While a number of gay organizations have joined their left-wing cohorts in backing the President’s push to overhaul our health care system, Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud, offers a word of caution:
The truth is that Democratic efforts to expand government-run healthcare will expand discrimination and make quality, affordable healthcare even less available to gay and lesbian families all across the country.
The Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support, and signed by a Democratic president — Bill Clinton — prohibits the extension of domestic partner healthcare benefits and denies recognition of any same-sex relationship. Indeed, even the Obama administration admitted that this legislation would bar the extension of domestic partner healthcare benefits.
Emphasis added. And then there’s the matter of gay people who work for small companies that currently offer domestic partnership benefits. If the cost of the federal penalty for not providing health insurance is less than the cost they are currently paying for health insurance, some businesses may, in order to cut costs, choose to pay the penalty instead of offering coverage, potentially forcing both partners into the public option.
Rather than a “do nothing” approach to health care reform (and so fulfill the caricature the President has drawn of his opponents), LaSalvia believes that “free-market healthcare reforms . . . will expand access to domestic partner benefits,” meaning more choices for people like us. Echoing a point I have often made on this blog, LaSalvia points out that the free market has responded more quickly to the increasing social acceptance of gay men and lesbians than has government at all levels:
The gay community should know by now that the marketplace has always treated gays and lesbians better than the government has. In fact, according to the Human Rights Campaign — the self-professed voice of the LGBT community — 83 percent of Fortune 100 companies offer domestic partner benefits to their gay employees, benefits denied by law to employees of the federal government.
Read the whole thing, especially for the background he provides how past Republican efforts at reform would have benefited gay people. With the record of the private sector in extending benefits to gay people, one wonders why gay groups are so quick to favor government solutions. It’s almost as if they see their role, not as advocating what is best for gay people, but promoting those programs most likely to expand the role of the state in our lives.
And given how all-powerful governments have treated gay people in the past, you’d think that would be the last thing genuine advocates of gay people would promote.
There are two other reasons why conservative free market
approaches are better for gays
1) When your neighbors pay your medical bills, your neighbors get a say in your behaviors
2) Obama care will destroy medical innovation. Anyone with HIV or other diseases that depend on innovation to live, can kiss that innovation goodbye. Countries with socialist health care do not innovate.
“If the cost of the federal penalty for not providing health insurance is less than the cost they are currently paying for health insurance, some businesses may, in order to cut costs, choose to pay the penalty instead of offering coverage”
How does this logic work? The cost of the federal penalty for not providing health insurance NOW, is ZERO. THerefore it is less than the cost they are currently paying for health insurance. So why dont they all, in order to cut costs, choose the pay the penalty (ZERO) instead of offering coverage?
“the free market has responded more quickly to the increasing social acceptance of gay men and lesbians than has government at all levels:”
True. Because of the goddam influence of so many conservatives in government.
#3: “True. Because of the goddam influence of so many conservatives in government.”
So says the admitted supporter of government programs that discriminate on the basis of race.
But, Tano, your comment raises another issue–one that obtuse liberals like yourself never seem to consider. If a bigoted conservative influence is what has hindered the acceptance of gays in our government, then why are you so desperately trying to cede so much power and control over your life to government? Do you really think that Republicans will never control Congress again or the Presidency? I know that you are confident that Obama will establish a perfect healthcare system under which everyone receives excellent care at bargain-basement prices, but if for some reason you’re wrong and we end up with rationing, are you really comfortable with the idea of Republicans being in charge of who-gets-what?
So why dont they all, in order to cut costs, choose the pay the penalty (ZERO) instead of offering coverage?
Ask.
Fully 38% of small businesses do not. Over half of businesses with less than 9 workers don’t.
And given that those businesses make up an enormous chunk of the US economy, quite a few businesses choose not to offer employee health insurance.
And meanwhile, one wonders how much less expensive health care costs would be if Tano and his fellow gay-sex liberals could have stopped themselves from spreading a lethal disease that costs billions of dollars in cash, disability payments, and lost work productivity every year. Perhaps the government’s decision is wise; gays like Tano have shown themselves to be irresponsible children unable to make intelligent decisions, and thus should be treated accordingly.
Obama is making sure that his justice dept. file briefs on behalf of the government to support DOMA. So not only will government health care be worse for many gay, he wants to make sure that there are no changes to that law.
Sure he tells the gays he supports them. Has a handful over to the WH for some drinks than keeps on stabbing in the back.
If it makes you feel any better, he’s doing the same thing to Israel, Poland, Chezch Republic and soon Iraq and Afghanistan.
So why dont they all, in order to cut costs, choose the pay the penalty (ZERO) instead of offering coverage?
You just get dumber as you go along, don’t you? Insurance is offered as a benefit to help attract new talent. If what the Statists claim comes true and everybody is forced into ObamaCareless, then there won’t be a need to offer insurance anymore.
Seriously, do you even think about what you’re posting here or are you just copying & pasting from some other dumbass out there?
TGC,
Your comment makes no sense whatsoever. Maybe if you were less obsessed with cramming insults into your sentences, you might be able to construct coherent ones.
This isn’t really complicated. The rightwing talking point is that if there is a penalty for not providing insurance that is less than the cost of providing insurance, then companies will choose the cheaper option, and dump insurance. That makes no sense given the fact that they have the option now – its even cheaper now, given that there is no penalty.
So y’all are asking us to believe that it is more likely that company will dump its insurance if they have to pay a penalty, than if they dont have to pay a penalty. Idiotic.
Same thing with the public option argument. The industry talking point that y’all regurgitate is that if there is a cheaper public option, then companies will dump their insurance and let their employees get their own insurance from the public option. But that is similarly nonsensical. Today there are cheaper options than corporate health care. A company can dump insurance today and let their employees find their own private low cost (e.g. high deductible) policies. There is no reason to believe that they will do tomorrow what they can do, but aren’t doing today.
Ah, and again Tano shows he doesn’t understand economics.
If a person is looking a job a that has insurance and job b that doesn’t, but both pay equally, he’ll likely take Job a because the benefits are better.
If he’s looking at job a that provides insurance but pays less than job b that doesn’t (because job B is assuming that the guy will take the extra state insurance) then why wouldn’t he take job b? This makes the company offering insurance a disincentive.
Economics Tano. Like the constitution of of the US, try looking it up sometime.
And speaking of penalties, there’s more good news. Turns out Obama The Benevolent loves us soooooooo much that he would rather see us rotting away in a federal penitentiary than live with the horror of not having health insurance…
CONFIRMED: Under the Baucus Obamacare bill, the fine for an individual who fails to purchase health insurance is expected to be $1,900 (I assume annually and of course, probably double or triple that amount since we’re talking about a government program hatched by liberals). So, what happens if an individual refuses to buy health insurance and refuses to pay the fine? Up to a year in prison or a $25,000 penalty, courtesy of the IRS. But don’t worry, just because the penalties and prosecutions would be enforced by the IRS under the Baucus bill, that DOES NOT mean it’s a “tax.” (Afterall, Obama said it’s not a tax on TeeVee last Sunday, so DON’T you call it that!)
http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0909/Ensign_receives_handwritten_confirmation_.html?showall
When the Baucus bill first came out, Tano was gleefully shouting to the rooftops about the CBO’s assessment of the cost of the Baucus bill, but now I’m wondering if the CBO’s assessment took into account the increased costs to the states for all of the people that Obama is planning to throw in jail for refusing to submit to his plan for their own good? Well, it’s worth looking into.
So, to review, our choices will be: (a) participate (or else!) in a worthless government program and receive substandard healthcare (that is, if you receive healthcare at all, due to rationing); (b) don’t participate, and instead submit to the government’s confiscation of thousands of your hard-earned dollars to finance the government’s worthless healthcare plan (in addition to the 30-40 percent of your money that has already been stolen from you in taxes); or (c) go to prison. Doesn’t that sound fantastic?! Obviously, anyone who opposes such a plan must be racist.
Is it any wonder that with everything that has been exposed about these villains just this week, that the sock puppets like Tano have been essentially silent? Am I being too optimistic to suspect that it’s gotten to the point that even the most dedicated Obama-worshipping Orwellians like Tano are having a hard time defending this fascist insanity?
…for the simple reason that they are better for everyone. Markets innovate and produce things. Governments don’t.
Umm… yeah. Sorry.
Interesting article in NRO this morning, more lies from the speech You Mislead!
It starts out swinging.
“It is a good thing that other congressmen did not follow Rep. Joe Wilson’s lead. If they yelled out every time President Obama said something untrue about health care, they would quickly find themselves growing hoarse.”