The high court said that Catholic Charities is no different from other businesses in California, where "religious employers" such as churches are exempt from the requirement. Catholic Charities argued that it, too, should be exempt.
Why should religions be exempt from laws that everyone else has to follow? If an individual member of a religion has an immoral position (such as the prevention of birth control or sex) then let him individually apply hisr immoral system to himself. If someone else, whether of that religion or not wants to follow a different system let them. Stop exempting religions and make the laws that apply to them as well.
It's ridiculous. It's like telling a committed Catholic Doctor he MUST perform abortions...it's stupid.
What? Let us be reasonable Yehu. It is more like an individual patient wants to get an abortion and because the doctor is a catholic, she wont let the patient find another doctor or hospital. It is more like the doctor saying, there are five hospitals in the area and here they are. It is not even like a doctor saying ...such and such a hospital performs abortions go there. Insurance is generalistic and applies across the board to all carriers of a particular plan. No one is saying that an individual has to give information about said procedure. That is up to the insurance provider. If the secretary or the human resources director doesnt believe in abortion they personally do not have to do anything with it. If asked anything by the employee they simply have to refer the employee to the insurance handbook or its phone number.
Ya know, the sad thing is that if Mother Teresa had operated in California as oppossed to India she would also have been forced to provide for birth control. Geesh.
What? Was she an insurance provider and an employer? Apples and oranges again yehu. They did not say that a charity had to provide medical benefits and thus birth control to those to whom they provide charitable works. Rather they said this to their EMPLOYEES.
Satans little helper..PRECISELY. If I come in to excavate a site for JWs and I get in an accident, then the JWs have no right to tell the abulance that I am not allowed blood, even if they are paying for my care! No more than catholic charities as an employer has a right to deny what types of medical care its employees will receive.
I can see that if the charity must pay for its workers choices in health insurance, which might include birth control. But if they ARE their own health insurance company, I'm not sure why the state would get involved telling them what they HAVE to pay for.
Regardless of the method of their insurance Czar, self insurance or provider chosen, I am betting that the California supreme court got involved because an individual employee or more chose to take them to court because they were not allowed birth control as part of their plan. It isnt like the California supreme court just made up a case and a decision out of nowhere. Now that being the case and since Yehu started this thread about freedom, what about the freedom of the individual employee who deserved to be covered by insurance as part of his job, like many millions of other americans whose jobs pay for insurance and thus birth control prescriptions. The rights of the church, an organization, are in some minds to be honored, but individual needs are not to be honored. The entire idea of rights is that they apply to individuals.
This Socialism that has affected most of the free world must be stopped. The Institutions and traditions which has made our country great must be protected.
That made our country great? Freedom is being curtailed? Institutions and traditions? Both are anti-freedom. How about individual freedom? What about that individual employee who wanted or NEEDED birth control and could not afford it because of a variety of reasons? How about this for freedom....If you want birth control get it. If you do not, do not get it. If you as an individual catholic want to buy into the poverty imposing bull of the catholic church when it tells you not to use birth control so that it can continue to create swarms of poor, illiterate masses to control, then go right ahead, have a ball. But if I want to limit my family size so that I can pay closer attention to my child because I believe that quality time IS closely related to quantity time, then let me also. Let the church provide a public form of insurance, such as blue cross blue shield, which is a standard insurance, and since that insurance typically pays for birth control, or a part of it, then dont tell them NOT to provide it to me....
You don?t like an employer?s insurance plan? Get another job......
Or the employer can just stop telling their provider to deny a certain procedure. And if you dont like your boss shorting your check each week, just get a different job. Do not complain. Do not sue. Just get another job.
locations have been covering contraceptives "under duress" during the litigation because their insurers have complied with the statute. <in other words, the insurance companies have been covering it anyway>
So the insurance companies are following their standard practices of offering birth control to everyon on plans where birth control is covered. Insurance companies have exceptions as far as some things, such as dental coverage which doesnt cover orthodontics or medical coverage that doesnt cover cosmetic surgeries. Insurance usually doesnt say it will cover all prescriptions except cold medications. Nor does it say it wont cover birth control. Since the insurance plans themselves normally cover this and since the insurance the charity uses covers it as part of the plans, as it normally does, why the need for the catholic church charities to interfere with the normal operation of the insurance companies. Again we are not talking about the charities self insuring here.
Also aparently I was incorrect above, an individual did not sue, the charity sued the state instead. Again trying to force the insurance companies that they use to deny coverage that the insurance already handles on its own? Silly. So if we are talking about freedom of institutions, what about the freedom of the insurance institutions. And again the religious freedom of those that endorse birth control (my religion for instance not only advocates birth control but mandates it for those unable to care for children into their adult years).
I'm not sure which criteria is being used to rank the US 37th in Health Care in the world...but I do know you have more people coming to the US for health care than any other country.
We have the best health care in the world. If you can afford it. Since is very expensive, and since insurance does not cover many things and since many cannot even afford insurance or the copays, many in this country go without. Those as you mentioned that come here for health care, have the money or insurance to do so. Medicare, for instance, wont cover an American in another country except for emergency services.
As far as costs the last job I was looking at, an 8 dollar an hour job would take out 80 dollars ever week from my pay for insurance. Or 300 for a family plan! On an eight dollar an hour job that means I would have to find another job just to pay family insurance!
So that is where it ranks lowest. Yes the health care systems in other countries have problems. But if I need a procedure I do not have to stress about the cost...usually merely the availability of time of medical professionals to get it done. As far as the tax system being 50% in germany, it is not that far off here either. 7.5% goes for Social security, money we will never see. Income tax varies on income, sometimes being nothing if you are low enough. 40 Cents a gallon on gasoline. 8% sales tax in ohio ON top of income tax. In Northfield where I live people are paying a thousand dollars or more a year on property tax. We just voted down another levy. A couple years ago we were told we needed a levy to maintain the school services. We voted it in. We are still paying it. The services offered have not been raised. And again this year twice they told us we needed another levy to continue to MAINTAIN the same services the very levy we passed two years ago was passed to pay for. I once calculated that in order to spend a dollar, with all taxes I was having to pay, I actually had to earn 4 dollars. Of course I was self employed at the time and I have not done the same calculations again. But the fifty percent you are talking about is not just for health care. The countries in europe also have a reasonably effective unemployment system. In some countries homelessness is not a problem because they make sure you have a place, albeit humble, to live in. yes I am oversimplifying. But there is more to the picture than the higher costs of taxes. Often many of the taxes we pay, seem to go nowhere. Not always of course.
