General News US Employers win birth control case

Not a problem. If you could too, check out the edit I made at the bottom of my previous post. Apparently my agreement or disagreement with the SC depends on if I look at the circumstance by itself or with its legal reasoning in mind. Ugh, and to think I'm actually getting into criminal justice. At least I won't be dealing with civil suits like this one.

 

Checked and read. Thanks for letting me know.

 

Even after all I ever read on stuff happening in the US, I am still shocked on how it works and how a lot of Americans, even open minded ones, can get stuck on ideas such as healthcare and insurances policies and rules. I am even more amazed on how religion decides/affects insurances stuff and other things of great importance.
When I see this, I am very happy I live in Europe and in a country where we have real healthcare.

To take the example of the country I live in (Luxembourg):
Any woman under 25 years of age gets reimbursed at 80% on contraception.
On top of that, minors (under 18) or women uninsured or not able to pay for it, can ask one of the government administration (for family planning) to get their contraception for free.

For guys starting at middle school age:
Condoms are sold extremely cheap in automatic machines in schools. The price is 0.20€ (20 cents) for 4 condoms.

 

Goes to prove that the Patriarchy is alive and well. Let's pay for a way for men to get their dick hard, so they can screw women, but refuse the women a way to prevent pregnancy and refuse to pay for abortion.

 

*important women's issue*

*old frugal men make final decision*

---------- Post added 30th Jun 2014 at 04:28 PM ----------

genius.......... the system at work... fair and balanced...... god bless it

 

"Birth control" is a pretty broad term. There is a condition that runs in my family that women who take "the pill "can be cured or at least have the condition's symptoms managed. I would understand if the pill or any other medication had only one therapeutic use and it's only used to prevent births, however many of these medications have many other off-label and therapeutic uses that it would be negligent for a primary care physician to not have this medicine in his arsenal.

If a woman needed an emergency abortion to save her life, should the insurer be exempt from paying the claim because it is against the beliefs of a religious organization who would prefer the woman died trying to save both of their lives? When do religious beliefs trump medicine, especially when it is not the individual employer who is actually having "the sanctity of his body" violated (I am all for a competent individual's right to refuse whatever medical treatment a medical practitioner is trying to offer)?

 

This is extremely sexist in every way possible. Only a woman can get pregnant and your pretty much saying men should be treated better than women. It is sexist ruling and I agree with the democrats on this issue.

 

I apologize for not giving a very drawn-out answer, but yeah I don't agree with the idea that corporations can do that purely stemming from the idea of religious freedom. I already argued at length about it with Doku and feel like we came to an understanding.

And dano, I said nothing about unequal treatment for men as ED pills, etc. were not part of the discussion. I'd normally ask how you came to the conclusion that I believe men should be treated better, but I'm going to stop at "No, I don't think that." Maybe I didn't incorporate the fact that women can have sex outside of relationships, but if contraception were unavailable, I would have no fun of that particular variety either because my gf and I are exclusive.

 

Yeah i understand but you basically said abstain from sex and that means women should not have sex if they don't want a kid and from my perspective that holds them them to different standards so I just came to that conclusion. I thought that is what you were implying because that is what abstains means. It is the same thing religious people say to people who come out as gay saying well we will accept you as gay but you must abstain from sexual activity to be a christian. Anyway I am sorry for the taking offense.

 

I did mean they should not have *unprotected* sex if they don't want a kid, but guys generally have to do the same. I didn't mean that guys can run around and screw everybody with no responsibility. Obviously this is the topic for another thread but yeah I hold men to the same standard. *Gay couples notwithstanding, of course, but either way the non-pregnancy related benefits of bc come back into play and now it's purely a health concern again.

 

As a moderate conservative, I actually disagree with the holding.

I had to write a case brief for this case in my civil liberties class in the spring, and I think Hobby Lobby's arguments are extremely flawed, particularly their argument that RFRA enables them to deny providing abortifacient contraception. After reading RFRA's text, I don't think the law is at all pertinent in the case.

 

to be clear the decision was for "closely held" companies where there is little to distinguish between the owners and the company, not for all employers or publicly traded companies. in regard to the "pill" or other contraceptives of the 20 forms of contraceptives on the list required by the "affordable care act" there were 4 that were/are objected to, the four listed are considered abortives, aborting a fertilized egg. there was not objection to providing the other 16,including the "pill"

 

Does the ruling that was made specifically say that they are only able to not pay for those 4 types? If so, I wouldn't have such a problem with it. I still wouldn't agree with the decision, but I would at least see that some options were being provided for the women who work there.

Unfortunately, my understanding is that the ruling allows them to refuse access to all 20 forms, which could be a HUGE problem for some people. Like, a huge medical problem, not like a huge I can't have sex because I can't take birth control problem. I am someone who was personally affected by a policy like this AS A CHILD. At 12 years old, I was diagnosed with PCOS. I had my period for 9 months non-stop. Yes, as in I didn't stop bleeding from my uterus for 9 whole months. Like the amount of time people carry children, I bled for. My mom worked for a religious school. My doctor said that I needed to go on birth control to make it stop. Guess what our insurance didn't cover because of religious objections? Yeah, the birth control that I needed so I didn't keep bleeding any longer. Guess what I couldn't get because we sure as heck couldn't afford the full cost of it? Yep, right again, the birth control. I wasn't having sex, I wasn't even thinking about doing so, so I certainly didn't want the medicine for that purpose. I had to sit around and wait, still bleeding, while my mom and my doctor argued with the insurance company for several months. If I remember 100% correctly, I think after 1 month my doctor got me a sample, and it took about 3 months before the insurance finally agreed that they had enough documentation to allow me to take the medication for medical purposes. During the time while I waited, I was still bleeding. I became anemic due to this, so I ended up needing to take even MORE medication for other problems that could have been prevented had I just been able to take the medicine my doctor prescribed in the first place. I was on the medication for over 10 years, completely for the purpose of controlling my out of control periods as every time I came off of the medication, my period would go non-stop again.

People who say you don't need to be on birth control have clearly never been through something like this, or they wouldn't say that. People who suggest that just because a medication's primary purpose is something that someone might have a religious objection to, someone should be able to prevent access to that medication also are probably people who have never been through something like that. Imagine if it was you going through that. Or your daughter. Would you continue to suggest that someone should be able to prevent you or your child from having reasonably priced access to that medication? I would guess not.

So please think about those of us who really DO need to have access to that medication. At any point, if my periods got crazy again I would need to be able to have quick access to birth control so that I could control them before things got out of hand again. If my employer can tell my insurance not to provide it (and mine could thanks to this ruling), it just makes it take longer to get access to medication I might really need and means things get worse and worse while I wait.

 

You said yourself there was an insurance hangup where they finally let you take it for medicinal purposes. While the quote in question was probably spawned by my comments (and the point is sort of tangential to the case) it confirms what I said before. The fact that birth control is seen as birth control first and treatment for ailments second is a big problem for this reason exactly. Apparently there were commercial issues in place even before the Hobby Lobby ruling that have been hurting women the whole time.

 

This was WELL before insurance was mandated to provide coverage for it. My understanding is that prior to this decision, coverage had been mandated for all insurance companies, which means there would not have been an insurance hangup if my situation had occurred earlier this year as opposed to when it did.

 

I did not know this thank you for writing this

 

Purely out of interest, how much are we talking? Its free of charge on prescription here (and still very cheap when bought from a chemist, cheaper than condoms thats for sure) so I always presumed they cost peanuts?

 

im in canada, so our prices are different. i do have a number of friends in the US so i asked some of my female (cis gender) what BC costs and the consensus was about $10 for one months supply. the thing is, all of these preventatives won't stop a STI, condoms do that most effectively for sexually active people the best part is that they prevent pregnancy as well.

---------- Post added 1st Jul 2014 at 09:54 AM ----------

omm no. forcing a group to violate their personal beliefs is oppression. in point of fact the decision is very narrow 4 let me repeat4 of the 20 contraceptives were objected to. the other 16 or 75% of the list mandated by obamacare were NOT objected to, the court stated that the department of HHS has other methods of delivering those services without infringing on the first amendment rights of these companies. so those individuals who want/need these services can get them from other sources but not from these individual employers.


i think there are a lot of red herrings here, there isn't a blanket ruling that companies can object to anything on religious grounds just this case and these circumstances. this ruling doesn't effect large employers like walmart or american airlines etc. because they're publicly traded companies and not "closely held", which means owned by a small group of people who's shares of the business are not traded on places like the stock exchange.

 

No, there's no red herrings. It doesn't matter if there wasn't a blanket ruling. SCOTUS, by the way they worded their ruling, affirmed that companies DO have religious rights, and as such, it will have horrible backlash effects.

And Hobby Lobby's lawsuit was entirely to get out of paying for the more expensive forms of contraception. Most of which are the kinds doctors prefer for hormonal medication, etc.

 

It is worth reading Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Writes Scathing 35-Page Dissent In Birth Control Case

It is unfortunate that "justice", rather than being based on the principles laid out in their own constitution is more about starting from a certain ideological position and then being clever enough to find legal arguments to support it.

I find it interesting that the 5 who voted for "Hobby Lobby" had to restrict it to a narrow interpretation. I suspect they know what a dangerous precedent they have set and are seeking to minimize the impact with this little "exception". This is how evil begins: small transgressions of principle, seemingly small exceptions...like cracks in the dam; and then suddenly you have a flood...