – “What kind of person offers accounting trick and slight of hand as a resolution of values and morals dilemma?”. For me a question of morals demands answer in values and morals, one answering it with slight of hand has only pretense of values and morals.
Dismal–you are exactly correct and state just why employers should not pay for/provide healthcare coverage.
Thank you.
The majority of states already mandate contraceptives in health insurance plans for the same reason – promotes women, children health by allowing spacing between human spawn.
If the church would stop condoning women to breed like guppies (to grow the church customer base) we wouldn’t have this problem!
Well, it’s the “My mommy knows what’s good for me” condition that is inherent with conservatives.
A step up from “My Government knows what’s good for me.”
How can a vacuum decide anything?
The vapid, vacuous 1%er are going to be faced with a moral dilemma: On the one hand, buy health care for the employees, while on the other … Ooo … shiny. Anyway, I wanted a new set of golf clubs… I’m sorry, were you saying something?
The longer I stay in the ‘States, the more I’m glad to be a Canadian.
This election is by far the most disgusting display of The Pot Calling The Kettle Black.
The sanctimonious twit Santorum wants everybody to suddenly be like he wants them to be, (like that will ever happen.)
The hypocrite Mittens doesn’t care about the poor because they have a safety net, and his first order of business on getting into office will be to dismantle it. (His pals, the corporation, need the money.)
The stunned Obama will get in again because since is going to vote for any repube because they’re all smothered in ipecac.
Big money, aka the scum on K Street, is rigging every ballot box and every initiative so that the parties don’t matter, they buy all of the greedy politicians.
Same as it ever was…
No employer HAS to provide health coverage.
Remember that.
Yep and they like it that way!
But they do it anyway.
What did people do before there was health insurance?
Did they save back some money for a rainy day?
What did they do?
There wasnt much to medicine back then. Mostly they died.
Most bosses do not care about their slaves, neither do they have any believes when it comes to money. And those sick slaves are really expensive. And lazy when they are not sick. So it’s good they die real quick from really cheap (and preferably free) treatment when they become sick. One of the best laws corporations can lobby for. The next law will be using bullets to be called a treatment also. The most inexpensive healthcare solution.
Jon Stewart just made in comprehensible: Say the High School Coach’s morality is in charge of your healthplan: “You got injuries? Walk it off, pussies.”
Silly? Or just exactly what the Pukes think they aren’t doing?
“Suppose your boss believes bloodletting and voodoo are the only morally permissible medical treatments. Should his beliefs be allowed to prevent you from getting treatment for cancer?”
If he’s PAYING for it then yes! And it will probably be time to find a new job too.
But what I want to know is now that a significant group of people are going to be wards of the state (thanks to Obama’s health care law that forces us all to have private insurance or be forced to buy the government’s plan – for simply being citizens!) what will the state say is “morally objectionable”?!
The solution for workers is simple.
Sue your employer for religious discrimination if they do not provide health care because of their personal religious beliefs.
If they are sued into the ground they will not even be able to pay for their own medical care.
Other businesses that are sane and rational will spring up to fill the voids left by the religious intolerant.
Cursor_
How about I get to choose what coverage I want? How about me, a middle aged guy who’s had a vasectomy, doesn’t have to pay for maternity, early child wellness and breast and cervical cancer coverage? How about if I get to choose the level of coverage? How about I get to choose to have no coverage at all?
Maybe I can’t because only 3 or 4% of the people in this country know how to mind there own fucking business and leave others alone? But that’s okay…there’s an economic reckoning coming that will alter priorities for the busybodies and suburban welfare queens. Anyone who can understand 8th grade math can see it coming.
Don’t worry, youll be old and sick one day. I hope for your sake we pull our heads out of our asses, figure this thing out, and save you from your own shortsightedness.
Feel free to stop doing me favors any time you like.
Feel free to renounce your medicare, social security, and any other government largesse with a teat you are sucking on.
Also, feel free to give up roads, law enforcement, fire services, education, garbage, water, sewerage, electricity, and any of the other 1000 services that are made possible ONLY by “big government”.
Hypocrite, moron, fool.
You’re mixing your programs.
Medicare and SS are federally funded (I use the term loosely).
The others are all handled by local and state governments. As they should be.
Is this just I’m-not-paying-for-abortions legislation? I mean what other kind of “birth-control” is being payed for here? My boss doesn’t buy me condoms or pay for “the pill” (I don’t think??).
If your boss doesn’t want to provide abortions is that really that bad? …this sounds to me like a FUD attack. Am I wrong?
Your ocean is wide, but only an inch deep.
Ever read ………anything?
Don’t pick on him, hes airsick.
Thanks Bobbo. I’ve been reading all your comments. So please explain to me how abortions become such an important health care benefit? Are breast implants paid for? Face lifts?
I might have a problem if my Jehovah’s Witness boss decided I could never have a (paid for) blood transfusion, but this is all about abortions.
My question was how bad is it that they aren’t paying for abortion coverage? If you need one so bad pay for it yourself! Most people have to pay for cancer treatments, broken arms. Why should abortions be free?
kthxbai.
Who has mentioned abortions?
Suppose your boss believes bloodletting and voodoo are the only morally permissible medical treatments. Should his beliefs be allowed to prevent you from getting treatment for cancer?
Perhaps you should find another job. If you are scared of this law because you are afraid your boss is into voodoo, you have other problems.
Personally, I like the idea of a privately owned company having the authority to manage its own money.
Loser===you are such an IDIOT!
Karl Marx wrote in down 150 years ago===there is unavoidable tension/opposition between capital and labor. Capital in concentrated, labor is diffuse. Capital is mobile, labor is static. This constitutes an anavoidable class struggle that leads to chaos whenever one gets too much control over the other.
LIEberTARDS would be so rewarded if they would only read more than a comic book ever once in a while.
Its one thing to have dogmatic faith in things that can’t be proven one way or the other. Quite another to have the same fantasies on issues analyzed and proven to be just the opposite.
Why you so silly?
And you don’t know to read.
Maybe you should find another country, or preferably another planet.
Why? I’m perfectly happy doing the best I can with what I have and working for what I don’t.
You seem to want everything handed to you.
Yeah! What if the only kind of obstetric care your boss chose to pay for was abortion?
How long until employers forbid workers from buying “things they find objectionable” like birth control or a competing company’s product?
After all, “they paid for it…”
Arguing that “they pay for it so they should have a say” is weak at any rate. This isnt a gift – its part of our compensation. The benefit should serve the workers needs, not the employers, as it is payment for services rendered.
Next they’ll have moral objections to paying people so much…wait, they do that already.
I’ll say one more word (sic!): stooges.
Ha, ha. Yes, I know==everyone knows I’m lying.
I’ll say one more word: context.
……………….
So, if you wanna play free-market stuff, why not just go get another job for an employer you prefer?
Obama tried to make contraception mandatorily covered…the right screamed…he out-flanked them and said that the business (let’s not candy-coat it…I mean the church) didn’t HAVE to pay for it, but the insurance companies would…see, he’s smarter than most people.
So, go ahead, Catholic church…find an insurance company that will want to do business with you…free market, what, what? hey?
It all makes me tired.
I don’t understand what you’re all grousing about. I was employed by a major school district here in Los Angeles, and for years the District and the healthcare providers decided what was and was not covered. Several years later the unions convinced the Board of Education to allow a committee of union reps to manage our health plans. Almost every time the committee negotiated with the healthcare providers and it went to the Board for approval. The Board of Education (all Democrats) pissed, bitched, moaned and groaned about the plans, even though it was saving them money. So this BS about Republicans or evil 1% wanting to destroy freedom or healthcare doesn’t wash with me. Power is the corrupting factor, political party affiliation or income level are only partial influences. The 99% are just as destructive to out freedoms as any of the 1%, in some respect even more. Same goes for the Democrats.
I don’t like the idea of healthcare being tied to employers at all, but I guess that is what Obamacare does.
Didn’t half the big companies like McDonalds get waivers to opt out of this?
I guess I will wait and see how this plays out and hopefully this whole ordeal does not evolve to be a huge train wreck.
Look ahead at where the track lead. The bridge is out.
We are already doomed now that politicians have direct input.
Don’t work for that boss?
So if an employer wanted to hold mandatory prayer sessions, that’s illegal because it’s imposing their religious ways on their employees.
But if employees want mandatory benefits that an employer feels are against his religion, how is that not imposing on the religious beliefs of the employer?
Disclaimer: I’m all for birth control. But I don’t think the state has any business getting involved in employer/employee healthcare plans.
Answer me this simple question:
That responsibility properly belongs to the state, not to evanescent corporations.
It was not handled properly because Humana Health worked out a sweetheart deal with Richard M. Nixon.
Humana went from being a small regional hospital manager into a billion dollar profit making machine that has funded politicians ever since.
You’ve been screwed, from the grave, by Nixon and Butz and you’re too ignorant to realize it.
Whew! It belongs to the state?
Where did you go to school? Russia?
Admit it! You are too lazy to care for yourself! You can’t move back in with your parents, so you are looking for the easy out.
Where did you go to school, 1860’s London?
Actually, I’m a product of the public education system. College, too.
Despite this, I managed to do ok for myself.
Actually the responsibility for my health lies with me and me alone. I don’t want the state involved.
It’s up to the individual to procure their own healthcare plan as they see fit. If an employer happens to offer healthcare as part of employment benefits, great. If healthcare isn’t adequate or existent, then either work for someone else or purchase it elsewhere.
Where did you get the idea that YOUR health insurance was your employer’s responsibility?
How about your car insurance? He’s on the hook for that too?
Employers offer health coverage as a bonus, not as a right.
It is called a ‘benefit’ for working at any place of employment.
But of course, ‘benefits’ are a right of every citizen.
We need to extrapolate this into everyone makes the same salary or hourly wage for a given job title. Put the government in charge to make sure everyone in the same position gets paid the exact same.
You’re just jealous because there’s nothing they can do to fix your low IQ
Your employer can impose anything he wants, so long as he is not a government entity.The thought that he may choose what health care may or not be in your policy makes my head hurt, especially if it is against his moral leanings. Health insurance should be my choice and what it covers is nobody’s business.
However I think it needs to be standardized to fit a person’s needs and ability to pay. I’m an old man and don’t need birth control, but a woman might want it. If a certain health coverage doesn’t suit you or is against your moral leaning, then by all means don’t use it. But don’t let that affect the rest of us.
Guess what? If you don’t like the health insurance offered at your work you don’t have to take it. You can go out and get a policy on your own.
Why should the government be dictating what a company has to offer?
You want birth control and your health insurance doesn’t cover it? Go buy it with your money. You can even put $40 a month into a health savings account so the money you spend on the birth control is tax free. Can’t afford it? Go to Planned Parenthood.
“You can even put $40 a month into a health savings account so the money you spend on the birth control is tax free.”
That is too complicated for the average Nanny State citizen.
Go to Planned Parenthood.
But the politicians are defunding Planned Parenthood because they’re convinced that Nancy Reagan was right and “Just Say No!” is a workable solution (and besides that way leaves more money for their lavish Washington Insider lifestyles.)
Why should the government dictate that an employer must pay overtime after 40 hours per week? Why should the government dictate that you can’t drive over 70 mph on the interstate highway? Why should the government dictate that you can’t take your neighbor’s property when he isn’t looking? Why why why?
Because of assholes like you. That’s why.
The answer to your first two questions are they shouldn’t.
The answer to your last question is because it violates the property rights of your neighbor.
You do know what property right are, right?
My goodness pie. Five Retards in a Row.
“Don’t know much about History,
Don’t know much about Biology…..”
The old song went. Who knew it was an anthem? A goal to strive for? A dogma to choke on?
Still, rewriting history, fantasizing about it to maintain the chimera: “I don’t like the idea of healthcare being tied to employers at all, but I guess that is what Obamacare does.” //// More highbrow humor from HM. Yea, its Obama’s fault the way jobs/health care became connected during the early 20th Century.
There are THREE parties to EVERY contract. YOU, him, and the government. Corrupt as it is, in olden days people organized themselves to provide basic minimum services seen as a benefit to all===ALL===employers and employees alike. Such as health care. And it was determined that health care when delivered at all should not be a hollowed out shell of a bargain. And so it developed with the approval of the great majority of people that health care would cover all services including preventative illness avoiding life style choices.
Some say if you the people don’t like having your health care managed by the idiocies of every employer out there, that you can change employers.
In the 3 leg contracting arrangement that exists in every society ever constructed by man, I say if you don’t like people having equal access to basic items of human comfort and survival==why don’t YOU find another planet to shit on?
Silly fantacist Hoomans.
♫ —Hey! It works. Still can’t find “the clef.” Any help?
Unc: You got something agin bloodletting?
Works for snakebite!………aaaiiyyyy!!!
Actually it doesn’t. But the sucking can be fun…
Depends where the bite is,no.
“Just get another job”
Ahh, sage republican wisdom. Ranks right up there with other gems like
“Dont be poor” and “Don’t get sick”
It’s not republican wisdom. It’s called free will. You are not being held there in chains. If you are worth a damn, your boss will do what he can to keep you.
Bwahaha… You’re too funny.
Leave your job and I can guarantee that you might eventually find a lower paying job, if you’re lucky.
Free will doesn’t stand a chance until there free food.
Have you ever thought that perhaps you look for a job before you you quit your current one?
Of course, that is just common sense. Perhaps you should just accept your lot in life. It would be easier than trying to better yourself.
Liberty Lover: blah blah blah free will blah blah.
Translation: I am not currently employed
You’re not, are you? hahaha. Obvious.
Own my own company. Don’t use your handle when you apply here, scooter.
i.e. you’re not employed.
Just saw a piece on Olberman interviewing a Steve Jobs biographer. He recounts Steve, the Greatest Capitalist ever Known, you know: making billions while exporting 10K’s of jobs to China?==seems he was sent a letter by some factory worker advocates informing him the labor “force” is working 100 hours a week and could he as the CEO of Apple intercede in China to get 40 hour weeks?
Steve purported wrote back a single line: “I work more than 100 hours per week.”
Seems Steve-O would agree with our Five Retards in a Row here: if you don’t like your current employer, go find a new one.
Yes, just exactly how capitalism is supposed to work.
Please retards: each and every one of your retards, and the other little retards having this thread read to them: think about that.
Its a continuum wherein if either side (Employer vs Employee) exercises too much power==the system/society will break down. Do not advocate for that which doesn’t work===if you think about it for just a little itsy bitsy teeny weenie bit of a time?
Avoid the race to the bottom. Such races do not end until everyone is at the bottom.
“♫ This is true, I know,
because I believe it so,
lalalalalalalalalalala. ♫”
Bobbo, I am inherently untrollable as you may have noticed. But it sure is precious of you to try. And heart-warming that you made the effort.
yeah, I love that story, and yet Jobs is still the darling of many Liberals….go figure.
Really? Name two.
Virtually every phony douchebag that calls himself an artist.
Enuf for ya?
So you can’t name any?
How about Barak Obama and Hitlary Clinton….