Workman's Comp is one name it goes by. Here (Washington State) everybody calls it L&I, Labor and Industries the state department that runs it. I also forgot Unemployment Insurance which employers will consider an employment cost.
US Supreme Court: Hobby Lobby wins we lose
by designs 89 Replies latest social current
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JeffT
I read today that Hobby Lobby is self-insured. That is, it is there money going to directly pay for employee healthcare, rather than buying an insurance policy. That's why they can make their own decisions about not covering certain kinds of birth control and why its important to them.
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designs
Should the 'self-insured' status allow an employer to wield their religious views on the employees. Does it open the door to other religious views hindering medical procedures or treatments- JW boss threatening an employee with termination if they take a blood transfusion, Amish boss refusing to cover vaccines etc..
Marchers in front of the Supreme Court are demanding their 'Right' to discriminate against other races and others with sexual orientations they disaprove of based on 'Religious Rights'.
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Viviane
I read today that Hobby Lobby is self-insured. That is, it is there money going to directly pay for employee healthcare, rather than buying an insurance policy. That's why they can make their own decisions about not covering certain kinds of birth control and why its important to them.
That's not what self-insured means.
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Laika
So what does self insured mean Viv?
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Viviane
That you have access to google to look it up.
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Justitia Themis
The Hobby Lobby decision is disaterous.
First, it follows Citizens United in anthrpomorphizing corporations. Forming a corporation (closely-held or public) shields the owners assets. If someone wins a judgment, only the corporation's assets can be taken; not the owner's.
Hobby Lobby's owners' argument in sum is thus: I want corporate law to protect me from you, but I don't want it to protect you from me.
Second, being self-insured simply means they don't use the insurance companies administration. Instead, they use third-party administrators. It saves administration costs, but the actual insurance is the same. They buy a plan from Blue Cross, Premera, or whoever, but administer (claims handling/bill processing) the plan themselves.
Lastly, SCOTUS has clarified (expanded) their so-called "narrow" decision multiple times this week.
It applies broadly to ALL CONTRACEPTIVE METHODS.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/scotus-says-hobby-lobby-ruling-applies-broadly
The Supreme Court on Tuesday confirmed that its decision a day earlier extending religious rights to closely held corporations applies broadly to the contraceptive coverage requirement in the new health care law, not just the handful of methods the justices considered in their ruling.
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Justitia Themis
Here's a question: Do you believe that women are capable of managing their own lives without the intervention of somebody else (the government, their employer or whatever) to manage it for them?
Women ARE "managing their lives" regarding contraception. Our government does not provide insurance or acess to contraceptives like the rest of the industrialized world. Hence, women WORK to obtain them. Part of a woman's BENEFIT PACKAGE (that she EARNS) is medical and dental insurance.
Hence, spending her medical insurance to obtain contraceptives is NO different than spending her cash to obtain contraceptives. However, now, the medical benefits women receive are being selectivly reduced. Why?
Because some employer and the SCOTUS have decided to interfere in her life, take management away from her, and determine that she can't have the birth control she previsouly had access to because it offends THEIR corporation's religious conscience.
I agree with your Jeff: Get the government, church, and business owners out of women's vaginas and quit attacking their access to birth control and abortion!
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darth frosty
Part of a woman's BENEFIT PACKAGE (that she EARNS) is medical and dental insurance.
Hence, spending her medical insurance to obtain contraceptives is NO different than spending her cash to obtain contraceptives. However, now, the medical benefits women receive are being selectivly reduced. Why?
Because some employer and the SCOTUS have decided to interfere in her life, take management away from her, and determine that she can't have the birth control she previsouly had access to because it offends THEIR corporation's religious conscience.
Just needed to be said again!
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BizzyBee
JT, Yes! Corporate personhood is the bigger issue at stake here. Citizens United opened that door and now a corporation's so-called "religious beliefs" have trumped the rights of actual individuals.
This SCOTUS is out of control.
WHY THE HOBBY LOBBY RULING IS YOUR PROBLEM AND MY PROBLEM
Until now it never occurred to me to worry about my employer's religious views. Now we all have to.
By Chris Tomlinson on July 3, 2014
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This op-ed column was originally published in the Houston Chronicle. Follow the author on Twitter.
I may have made a horrible mistake in becoming the Houston Chronicle's business columnist.
The Chronicle is owned by Hearst Corp., a privately held company based in New York, and I didn't first vet the owners' religious beliefs before I accepted the position.
Stupid me, I didn't realize that a for-profit corporation could impose its religious values by deciding which federally-required benefits I receive. Until now it never occurred to me to worry about my employer's religious views. Now we all have to.
Much of the outrage over the Hobby Lobby decision has rightfully focused on women's rights, and the idea that a corporation's religious freedom trumps a woman's right to fair and equal treatment under the law is astonishing, but there are other insidious aspects to this case that we need to worry about. Here's what Shannon Minte, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights said:
"The majority's holding that closely held corporations can claim religious liberty protections designed for individuals and can rely on those protections to avoid complying with generally applicable laws is a dangerous and radical departure from existing law that creates far more questions than it answers."
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision today in the Hobby Lobby case, Justice Samuel Alito has cracked open the door for Hearst - or any private company - to decide it's religious beliefs prevent it from supplying any form of health insurance or retirement plan. Or maybe, the company will conclude the 40-hour work week is immoral because it promotes sloth, the third cardinal sin.
Of course, those are extreme cases and Hearst won't do any of those things. But those are the kinds of extreme cases that Supreme Court decisions are supposed to allow for. Alito tried to write the decision as narrowly as possible, but so did Justice Anthony Kennedy when he threw out the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Kennedy's "narrow" decision opened the door to dozens of gay marriage lawsuits. Alito's decision may be a narrow decision, but it won't necessarily stay that way.
Brace yourself for some cost-cutting, suddenly religious CEO to use today's decision to justify all kinds of exploitative practices. Or now that a corporation can be religious, something Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and I thought was limited to people, will we have boards of directors meetings where they vote on the company's official religion? This decision opens the door to hundreds of new legal questions that activists will scurry to test with new lawsuits.
Perhaps what worries me most is the growing division in American society between the religious and the non-religious. We are literally moving away from one another, living in different states, cities and neighborhoods. We elected politicians who think their job is to annihilate the opposition rather than reach compromise. Now we may end up dividing up along employer lines.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/horrible-mistake-hobby
