Hobby Lobby and the Free Market

[Rhea]

Aside from the individual and religious rights discussion of this issue, there is a separate and equally important economic discussion. It involves at least 2 things (add more if you want). They are the economic effect of having health care tied to employers' whims and also having employers dictate to insurance companies how expensive their workforce is going to be.


I would love to see the Invisible Hand of the Free Market slap down Hobby Lobby ~HARD~ for eliminating one of the most cost-saving preventive medicines of all time from their plan - reliable birth control. Seems like a terrible deal for their insurance company, and I would drop them like a rotting pumpkin.

And I would love to see the basic level of insurance (apart from add-on higher tier) separated from employment to encourage job moving and entrepreneurship.

 

[ksen]

I got nothing to add except my support for unentangling insurance from employment. It's really a very good reason to move to a single payer system.

 

[RavenSky]

This asinine ruling certainly does illustrate one of the many reasons why it is critically important to separate health insurance from employment.

 

[ksen]

So basically rich guys get to tell me what I can make, how much free time I can have, and now what my insurance will cover?

sounds legit

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Hobby Lobby, to the best of my knowledge, didn't want to X out birth control, just the controversially uncontroversial "abortion" pill which doesn't actually induce abortions. The Supreme Court, to the best of my knowledge, has ruled a closely held company can deny all birth control.

So in other news, what in the world makes a closely held company exempt and not a publicly held company? Just that a publicly held company would need to vote on what religion the company should be? To make things a little odder, why is birth control an allowable civil right denial? Griswold v Connecticut ruled that the government had to stay out of the bedroom. So now the Supreme Court has ruled closely held corporations can be in the bedroom?

It seems so funny, in a hilariously unfunny way, that the rights of the owner of a corporation are being held to supercede the rights of an employee. After all, the ACA was passed to help all people have health care.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

The rich are our masters,
Let us toil in joy,
For they know what is best for us,
We humbly await the trickle from above,
and when it flushes forth we will be rewarded and spend our days with them in glory.

 

[Rhea]

Think about what employer-controlled insurance does to competition from start-ups. Think about that. Large corps can prevent competition by making business have an enormous entry fee: insurance. Because people can't afford to buy insurance on their own. ACA makes this slightly better, but it still leaves in place the corporate advantage. A stealthy way to keep the competition from being able to get a foothold.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Aside from the individual and religious rights discussion of this issue, there is a separate and equally important economic discussion. It involves at least 2 things (add more if you want). They are the economic effect of having health care tied to employers' whims and also having employers dictate to insurance companies how expensive their workforce is going to be.


I would love to see the Invisible Hand of the Free Market slap down Hobby Lobby ~HARD~ for eliminating one of the most cost-saving preventive medicines of all time from their plan - reliable birth control. Seems like a terrible deal for their insurance company, and I would drop them like a rotting pumpkin.

And I would love to see the basic level of insurance (apart from add-on higher tier) separated from employment to encourage job moving and entrepreneurship.

It depends on a couple of things. 1) Which birth control will Hobby Lobby pay for 2) how much premium will go up. If Hobby Lobby still offers the previous 16 or so birth controls but not all 20 then I think there will be no change. If they drop all birth control then costs could go up. We'll see what happens.

I agree with your second part.

 

[pegasus8]

We are experiencing today how the privately controlled workers must succumb to their corporate employer's religious whims and beliefs under the guise of the Establishment Clause of the 1 Amendment.

I agree with your opening of the thread in that insurance should not be tied with employment. Yet out there before the ACA some of us had few options. You either paid for you own or "scored " some good coverage though work. The Greens, aka "Xtian Adam Henrys" want it both ways. They want to be able to sell to the public and be a corporation, yet closely held, on the one hand while pretending to be concerned with their personal individual and their corporation's religious rights. How can they be humans who own through stock, closely held, control of their corporation while claiming religious rights, see Establishment Clause of 1st Amendment, for the corporations while the corporation is not a person? You can not own a person since the abolishment of slavery. Yet we see corporations being owned by stock holders while having the rights of people while being owned by individuals. It is almost some kind of bizarre circular logic or tautology.

We know that the each store is controlled and owned by the corporation. We also know that Hobby Lobby had no problem providing various questionable contraceptive practices prior to the conservative war on the ACA. Hobby Lobby had no problem with various contraceptive plans, see B, and orally taken Ella for their employees prior to the ACA rollout. Hobby Lobby also has been revealed that it had and or has various investments through certain funds that invest in companies that produce various contraceptive products mentioned above.

So IMO, basically Hobby Lobby through their corporate controllers, the Greens, want to practice their version of religious beliefs on their employees through "selective" interpretation of "morality" vis v the Establishment Clause and the 1st Amendment. So what is to stop any corporation's other religious beliefs and doctrines affecting its employees, especially women's reproductive rights?

One could argue that all Hobby Lobby is doing is projecting Christianity's and most other religion's hatred and misogyny into the political arena under the guise of their religious beliefs and the Establishment Clause. They want to project their doctrines and dogmas unto their workers which IMO is illegal and dangerous on so many levels.

But then I hear that corporations are legally people now thanks again to the Roberts Court. Oh well. Since the 19th century America has been blazing the trail for legal interpretations that strongly favor the so called corporation to the detriment of the individual's rights of the public and the workers. I will never set foot in a Hobby Lobby or say anything good about them because of this dangerous over reaching legal precedent. I wonder how many Muslims work for them? F'n Adam Henrys!

Peace

Pegasus