The Real Trouble With the Birth-Control Mandate
Critics are missing the main point. There are good reasons that your car-insurance company doesn’t add $100 to your premium and then cover oil changes.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204136404577210730406555906.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Because I keep coming across articles like this I look at a lot of WSJ articles, but find, generally within the first paragraph or so, that the articles are generally a bunch of namby pamby 1% elitist nonsense that demonstrates so clearly that they are out of touch with what happens in the real world. However, occasionally I find some gems and this is one. As the article states so well (I am resisting the urge to post it in its entirety, so please take a few minutes and read it), the controversy over this birth control mandate is totally missing the point. The problem has been, and will continue to be until this it is resolved, that employers pay for your health insurance. It was a dumb idea done for the typical short-term political expediency at a time of national crisis (WWII if I recall my history correctly) that, like so many other dumb ideas done for political expediency, became cemented into our society (for instance, while I enjoy and take advantage of it, what the hell is the point in offering the mortgage interest deduction as an incentive for people to purchase houses when the target demographic isn’t one that itemizes their damn taxes to begin with? (Other than as a gimme to the rich, of course)). If people got their own insurance instead of this idiotic employer managed crap we have now, in addition to vastly more real competition, people could tailor their policy for their specific needs and if they wanted to pay extra for an ‘oil change’ (as so eloquently put in the article (another attempt to get you to read it)) then they could while the rest of us could get just liability insurance if that was all we wanted. As mentioned…
The taxes and spending we argue about are the tip of the iceberg. Salting mandated health insurance with birth control is exactly the same as a tax—on employers, on Catholics, on gay men and women, on couples trying to have children and on the elderly—to subsidize one form of birth control.
What is the chance that we can get this employer mediated health care eliminated? First the tax benefit would have to be waived, how likely is that? Then the companies that have competed based on the benefits they offer would have to be somehow convinced to take that money (which, btw, gives them a _huge_ competitive advantage over competing start-up, something I discussed here somewhere but can’t find to provide a link) and give it to their employees and hope that they don’t now decide to move on (locking people in with generous benefits being a time-honored way of reducing turnover, doanchano). Then, of course, we still need to convince people to get health insurance, something that isn’t even universal with car insurance where there is a legal (but seldom enforced) requirement to have it.
Right now we have the worst of all possible worlds. Individuals have absolutely no control over what sort of insurance they have (unless they want to jump employers), thus no control over the cost or benefits offered yet we also have government mandates that force us to pay for insurance many of us don’t need. Couple that with the highly anti-competitive nature of the health insurance market (regionally dominated (or even with de-facto monopolies) by very few companies) you have our typical Made in the USA government sponsored extortion of the ‘free’ market to fleece the little guys (how can the GOP believe that they can repeal ‘Obamacare’ when the insurance industry basically wrote the laws themselves and would now stand to lose billions by its repeal? (Of course, they don’t really intend to repeal it, instead talking about doing so is just naked pandering to their ignorant base)).
Of course, since the oligarchy stands to lose profit margins by going this route, you can be 100% sure it will never happen no matter who wins office this fall.
I first heard about this in church on Sunday (catholic). I really wish the separation of church and state went both ways. I don’t want my church in government and I don’t want my goverment/political issues in church.
On Sunday they started their speech about “imagine if all the catholic hospitals in baltimore closed” then went on to say that its about the government requiring their employee health care to cover contraceptives, and if they didn’t they would have to close the hospitals. It straight propaganda and gave very few facts and made crazy claims on why the church must be against this and the consequences if they didn’t comply.
Isn’t there any other country in the world where contraceptives are part of health insurance? I imagine I can find a catholic/christian origination somewhere in the world that has contraceptive care is in their heath care insurance.
If the catholic church believes in pro-life, then say that all employees of the church/hospitals also have the same beliefs. Wouldn’t all of the employees simply not use the coverage? Whats the difference between not offering the coverage and no one using it?
my thought was, If they are so against it, why didn’t they say anything before now?
I cede them the right to refuse – so long as they accept no government (taxpayer) funds (that would be Medicare payments and other things).
That is kind of the crux of the issue, isn’t it? They want taxpayer dollars but don’t want to do anything in return for it. Heck, why not? Wall Street doesn’t have to do anything for their tax dollars.