Was the Supreme Court right to rule that the Affordable Care Act violated the religio
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No - The ruling allows bosses to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Besides, the Constitution grants religious freedom to individuals, not corporations.
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Yes - The religious beliefs of company owners take precedence over their employees' right to have access to birth control.
Should religious family-owned companies be required to cover contraceptives under their insurance plans? The high court says no.
I'm curious how you nurses feel about this? Please take a second to vote in our quick poll.
This is a highly political topic, I'd rather not turn this into a hot argumentative subject, so please keep your comments civil :) But please feel free to comment. Thanks
In a 5-4 decision Monday, the Supreme Court allowed a key exemption to the health law's contraception coverage requirements when it ruled that closely held for-profit businesses could assert a religious objection to the Obama administration's regulations. What does it mean? Here are some questions and answers about the case.What did the court's ruling do?
The court's majority said that the for-profit companies that filed suit-Hobby Lobby Stores, a nationwide chain of 500 arts and crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a maker of custom cabinets-didn't have to offer female employeesall Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptivesas part of a package of preventive services that must be covered without copays or deductibles under the law. The companies had argued that several types of contraceptivesviolate their owners' religious beliefs. The ruling also covers a Hobby Lobby subsidiary, the Mardel Christian bookstores.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
As a "middle man" if something violated your principles, would you want to support it?
No, not personally. But I would recognize that what other people do is up to them and their physician. I'm morally opposed to routine infant circumcision. But if I were a business owner, I would certainly not demand that our health insurance provider not reimburse for RIC. Because it's a legal practice, and it's a decision between those parents and their pediatrician. It's none of my ******* business!
Hobby Lobby's cost for their employees' insurance does not change based upon which BCMs they cherry pick for their employees. It has NOTHING to do with finances. It has to do with them thinking they can foist THEIR religious beliefs on all of their employees.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
No, not personally. But I would recognize that what other people do is up to them and their physician. I'm morally opposed to routine infant circumcision. But if I were a business owner, I would certainly not demand that our health insurance provider not reimburse for RIC. Because it's a legal practice, and it's a decision between those parents and their pediatrician. It's none of my ******* business!
Hobby Lobby's cost for their employees' insurance does not change based upon which BCMs they cherry pick for their employees. It has NOTHING to do with finances. It has to do with them thinking they can foist THEIR religious beliefs on all of their employees.
Bold and italics mine.
Quite right
They pay no less because of their "religious" discrimination.
They are simply interfering with the contraceptive lives of their female employees because they are allowed.
The owners created this situation to make a political and religious point. The corporation is merely a tool used to make money and now to make religious statements on behalf of the owners. The female employees are simply the victims of the whims of the good christian family who is willing to use them to make a political point about the power of corporations in America (note that corporations are ever so much more empowered than actual people are in the eyes of the SCOTUS).
Only those who choose to view this from a VERY NARROW perspective can support the ruling. Only if you narrowly view this as a "religious rights" case assuming first that corporations are people, then assuming that corporate people actually have religious beliefs, and assuming that their religious beliefs MUST affect the benefit packages of employees but not the investment practices of the corporation, and finally we must assume that their belief that IUDs are abortifacient so as to include the most popular and effective form of contraceptive in the refusal.
If you look at this issue from the wrong end of the binoculars it seems like a neatly packaged religious test. When you look at it with the wide angle lens it becomes clearer that it is not neatly packaged and is not about religious beliefs at all. It is about forcing wrong thinking upon female employees AND about how the SCOTUS feels that corporations are more valuable and important than women.
I support the ruling because our country was founded on religious freedom. Those with faith should not be oppressed and have violence pushed upon them forcing them to pay for the personal responsibilities of another party. The ruling of the Supreme Court acknowledged that President Obama and the democrats once again overreaching again.
Access was and is available. Prior to Obamacare, the employees of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, and the other companies involved purchased any of the four (4) contraceptives on their own. Obamacare was passed in a partisan manner, and Obama and the Democrats decided that twenty (20) contraceptives should be covered under all conditions no matter of faith, conscience, etc. There was no such thing as "fair share" or compromise. It was there way or the highway that other people needed to be forced to pay for the personal responsibilities of another party. Well, the Supreme Court said, no. This doesn't stop those who want the contraceptives involved -- FOUR -- from buying any one or all of them on their own (access); it just means that gee wiz, they have to take personal responsibility for it.
Thank you.
P.S. Corporations are run by individuals, not robots. And all individuals have rights. When one party declares they have more rights as individuals than another -- and those rights including FORCING others to pay for personal issues of another party... we are no longer America.
P.S. Corporations are run by individuals, not robots. And all individuals have rights. When one party declares they have more rights as individuals than another -- and those rights including FORCING others to pay for personal issues of another party... we are no longer America.
All individuals have rights. And corporations have declared they have more rights than women. And those rights include FORCING women to live by the personal issues of the corporation... we ARE no longer the United States. Or sadly, we are the United States pre-women getting the right to vote.
It was, yet unintended pregnancies cost the public (people other than the one having a baby) about $22 Billion a year, and that's just in immediate medical costs we're covering, that doesn't count long term public financial support and doesn't take into account the health risks to the mother of pregnancy. So yes, we had access before, but it could have been better.
Prior to Obamacare, the employees of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, and the other companies involved purchased any of the four (4) contraceptives on their own. Obamacare was passed in a partisan manner, and Obama and the Democrats decided that twenty (20) contraceptives should be covered under all conditions no matter of faith, conscience, etc.
The Senate Finance Committee, which produced the ACA, actually never listed any contraceptives specifically. The law states that preventive care should be covered without co-pays and left it to the IOM (which includes physicians and nurses) to determine what constitutes preventive care.
There was no such thing as "fair share" or compromise. It was there way or the highway that other people needed to be forced to pay for the personal responsibilities of another party. Well, the Supreme Court said, no.
Actually they said yes.
They didn't dispute that the government has a "compelling interest" in ensuring that people who have earned an insurance plan through working didn't need to pay even more in the form of a co-pay to obtain preventive care such as contraception.
What they ruled is that if an employer doesn't wants to limit how an employee uses their compensation then the costs can just be absorbed by everyone else (including you).
In other words, the ruling you claim to agree with says that other people can be forced to pay for hobby lobby's responsibilities that they don't want to pay for.
This doesn't stop those who want the contraceptives involved -- FOUR -- from buying any one or all of them on their own (access); it just means that gee wiz, they have to take personal responsibility for it.
The ruling actually includes all forms of contraception, not just 4.
These workers have already taken personal responsibility to obtain contraception, they've worked to earn an insurance plan to help cover their health expenses.
Specializes in NICU, PICU, Transport, L&D, Hospice.
Good day:
I support the ruling because our country was founded on religious freedom. Those with faith should not be oppressed and have violence pushed upon them forcing them to pay for the personal responsibilities of another party. The ruling of the Supreme Court acknowledged that President Obama and the democrats once again overreaching again.
Access was and is available. Prior to Obamacare, the employees of Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood, and the other companies involved purchased any of the four (4) contraceptives on their own. Obamacare was passed in a partisan manner, and Obama and the Democrats decided that twenty (20) contraceptives should be covered under all conditions no matter of faith, conscience, etc. There was no such thing as "fair share" or compromise. It was there way or the highway that other people needed to be forced to pay for the personal responsibilities of another party. Well, the Supreme Court said, no. This doesn't stop those who want the contraceptives involved -- FOUR -- from buying any one or all of them on their own (access); it just means that gee wiz, they have to take personal responsibility for it.
Thank you.
P.S. Corporations are run by individuals, not robots. And all individuals have rights. When one party declares they have more rights as individuals than another -- and those rights including FORCING others to pay for personal issues of another party... we are no longer America.
As I said, supporting the ruling requires assumption and a narrow view point which puts the rights of corporations above the rights of women. Here is a good example of that.
"And those rights include FORCING women to live by the personal issues of the corporation"
Oh, wow... so asking you to buy your own contraception is force? Really? And if you have to buy your own food, shelter, etc... that is being forced on you?
Articles: Mature Women don't Cry-yi-yi, is an interesting article on the subject matter. Do mature women cry victim because others cannot be forced to pay for birth control the woman wants?
"And those rights include FORCING women to live by the personal issues of the corporation"
Oh, wow... so asking you to buy your own contraception is force? Really? And if you have to buy your own food, shelter, etc... that is being forced on you?
Articles: Mature Women don't Cry-yi-yi, is an interesting article on the subject matter. Do mature women cry victim because others cannot be forced to pay for birth control the woman wants?
Thank you.
These women are actually paying for birth control themselves, they are paying for it with typically a few hundred a month worth of their own compensation they've earned by working (their health insurance plan). The question is whether or not an employer can dictate how an employee spends their own compensation.
What the court ruled is that all forms of contraception must still be covered, but that someone else can cover it (namely the federal government) if the employer wants to restrict how an employee uses their compensation. Do you really agree with that?
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
Good day:
"And those rights include FORCING women to live by the personal issues of the corporation"
Oh, wow... so asking you to buy your own contraception is force? Really? And if you have to buy your own food, shelter, etc... that is being forced on you?
Articles: Mature Women don't Cry-yi-yi, is an interesting article on the subject matter. Do mature women cry victim because others cannot be forced to pay for birth control the woman wants?
Thank you.
I find the article a bit condescending
Those little girls, those passive, helpless women – girls, really, no matter their age -- and especially their enablers who encourage this passivity, this helplessness to increase their own inverted sense of superiority, are the complaining ones, the ones who, willfully or not, are spinning out alibis about the impact of this Supreme Court decision.
I think there are those of us who remember a time when a woman's right to choose was not hers and was illegal. We are cautious about losing this simple right for a woman to choose her healthcare choices for her body.
While I dont think that is what Hobby Lobby will do...however it may set a chain of events in motion that have dire consequences.
To treat educated women advocating for women's rights like they are petulant spoiled children is demeaning.
"And those rights include FORCING women to live by the personal issues of the corporation"
Oh, wow... so asking you to buy your own contraception is force? Really? And if you have to buy your own food, shelter, etc... that is being forced on you?
Articles: Mature Women don't Cry-yi-yi, is an interesting article on the subject matter. Do mature women cry victim because others cannot be forced to pay for birth control the woman wants?
Thank you.
If, by my compensation package are paying for medical coverage, my expectation would be that things that are generally covered are for me as well. That I would then have to rely on governmental reimbursement for something that should be covered is insane.
Talk about women submitting.....the only one who should make decisions about my contraception is ME. If I choose to pay a health insurance premium, then by all means these things should be covered. Like they are for the thousands of other insured people who have the same health insurance plan.
Mature women don't cry-yi-yi- they are demanding that they get what they pay for. And that no employer should dictate what that is. They pay the same portion of the insurance regardless--they are now picking and choosing what is covered and what is not. Ludacris!
Women have come so far in being able to dictate their own bodies.....the LAST thing I think any woman wants is to become the property of their employer.
Yup, and the thousands that I pay into taxes and the like, I unknowingly have hundreds of kids....cause I support them. As do all of you.
If I want to pay for the option of my health insurance to include prescription medications, well then, that is my choice, no?
And it is all about choice. I do not need, as most women do not, someone to micro-manage my medication choices.
Pro-life activists—and Obamacare opponents—are cheering today. But when they sit down and reflect, they’ll realize that they haven’t won a thing.
On page five of the Supreme Court opinion, Samuel Alito spells out how the Obama administration can get around the Court’s ruling that the administration can’t force Hobby Lobby to offer health insurance plans with contraception and abortifacient coverage. “The government could, e.g., assume the cost of providing the four contraceptives to women unable to obtain coverage due to their employers’ religious objections,” writes Alito.
Ah, but who finances the government? Taxpayers. In other words, while the government can’t compel Hobby Lobby to finance abortifacients, it can compel taxpayers to do so. Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?
Apparently "conservatives" who are celebrating this SCOTUS ruling have no problem with tax payers covering the cost of "abortifacients" when the female employees are disadvantaged by the "religious beliefs" of their corporate masters and also cannot afford to pay the additional fees beyond their health insurance premiums, copays, and deductibles.
klone, MSN, RN
14,857 Posts
No, not personally. But I would recognize that what other people do is up to them and their physician. I'm morally opposed to routine infant circumcision. But if I were a business owner, I would certainly not demand that our health insurance provider not reimburse for RIC. Because it's a legal practice, and it's a decision between those parents and their pediatrician. It's none of my ******* business!
Hobby Lobby's cost for their employees' insurance does not change based upon which BCMs they cherry pick for their employees. It has NOTHING to do with finances. It has to do with them thinking they can foist THEIR religious beliefs on all of their employees.