I don’t know that I’ll have time to say as much about this issue as I’d like. Am traveling now for a family celebration.
A lot of conservative and libertarian pundits and bloggers have offered a lot of thoughtful commentary on the topic, starting (well, from my vantage point) with Peggy Noonan last week. Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, the Anchoress, Cato @ Liberty and the Corner have been good sources. (This, for example, is a particularly good post. As is this*.)
I don’t know that I can add much to what they’ve been saying, but am troubled that our friends in the legacy media are calling this a social issue. It’s not. It’s a freedom issue.
The basic question is should a private organization be able to determine the type of benefits it offers its employees. A liberal administration is now trying to force religious organizations to pay for benefits supported by advocacy groups aligned with the Democrats. By the same logic, a conservative administration could try to force private groups (say, universities) to offer (or not offer) benefits supported by advocacy groups aligned with Democrats.
It’s one more example of the government limiting our choices — which gets at the real problem of Obamacare, the federal government determining what a health insurance plan should include. The more it mandates, the fewer options individuals have to choose from.
The fewer different kind of plans there are, the more uniform the price.
*ADDENDUM: In said link over at Cato @ Liberty, Roger Pilon gets it:
As I wrote over the past two days, no one on the other side [those opposing the mandate] is asking employees to do anything contrary to their religious beliefs—or not do “what their own beliefs permit.” Employers are not “imposing their religious beliefs” on their employees, as some have argued. Those employees are still perfectly free to use contraceptives and abortifacients. They just shouldn’t expect their employers, through the group health insurance plans the employers offer, to provide and pay for such measures if doing so violates their religious beliefs. But that would be to discriminate against women, the courts have held, since only women get pregnant. Thus does our antidiscrimination law, as found in statutes, trump religious liberty, as once protected by the Constitution. “To each his own” falls by the wayside when “we’re all in this together,” as ObamaCare requires us to be.
Absolutely true. I am for birth control and don’t have a problem with the morning after pill, but why don’t people use condoms? They are cheaper and have no side effects. In the end, Obama has fascist tendencies, with the notion that state control of our lives is paramount.
The acceptable formula, I suppose, is something like this:
“I refuse to offer __________________ as part of my employees’ healthcare plans, because ________________.”
Put anything in those field. A racist might answer:
“I refuse to offer SICKLE CELL ANEMIA TREATMENT as part of my employees’ healthcare plans, because I DON’T LIKE BLACK PEOPLE.”
A homophobe might say:
“I refuse to offer AIDS TREATMENT as part of my employees’ healthcare plans, because I THINK HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN.”
In other words, an employer picks a medical treatment, invents a reason they don’t want to pay for it, and that gets them off the hook, huh? What about either of my is in any way different than Catholics not wanting to cover contraception? I agree that this is a freedom issue, but from the other direction – people shouldn’t have their employers interfering in the kind of healthcare they are receiving. If you’re going to offer healthcare coverage, it shouldn’t have strings attached to it. Never mind that this is something that exclusively affects women and is therefore inherently discriminatory – what if a feminist refused to cover prostate cancer treatment because she hates men?
We all have to pay for things we don’t support enthusiastically, and it’s childish to expect exemptions for yourself, especially with thin reasoning like ‘my imaginary friend tells me I shouldn’t have to pay for it!’
And the answer should OBVIOUSLY be yes. America is supposed to be the land of freedom, i.e. limited government. If that means anything, it means private actors are automatically left alone to determine their own course. Again, terribly obvious… yet “here we are”, having to debate it in an America overrun with social-fascism.
I think the larger point is that the federal government has no business providing contraception (or mandating that anyone else provide it), period.
Furthermore, while contraception seems inexpensive now, history shows that it is going to become expensive as a result of Obama’s interference. History shows that when the government subsidizes, regulates or mandates something, it *makes* it become expensive and inefficient. Exhibit A: our entire medical system. Exhibit B: College.
P.S. Never mind Levi’s patently stupid rantings. For example:
But they aren’t. People are free to buy any healthcare they want, that their employer-sponsored insurance package may not already be providing. If they have a job good enough for health benefits to begin with, the job lets them afford other stuff. That’s elementary. Incredibly elementary. But Levi is, quite clearly, too stupid (or something) to understand it. So let’s not bother.
Actually, I just realized at least Levi is consistent in his stupidity. He doesn’t believe that people (except him) are smart enough to make their own choices.
I see this as a glaring freedom issue. It amazes me that people don’t realize that what is given by mandate can be taken away by mandate. This isn’t a law passed by Congress. When a Republican president regains the White House, why does anyone think a new HHS secretary can’t just overturn this mandate and replace it with others more preferable? Once the precedent is established that the federal government can say what should be in your health plan, nothing guarantees it won’t change to suit political winds, which you may or may not agree with. The best way to remove this compulsion of having to take what your employer and the state require is to allow individuals to design their own health insurance plan with the coverages they want.
Levi, for some strange reason I’d been giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now I know you really ARE stupid. Contraception EXCLUSIVELY affects women?! Are you kidding me?! Last time I checked it took two people, a MAN along with a woman, to make a baby. That being the case, why is preventing pregnancy exclusively the woman’s job? Doesn’t the man have a responsibility, too? Like buying and consistently using condoms? If a social conservative said that preventing pregnancy was soley the woman’s job liberals would shriek, “Sexist!”. However, when that same notion is deemed useful in advancing the Left’s agenda, liberals like you, Levi, promote it religiously and with no sense of hypocrisy. So, not only are you and your ilk stupid, you’re utterly devoid of principle, except the “principle” of gaining total power for the Left. And I have no intention of letting that happen.
This could all be solved VERY EASILY: get government THE HELL OUT of health care. As usual, it is a “reverse Midas,” turning everything it touches into SHIT instead of gold. There’s nothing magical about health insurance or health care itself that requires the government to be involved AT ALL. Both are commodities, and if we simply relied on the free market (you remember that, don’t you?) to supply willing buyers with willing sellers the problems would disappear. Notice we don’t have such monumental policy discussions like this about oh, I don’t know, JEANS? Or canned beans? Or iPads?
I know Levi is horrified by the notion of FREEDOM, but the Federal Government telling employers what to cover. Employers ought to have the freedom to offer or not offer whatever coverage they see fit to attract the best employees. And employees ought to be free to choose employment with the employer that offers them the best options.
The notion of people being free to make decisions for themselves and accept the consequences of those decisions (i.e. FREEDOM) is absolutely horrifying to a progressive fascist like Levi.
Bastiat Fan: we will, before it’s over. Next they will argue that insurance should provide food to hold down medical costs, winter clothing, Internet access, etc. That is where all this logically ends: in total socialism. That’s what the lefties want.
To the left, there is no greater injustice than someone with a $500 cell phone and $200 shoes being forced to shell out a $20 co=pay for their health care.
There is end of life “contraception” as well. This is an important read:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/01/what_were_learning_about_obamacare_isnt_good_–_especially_for_seniors.html
Which is hilarious, Levi, because Obamacare specifically PENALIZES people unless they allow the government to interfere in the kind of health care they are receiving, and it specifically punishes with higher prices people for choosing anything other than what the government thinks they should have.
In short, you are openly and completely interfering with the kind of health care people are receiving, and yet complaining about it. That makes you a hypocrite and a bigot.
Anytime any church gets involved in any public policy issue it turns into a “social issue.” I think that religious organizations are unfairly automatically label right wingers simple because (in general) they have a more tradition moral/social belief system. Like Dan said this is a freedom issue, but until people are able to separate religion from conservative the dialogue is always going to be one note.
This is a freedom issue but it’s also a social issue because it involves what certain institutions want and should be able to do based on their moral values. Moral values are social, not fiscal, matters. The squeamishness that more and more conservatives are developing regarding social issues is really starting to bug me, especially when those same conservatives rarely chastise progressives for their open and vocal committment to their social vision. I really believe that discrepancy is due to the fact that more and more “conservatives”, especially gay ones, are anti-traditionalists who, culturally speaking, want the same things that avowed social leftists want. They just aren’t honest enough to admit it for some reason.
I disagree with the Church’s position on non-abortifacient contraception, but stand with the bishops on this one. The matter is clearly about religious freedom and it doesn’t matter whether I agree with the teaching or not. The government doesn’t have the right the force Catholic hospitals to provide contraception or abortion services. That is a huge violation of the First Amendment the Founders would have balked at because this isn’t just about peculiar Catholic teachings but the religious freedoms of ALL churches/synagogues/mosques etc.
Did you ever stop to think that maybe some employers “interfere” because it will cost them and their employees too much money? The more a plan covers, the more expensive it will be.
Well in my Medical Coding & Insurance II class, we were working with the Medicare Fee Schedules last week. A doctor can have a fee of $500 for a procedure. Medicare says that the most the doc can charge them is say $275 (not sure how they arrive at their caps as that wasn’t the focus of our project). Medicare then says that they’ll only pay 80% of that cap, the patient pays 20% and the doctor eats the rest (write-off/adjustment). If you don’t want to lose money on your Medicare patients, you have to bill other insurances more (higher costs on everyone else) to make up for the difference and so it all balances out in the grand scheme.
I notice that whilst many commentators take Levi to task and talk about the notion of freedom from government interference, they don’t actually address Levi’s first point, part of which I reproduce below:
I would be interested in knowing why folks here who dislike Levi’s take on things, think this argument is wrong. Or is it that it just doesn’t matter, when put against the heavy weight of “freedom from government interference”?
Levi apparently believes that Catholicism is equally significant to racism or homophobia, which is telling.
Meaning: We’ll force you to accept our “enlightened” social progressivism; you’re obsolete traditions are oppressive and backwards. If you don’t relinquish them, we’ll force you to. Of course, we won’t say so explicitly, we’ll do so under the guise of “equality” or “fairness.”
Cas, your comment wasn’t up when I wrote mine, but I sort of addressed it in my first paragraph. Not only is the belief Catholics have with regards to contraceptives more significant than the beliefs racists and homophobes have with regards to race (whichever one is the target of said racist’s animosity) and gays respectively, but it is also not based in hatred. Why should hatred be legitimized by respecting the beliefs of people who are obviously bigots? I have to wonder at anyone who would view religious beliefs and bigotry as equivalent.
Really? Because it should be up to us and not Chairman ObaMarx to decide what we want in our plans. Are you just as stupid as Levi is? You really had to ask?
Besides, who was it that said that if we like our health plans, we could keep them?
I’d be interested in your take as to why Joe Biden and others in the regime were vocally opposed to the mandate. I take that back, no I wouldn’t.
Isn’t it Christian Scientists (or whomever) that don’t believe in using medicine? What about them? What about the Amish? Will the Bamster demand tribute from them as well?
Regarding #17 about Medicare not covering the complete doctor’s charge, my son is currently in med school, and all the doctors tell him (privately) to never start accepting Medicare; it’s too costly. Something to think about.
People like Levi think they are morally superior, and therefore, they have the right and duty to determine what us cretins should do in life. Naturally if the shoe were on the other foot, he would be screaming “unfairness, anti-Semitism (methinks Levi is Jewish with his name), homophobia, name your ism. I have gotten to the point where I think liberals are just plain evil and not misguided.
Because, Cas, we know two things:
1) Liberals like yourself and Levi are obsessed with discrimination based on skin color.
2) Liberals like yourself and Levi assume that, because you discriminate on the basis of skin color, I.e. hiring quotas and college admissions based on race rather than qualification, wholesale exemption from paying taxes like Charles Rangel, immigration and welfare fraud for Obama’s black-skinned relatives, that conservatives would also discriminate as you do to benefit themselves personally.
@ Louise B
My doc and I talk frankly about medical billing a lot. She admits that Medicare rates are below costs. A lot of insurance companies are now using Medicare rates instead of R&C as their baseline for non-par providers for that reason.
It also raises a point. Economics can’t be denied. If the reimbursement rates drop too low, the provider stops taking the plan. So what good will Obamacare be when no one takes the rates it’s paying? The first time congress doesn’t actually extend the ‘Docfix’ you’ll see doctors fleeing medicare faster than Levi runs from facts.
@Cas, You have a choice (right now) of which employer to work for. The employer offers benefits. For an employer to provide insurance that (for example) excludes sickle cell, they’d have to find an insurer that a) would code their systems to exclude it and b) people who would work with that being one of their benefits.
BTW, I found this was all explained to Levi last year.
I’m also amused that he links blacks to sickle-cell anemia (which there’s a genetic component) but HIV/AIDS to gays. Tells us a lot about his psyche, no?
OOps, put in wrong e-mail address and trapped in filter.
anyway, as I noted last year, Christian Science Practitioners can currently bill insurance. It amuses me to no end.
I just want to make a clarification to my comment #20.
Ideally, Catholics, racists, and homophobes would be able to select insurance plans that catered to their beliefs if such plans were available. However, if the government mandates which plans you are allowed to provide for your employees, it is absurd to claim that if Catholics are allowed exceptions based on their religious beliefs, that exceptions are also required for racists and homophobes because of their beliefs.
This is a rather cathartic exercise.
You know, when you start fooling around in the brain dribble sandbox, you can really get to understand how liberals place so much value on their own drool.
Aside from the religious freedom issue (which is a big one) and the disaster that is government-run medicine, there are a couple of simple points:
First, reproduction and pregnancy are not disease. Sorry, Levi, but an uncomplicated pregnancy is as natural as breathing… it is not a sickness in need of a cure or prevention (contraception) paid for by others.
What’s next? Providing government-paid hookers for people deprived of sex? Don’t laugh, it’s already happened.
Second, religious organizations actually have a simple way out of the insurance issue: do not provide insurance to employees. Employer-provided insurance, so far, is not a requirement… no employer is required to provide it at any cost.
Actually, I expect this is part of the plan: make purchasing health insurance so onerous that people will begin to clamor for government “relief” – at which time we will cease to be freeborn citizens and will all become wards of the state – subject to its whims. Mission accomplished.
To continue, to compel religious institutions to provide that they object to, such as abortion, is slavery pure and simple. To compel a nurse or physician to assist in a procedure they object to is simply wrong… would you be OK if the state compelled someone to conduct an execution? A forced sterilization? A forced lobotomy?
…it’s childish to expect exemptions for yourself, especially with thin reasoning like ‘my imaginary friend tells me I shouldn’t have to pay for it!’
Levi – I apologize for piling on but your last sentence is a doozy.
I am not religious (agnostic – don’t actually think about it much) but aside from the contempt shown for the faithful, I will point out that I have far less fear of someone’s “imaginary friend” than I have of the real-live government.
Neither God or Harvey the Pooka* can compel me to do anything at the point of a gun or under threat of imprisonment. God can’t make me do anything (man, if I’m wrong in my agnosticism, I’m cooked); the government can.
For me, this is reason enough to think that government should be limited as much as possible. You’re mistaken in your belief that the gummint will always do what you happen to think is right. If you think that’s the case, you need to read some history.
#28: Helio – that’s funny. I can think of all sorts of stuff to fill in the blanks.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(film)
Wait, really? How come I keep missing out on all these cool government bennies?!? Uncle Sam provides free nookie, who knew?
(yes, I’m kidding for the humor-challenged)
I would be interested in knowing why folks here who dislike Levi’s take on things, think this argument is wrong. Or is it that it just doesn’t matter, when put against the heavy weight of “freedom from government interference”?
Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental rights we have. Put “freedom from government interference” in general (i.e. a more libertarian view of government) aside for a moment, it is a violation of that fundamental right when religious hospitals are forced to provide services that violate their tenets. This is not the same a non-religious institution. As I said, I disagree with the Catholic Church’s position on non-abortifacient contraception but I will defend their right to hold such a belief. I can do no other because MY rights are also at stake in this.
I can’t imagine why anybody would. Too much hassle and constraint via regulation as far as I can tell. That and they don’t seem to pay worth a crap. But we’re supposed to believe that it’s the eeeeeeeeevil Big Insurance that doesn’t pay.
The real question is why Levi and Cas find the notion of people having the freedom to make their health care choices for themselves so abhorrent and horrifying.
I know from past experience with you, Cas, that you actually aren’t interested. Different parts of the total answer are scattered throughout the thread. You would be capable of picking them up and understanding them, if you cared to. You don’t.
#29 by SoCalRobert:
Second, religious organizations actually have a simple way out of the insurance issue: do not provide insurance to employees. Employer-provided insurance, so far, is not a requirement… no employer is required to provide it at any cost.
Actually Obamacare requires employers with over 50 employees (such as Catholic hospitals) to provide health insurance or face fines, so employers ARE required to provide insurance. There is no opting out unless Obama’s administration grants you a waiver. The politically connected (such as teacher’s unions) get those waivers; Catholic hospitals not so much.
@31: John – sorry to report that the paid hooker story was from the UK. Mark Steyn wrote about it. Americans will have to wait for the first round of reforms to Obamacare. Of course, by then, we will have all been screwed.
@36: Louise – thanks for the correction. I suspect a lot of companies will simply pay the fine or, in the case of small companies, make sure they keep head count under 50.
Also, it seems to me that congress sometimes likes to change the rules for Medicare & Medicaid perhaps to catch people in “fraud” and reap the cash from fines and penalties. The whole kerfuffle about Rick Scott and Columbia/HCA comes to mind.
Florida libs loved to scream “fraud” about Scott during the election, but not a damn one of them would explain what it was all about so I had to go digging. Long story short, Congress had changed the rules on some billing practices so that something that had always been done was suddenly illegal. Nobody cared to mention that Duke University, University of Chicago, the Mayo Clinic and hundreds of practices were snared in the same dragnet that clobbered Columbia/HCA. I don’t think it was just a coincidence that Scott was a major, vocal critic of HillaryCare at all. Seems to me that Medicare and Medicaid can be used as a political cudgel as well.
Of course the folks that engage in Medicare and Medicaid fraud the most are usually patients. I read about a year or so ago that M&M fraud had replaced drug trafficking as the crime of choice in South Florida. Somehow, though, the federal government doesn’t seem very keen on cracking down on them. I guess it depends on who has the money and who can be trashed as eeeeeevil Big Healthcare. Cui bono.
The pill is widely used by women not having sex to control the symptoms of menstruation and to regulate cycles. Menstruation, with all of the cramps and hormones and changes in mood, is undeniably a medical condition, and various forms of contraception give most women who use them a great deal of relief, in addition to controlling whether or not they become pregnant.
Female anatomy is immeasurably complicated and fragile, so women require a lot of unique medical services. A group of bishops (which, wouldn’t you know it, just coincidentally happen to be all male!) making up reasons to interfere in what should be private healthcare decisions between a woman and her doctor, it seems to me, is the more intrusive, freedom-compromising course of action here. If a woman employed by one of these Catholic organizations is prescribed the pill to treat polycystic ovary syndrome, endometriosis, adenomyosis, or dysmenorrhea, do you think the bishops wouldn’t mind paying for birth control pills then? Of course, how would that work? Would the woman have to go into her job, describe in detail the severity of their periods and the status of their uterus to their boss, and promise to never have sex while they’re using the pill?
Bishops aren’t doctors and have no kind of authority to be determining what is and isn’t necessary when it comes to treating patients. You might think public healthcare is bullshit but that’s really beside the point. In this instance, the bishops reasoning and logic is so flimsy that anyone could employ the same argument to not offer any kind of coverage for any reason at all. Leaving aside for a moment that you don’t like Obama’s healthcare reform laws (which I don’t like either), how would that work?
As someone who pays taxes, I am ‘compelled’ ‘to provide’ for a number of things that ‘I object to’ every day. Am I a slave? I don’t consider myself to be, but by your reasoning, any time anyone is compelled to pay for anything they don’t support enthusiastically, they are enslaved. Oooo.
I know how you right-leaning types feel about taxes and the government, but this is the nature of the pluralistic representative democracy that we live in. It’s impossible to support everything that your money goes to. If people could abstain from paying taxes for all the things that they object to, nobody would pay any taxes at all. Again, what we have here is a religious institution just kind of making something up about how contraception is exactly the same as abortion, and we’re all supposed to just not our heads and decide that the rules won’t apply to them? If it’s a freedom thing for the bishops, it’s a freedom thing for the racists and the homophobes, so let’s afford them the same latitudes for their irrational lines of argument.
If I were to argue the same way the bishops were arguing, I could say that I am being compelled by the state to conduct executions.
Menstruation is a natural biologic function, you ignorant wretch. And doesn’t the Humanae Vitae state that contraception for therapeutic purposes is allowed?
Our government is infested with terrible people doing terrible things, including President Obama, who I believe ought to be rung up on war crimes right along with his predecessor and his entire cabinet. In case you haven’t been paying attention to government overreach issues that are actually important, Obama has authorized drone attacks in places like Yemen and Somalia, killing hundreds of women and children. They’ve even targeted funerals, figuring that getting 1 or 2 more rumored, hypothetical (maybe!) enemy combatants is worth a dozen or so innocent bystanders getting killed in the collateral damage.
And you want to get all dramatic because some old farts in silly hats are making fallacious claims of religious persecution?
Obama has effectively enshrined the myriad of government power abuses that the Bush administration foisted on this country. They’ve both done it to a complete non-response from the conservative community, whom as this little spat exemplifies, likes to pretend to be the ones that are so mistrustful and suspicious of government power. I mean honestly, the Bush administration was caught red-handed wiretapping American citizens without warrants, and this was greeted by yawns from the right wing. But uh-oh, someone wants to ban incandescent light bulbs, and here comes the organizations and the Fox News panels and the blog posts! Obama has taken the extraordinary step of killing an American citizen without a trial, where’s the small-government, limited-power conservatives and all of their righteous outrage?
So yes, please go on about how the President taking the slightest little step towards a more socialized healthcare system is an egregious abuse of his power that stifles our freedom and enslaves us.
You shouldn’t get confused, I do believe that government has the potential to be an extremely positive force, and that it needs to be strengthened if our country (and the human race) is going to continue to be successful. It should be limited, certainly, but it shouldn’t be docile in the face of huge meta-level threats. We can’t just sit around waiting for the free market to improve our healthcare system or to solve environmental problems, there are some things for which we need coordinated, everybody-pitching-in efforts. None of those things are happening right now, but it’s not because of any inherent problem with the idea of government. Government has been the cornerstone of human civilization and it will continue to be, we just need to get the right people in there. Which, unfortunately given a lot of different factors, is going to be nearly impossible for the forseeable future.
Levi, instead of manufacturing fake hypotheticals, why not explain why people should be denied the ability to buy insurance that they want and not have to pay higher premiums because of government invasion?
Liberals have already killed the economy based on faulty “evidence” that lenders were discriminating against blacks and other minorities and mandated that lenders loan to people who couldn’t possibly pay them back. So why in the hell should we believe that the liberal government knows what they hell they’re doing now?
If you’re so pissed about taxes being unfair, bitch to the party that claims to be all about fairness. BTW, that’s a completely unrelated issue you poor stupid bastard.
Who the shit knows? If that loophole exists, couldn’t a woman just claim she needed the contraception for therapeutic purposes? Will the bishops make her prove she needs it before they pony up?
Well it sure as SHIT isn’t you, that’s for damn sure. You haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about. All you have is liberal bullshit talking points that you keep regurgitating. You’re either the stupidest person out there or you know damn well that what you’re writing is bullshit. Neither one makes you look very smart.
Jesus, why don’t you just come at me with a ridiculously loaded question?
I’ll just say I support universal healthcare. Our healthcare system is by the far the most inefficient in the world, costing twice as much and delivering worse results. It doesn’t cover everyone, which I think is a moral crisis. The government already administers two incredibly popular and effective healthcare programs in Medicare and Medicaid, and literally every other developed country in the world runs a socialized medicine scheme that is cheaper and more effective than our own. Your line about protecting people’s freedom to choose their insurance plans is bullshit propaganda dispensed by the industries that are making billions of of the terribly inefficient status quo. You can always make something sound worse by prattering on endlessly about freedom, but that’s about as generic and hollow as it gets.
Not even going there.
It’s not unrelated – if the bishops get to opt out of a law because they claim their conscience objects to it, why can’t I?
Save the strings of insults for someone who cares.
Because contraception, for whatever reason, is elective. Taxes are not. Liberals want to force higher costs on everyone for the needs of a few.
Do you suppose it might cost a lot less if we weren’t being forced to pay for what we neither want nor need?
What’s effective about a scheme that’s one of the highest, most unsustainable costs in the country right now? What’s effective when so many people are engaged in defrauding it? If by effective you mean that it screws over tons of people, then you would be correct.
And I’ll remind you that a bunch of old farts in Washington, without any medical education, decided to interfere between doctors and patients ASSerting that THEY know what’s best for hundreds of millions of Americans.
Not only that, a bunch of old farts, without any background in oncology or radiology, decided that it wasn’t worth it for women outside the age group of 50-75 to get an annual mammogram. So much for liberals giving a shit about women.
Because you want someone who works harder and is more financially responsible than you are to pay for your health care. Selfishness.
Unsustainable entitlements that are bankrupting our country and driving our massive deficits. And that punish the responsible and hardworking in order to buy the votes of the shiftless and unproductive. Does anyone doubt that a Federal program that gave away sports cars, massages, and lap dances would be politically popular? Sure. Would it be an expensive waste of money? Also, yes.
That’s why it sucks to be a conservative. You have to constantly point out that there is no such thing as “free stuff from the Government.” The Government can only give stuff away that it takes away from other people.
So, after all the winnowing and sifting through finer and finer screens, two huge boulders remain in Levi’s craw:
1.) He hates religion.
2.) He adores state controlled healthcare.
He, himself, finds nothing else he has thrown into the argument is worth defending. He slaps his ears and yells blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, because he only cares about the “stupidity” of religion and a “free” ride on the health care train.
So, the question remains as to why Levi keeps playing his pseudo- intellectual games. As often as he has had his lunch handed to him here, you would think he would just take a cue from Little WeeWee and only drop by to throw a brick. That is how pathological numbskulls usually work.
For me, universal health care would be the equivalent of being dependent on the Government for food, and having every meal for the rest of my life be school-cafeteria quality served with DMV levels of customer services.
Sometimes, I swear, liberals delight in making people miserable.
Heliotrope, what is also striking is that Levi despises religion without ever having had any actual experience with it; which I find is quite typical among liberals/progressives/fascists or whatever the socialist religion-haters call themselves.
They tell me that Christianity is ignorant, that Christians are instructed to hate gays and minorities, that Christians are indoctrinated that everyone who doesn’t believe as they do is going to Hell, and that non-believers should be violently bullied and persecuted.
I’ve been going to church my whole life, in my adult life I have attended a wide variety of denominations and churches (so much for being indoctrinated to believe what my parents did, right?). I’ve been to churches on two continents and 17 states and in none of them have I ever EVER been told to hate others or to do violence against non-believers. And only a few churches have explicitly taught that non-Christians were going to Hell… but their answer was not violence, but that non-believers should be prayed for.
Levi worships at the altar of two delusions: 1. Christianity is violent and hateful. 2. Government health care is efficient and wonderful. (Tell that to the Brits who can’t get cancer treatments, or the Canadians waiting months to get an MRI.)
#42
Amusingly, the link I provided last week specifically points out the scenario you describe. Of course Levi and facts only have a casual relationship at best.
Also I noted LEvi encouraging fraud in #45. Showing more of his mindset. In his mind, lying to ‘invade’ is bad, lying to the doctor, the government and your employer is fine. Hmm, wonder if Levi lies on his taxes?
Speaking of lies, Levi trots out the popular and successful, lie again.
@Heliotrope He’s kind of like that beta fish, always attacking, even if it’s his own reflection. He’s about as effective too.
Did anyone else have to laugh at the idea of Levi having any knowlege of female anatomy? I think his mother giving birth was his first (and last) experience.
LOL. I totally missed that idiotic Levi tidbit. If menstruation is a “medical condition” then so is taking a dump.
just saw an Iowahawk tweet that reminded me of Levi, since he’s endorsing fraud.
“You know what else restricts your access to free contraceptives? The shoplifting cameras at Walgreens.”
Levi @ #43 comes unwound:
government has the potential to be an “extremely positive force”
(government) needs to be strengthened if our country (and the human race) is going to continue to be “successful”
(government) shouldn’t be docile in the face of huge “meta-level threats”
We can’t just sit around waiting for the free market to improve our healthcare system or to solve environmental problems
there are some things for which we need coordinated, “everybody-pitching-in efforts”
Government has been the “cornerstone” of human civilization
we just need to get the “right” people in (government)
Never have I read a more religious view of amorphous “government” as in:
The GOVERNMENT is my shepherd; I shall not want.
It maketh me to lie down in green pastures: it leadeth me beside the still waters.
It restoreth my soul: it leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for its own sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for the government art with me; its rod and its staff they comfort me.
The government preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: it anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the GOVERNMENT for ever.
we just need to get the “right” people in (government)
Tina Korbe, riffing on Ann Coulter, gets it:
Insurance is supposed to be for disasters, not ordinary expenses. Our whole concept of medical insurance is thus wrong.
Lefties love that wrongness! They love to see terms being warped and misused until they are unusable – because at that point, the term can be used to advocate what the leftie wants, which is “free” goodies for himself and/or the dragging down of anyone who, for any reason, may have anything more than him.
In this case, now that our concept of so-called “insurance” has been warped into providing people’s ordinary medical, the leftie can further warp it to provide more and more ordinary expenses – until we have achieved, as Coulter put it, “insurance as communism”.
Not in dispute. Government is a positive force WHEN (or INSOFAR AS) it impartially protects individual rights to life, liberty and property, so that free human beings can then proceed to solve problems on their own initiative (which means: at least partly, though not solely, for their own profit).
In dispute. Only a fascist could look at America’s existing bloated, heavy government and believe that, from where we are now, it needs to become significantly stronger. Lookin at you, Levi. Only a fascist.
ILC,
What’s important is the market had already shifted to react to what ‘insurance’ should be. High Deductable Health Plans, Health Savings Accounts, insurers having tools to show cost of care estimates, etc. etc. All tools to allow their/our members to maximize their health care dollar.
Of course this requires people to think and do research, and accept the consequences of their choices. That’s the part that’s anethma to people like Levi.
My favorite of the Levi bleats:
Oh really? And what are YOU going to “pitch in”, Levi?
The short answer: nothing. You don’t pay your taxes now. You won’t accept a tax increase on yourself. You won’t change your behavior to reduce the need for health care. You certainly won’t accept any rationing or reduction in your health care.
It’s all about OTHER people “pitching in”, while you grow fat and bloated like a tick on other peoples’ work, other peoples’ education, other peoples’ sweat, other peoples’ thrift, and so forth, without you ever having to lift a finger or put yourself out in the least.
Here’s a proposition for you, Levi: you believe in the all-powerful benevolence and kindness of government. Why not allow yourself to be institutionalized?
Under a free market system, people will be denied care when they cannot afford to pay for it.
Under “universal health care,” people will be denied care when a bureaucrat determines that the Government will not pay for it.
How is the latter system inherently superior to the first?
#63
It’s superior because people like Levi can bleat “If we could only suck more blood from those evil religious types, we’d have saved that person!”
He can then wring his hands and go back to blogging from his mother’s basement.
Levi – just one more.
The men in silly hats are not inserting themselves (better term?) between a woman and her physician. They are simply stating that they don’t want to be compelled to pay for certain things.
The law involves itself with medicine anyway (doctors who prescribe narcotics without a good reason, for example). And once Obamacare kicks in, this involvement will multiply in ways we’ve not imagined.
Let me pose a hypothetical. Let’s say that science discovers some marker for homosexuality that can be detected by amniocentesis. Given that lots of people see abortion as an absolute right, would you have issues with women who abort because the baby may turn out gay? That’s not far-fetched given sex-selective abortion.
Further, would you compel a physician to perform said homo-no-more abortion even if he objected on moral grounds? Would you compel a church to pay for that coverage despite moral objection?
Bottom line is this: flaws and all, the risks of too much liberty are minuscule against the risk of the omnipotent state.
I see no distinction between “limited government” and “socialist, or unlimited, government.” Either government is limited or it isn’t. Unless you have limits on how big government can grow, and unless those limits are effective, government will naturally continue to grow until it becomes unable to sustain itself and it collapses. And it is very hard to decrease the size of government once it starts to grow; it is possible, but difficult and unlikely (as it goes against the natural “inertia” government possesses to keep growing; and it also counters the interests of lawmakers, those who are responsible for cutting the government’s size). I would say that is a general rule (with possible exceptions), but it is happening in the US. Despite its supposed limits on what the government is allowed to do, the government has been allowed to grow unchecked, with little resistance. And what resistance (reform, tax cuts, etc) there has been has been largely ineffective in the long term.
My point is, maybe there is the remote possibility that a large government can be beneficial, but that possibility isn’t worth the risk of the almost (if not) guaranteed negative effect on whatever jurisdiction it is meant to govern.
Levi seems to believe that religion cannot possibly ever do any good for anyone; and, therefore, it is just as bad as racism. A textbook example of narrow-mindedness.
@Levi: What’s the difference between this proposal forcing Catholic hospitals to provide contraception & abortion services and the government similarly forcing Jewish & Muslim institutions to serve bacon/misc pork products or other non-kosher/halal foods? I’m willing to bet that you’d scream about a violation of the 1st Amendment in that case but because Catholics are involved it seems to be a very different matter. No, this is a clear violation of the 1st Amendment and if it isn’t quashed now will be overturned in court.
I’m still befuddled as to why Levi pisses & moans about having to pay for things he finds objectionable whilst cheer leading for more of it on others.
I was reading an article about a group in England that had designed a new patient compartments for ambulances. Artists and designers came up with a full scale mock-up. Paramedics loved it. The manufacturers loved it. The NHS loved it. The NHS told the manufacturers to build it. The manufacturers said they’d build it when the NHS paid them.
Where’s the efficiency in that? How are they so much superior to us?
Over here, manufacturers could build it if they wanted to and don’t have to wait for the state to pay them as they’re paid by the services that order the new design to be incorporated in their trucks.
Ambulances, BTW, are pretty much custom built here in the states. Services select the manufacturer, the style and choose from a wide variety of options. They have the freedom to decide what they want.
I would also inquire as to how many of those Socialist medicine countries have the advances in medicine that we have. Can’t help but notice, either, that ambulances and ERs in a lot of those countries have gear from here in the US.
Greed, I’d say.
Are all people who work for the Catholic church and its organizations Catholics themselves? Are they required to adhere to church beliefs as part of their employment? Do these organizations receive public funding of any kind?
I’d like to know the answers to these questions. If they are no, no, yes; then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t provide contraception. Also, the fact that a solid majority of catholics in the US believe in the use of contraception is a big factor as well.
Then again, why should anyone care about the moral outrage of an organization that had the biggest coverup of child sexual abuse in the history of the world?
Kevin,
No, not all people who work in the Catholic institutions are Catholic.
Non Catholics do not have to adhere to Catholic beliefs.
They do not have to work in the Catholic institution.
They can work for a Hindu at a 7-11 or in a kosher deli.
The Catholic employer may or may not offer dental insurance.
The Catholic employer may or may not offer eye exam and glasses insurance.
The Catholic employer does not offer contraception insurance.
The Catholic employer does not offer atheists freedom from seeing a crucifix or having to deal with a nun.
What is your point?
(I forgot fish on Fridays and the insult to vegans.)
And then where does it end? Who else on the Bamster’s Enemies List comes next? It’s not just the Catholics, slick.
First they came for the communists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist….
And you probably know the rest.
Hey, I know! We can give ’em the Branch Davidian treatment, eh Kevin? We can show ’em how the liberals practice separation of church and state.
They’re trying to limit the ability of women in their employ from getting certain kinds of routine medical treatment – how are they not interfering?My point about contraceptives being prescribed for a number of medical ailments still stands – is it incumbent upon the employee to beg their Catholic boss for contraceptive coverage because they have severe, debilitating periods? Isn’t the right to privacy an important freedom issue as well? Would you argue that it’s somehow less important compared to the arbitrary and selective enforcement of random religious edicts, that by the way, are motivated not out of concern for the sanctity of life, but by the requirement of all religions to have lots of babies around to carry on the tradition?
And if you think it’s okay for the bishops to not cover contraceptives, you have to agree that it’s also okay for racists to not cover sickle cell anemia, for anti-Semites to not cover Tay-Sachs disease, for homophobes to not cover AIDS treatment, or for any other person to not cover any kind of treatment for any reason at all. A racists’ hatred of black people is as much a protected expression as a bishop’s hatred of contraception, so you have to let them opt out of covering treatment of diseases commonly found among black people, too.
I will freely acknowledge the moral depravity of people aborting planned pregnancies because they’re not getting the kind of kid they wanted. I suspect that most people agree and that examples of such immature and ridiculous behavior are few and far in between. This is quite different from contraception, which is widely adopted by most adult women in this country, whether or not they’re sexually active. It’s On the other hand, no one is forcing bishops to perform abortions. Just because the bishops say that contraception equals abortion, doesn’t make it so. I appreciate your attempt to offer an analogy but I just don’t agree that it’s the same thing at all.
And by the way, while I know we all have to pretend that the church is taking some principled moral stand here, let’s all remember that for decades, the Catholic Church sent missionaries all over Africa telling people that while AIDS is bad, condoms were worse. I think that tells you all you need to know about the morality of their position and their so-called claims to be defending the sanctity of life. Why should an organization that until very recently, officially advanced such an evil and backwards point of view as that, be perceived as any kind of moral leader? They literally argued that it was better for people to die horrible deaths than it was to use contraception, and a few years later we’re supposed to defer to their moral objections to contraception? Please.
I’d also like to remind you that this is an exclusively male club seeking exemptions for treatments that exclusively affect females.
I’d like for you to try and spell out why we should grant the bishops’ an exemption, but shouldn’t grant the racists their exemptions? Do you think people should be exempted from following laws that they don’t like generally, or is it just in certain situations such as this?
#75: “I will freely acknowledge the moral depravity of people aborting planned pregnancies because they’re not getting the kind of kid they wanted. I suspect that most people agree and that examples of such immature and ridiculous behavior are few and far in between. This is quite different from contraception, which is widely adopted by most adult women in this country, whether or not they’re sexually active. It’s On the other hand, no one is forcing bishops to perform abortions. Just because the bishops say that contraception equals abortion, doesn’t make it so. I appreciate your attempt to offer an analogy but I just don’t agree that it’s the same thing at all.”
I noticed that Levi is apparently trying to draw a moral line in the sand regarding abortion, so I thought it would be interesting for everyone to read a couple of quotes that I saved from a discussion Levi and I had about the abortion issue back in March 2010:
“I’m perfectly capable of recognizing that abortion is a tragedy. It isn’t something that anyone likes to happen and it’s obviously a great moral dilemma. But that doesn’t justify depriving a woman of the ability to determine for herself when she should and should not start having kids…I’m just going to be on the side of the full-grown adults in this one. I don’t like that a would-be human life has to be snuffed out, but I don’t like the idea of a woman being forced to raise children that she doesn’t want much, much more. And it’s not about shirking responsibility, it’s about being sympathetic to the peoples’ individual and complex circumstances.”
“I don’t like abortions, but I don’t like depriving people of their freedom to make their own decisions even more. The lesser of two evils in this case is letting people make choices, how is that amoral?”
In light of these statements, Levi is the last person on Earth who should be consulted on matters pertaining to morality.
It’s been spelled out for you repeatedly. If you’re too dumb to get it, then we can’t help you.
Hmm, anyone notice Levi continues to cling to his “AIDS is to gays like Sickle Cell is to Blacks” meme?
I also find it funny how he fails to understand market forces.
Now hush Levi, adults are talking.
Livewire, the central issue, it is a violation of the Constitution for the Government to force a religious organization to violate its morals and its conscience. Since Levi has no morals, no conscience, and thinks the Constitution is just a speed-bump on the road to socialist utopia, he doesn’t get why this is a problem.
It’s akin to the Government forcing a gay rights organization to buy posters and bullhorns for the Westboro Baptist Church.
@ V the K, oh I know. I just always find it funny when Levi shows his true racist homophobic truther self. Primarily when he accuses others of being racist and homophobic.
Like I said, if he had any power, he’d be dangerous.
Just as a reminder:
Now, unless you are trying to cover racism under abridging the freedom of speech your question is about comparing apples and lug nuts.
No insurance has been (yet) mandated for hearing aids, eye glasses, cosmetic surgery, or dental services. Arguably, there are more people hard of hearing, people who have sight problems, ugly people and people with mouths full of bad teeth or crooked teeth than women who need treatments for menstrual problems requiring treatment involving contraceptive medicine. So, choosing this issue to rag at the Catholics is pretty pointed, isn’t it? It clearly pushes the envelope on the free exercise of religion Constitutional clause.
But, here is the bottom line: No person is required to work in a Catholic institution. Just like no person is required to eat pizza with meat on it. Just like no person is required to get an abortion.
If you “want” to work in a Catholic run workplace, maybe you should “want” to work there enough to bring a brown bag lunch on Friday if you can’t handle fish. If you “want” to work in a Catholic run workplace, maybe your atheist self had better get blinders so you don’t see the bazillion crucifixes in every nook and cranny. If you “want” to work in a Catholic run workplace and you have nuns offering to pray for you all of the time, maybe you had better rethink your plans to sue over it being a “hostile work environment.”
Now, I’d like for you to “try and spell out” why we shouldn’t grant the bishops the protections afforded them by the First Amendment.
Your turn, bigot.
You don’t seem to be aware that contraceptives for medical ailments are an ELECTIVE. Look that one up in your Funk & Wagnall’s.
You mean the point that was shredded, complete with documentation here?
Levi’s proof that if someone repeats a lie long enough he thinks people will take it as truth.
Now hush Levi, the adults are talking.