Regulators spawned by “Obamacare” have mandated that employer-provided medical insurance plans provide contraception as a benefit.
The problem, as currently reported and debated, is that only churches are exempted — church-run or ‑affiliated hospitals, for example, are not. And so Catholic hospitals, along with other religious-based charitable endeavors, must conform, despite their commitment to age-old ideas about the sanctity of life, which they say contraception and abortifacients, especially (some contraceptive methods are de facto abortion-inducing), abridge.
Many conservatives argue that the mandate thus runs afoul of the First Amendment. But it turns out that many Republican politicians have supported similar mandates in several states.
Mike Huckabee signed one such mandate into law in Arkansas.
No big news that GOP politicians are often just as bad as Democrats, of course. But forget, if you can, the First Amendment angle. The mandate runs afoul of something even more fundamental: common sense.
Adding an umpteenth mandate to the list of regulations government places on contracts amongst employers, employees, and insurance companies hardly passes the smell test. The more benefits that government insists you contract for, the higher your insurance rates. The higher the rates, fewer are those who would willingly buy, thus scuttling the whole point of “health care reform.”
We ostensibly want more people to purchase major medical insurance. Not fewer.
It’s possible that some reformers seek precisely that, to put insurance companies out of business, leaving only government to take up the slack, as a “single payer.”
In the case of Republican reformers, however, is there a hidden agenda or just mere foolishness?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Contra Mandated Contraception Coverage”
.… The more “benefits” the government mandates, the higher your cost. The higher the cost, the fewer the customers and thus goes the stated point of “health care reform .…”
Which is of course a lie. “Health-care” reform, so called is about POWER. About the communization of every body’s every bodily function.
But because that’s the lie that must never be owned up to, in this instance the conflict crept in because the otherwise deservedly unemployed little fascists that are coming up with this stuff are employed in gummint ‘cos they’re too darned stupid to have gotten real jobs and have not the slightest idea of how Markets function.
And that the McCain-interference-riding RINO Huckabee Finn, acted in office like the at-core “Democrat” he is?
Well golly gosh, Sarnt Carter, I’ll be darned!
What the hell has Brian been smoking??
Even when Obamacare was passed I was suspicious that it was just a starting point for government run health care. Now as we get to see more and more my suspicions seem to be coming true. Maybe it will take a decade or more in which 1,000’s (millions?) will need to die becasue of the messed up state of health care and then some bright politician will come along and convince the majority that private health care insurance just doesn’t work and the only solution is for the government to provide it. One of the provisions that made no sense to me was the one where they are raising the level at which you can write off health costs on itemized deductions. It is currently 7.5% and will go up to 10% next year. To me that appears to be making it more expensive for people to pay for large health care expenses. The other provision was changes to HSAs (Health Savings Accounts) where they doubled the penalty for using the money for other than health care (twice what it is for early IRA withdrawal) and they decreased the types of items that you can pay for such as over the counter medicines. I have a catastrophic high deductable HSA and have never used it and I have been getting letters about how they have to provide such and such and then I got my bill and my bill went up 12%. I got an HSA becasue I CHOOSE to cover those things myself and now the government is forcing them on me and causing my premiums to go up!! ARRRRGGGGG
Doing it at the state level is constitutional (10th) because we can always vote with our feet and leave. We also get to vote at the state level as to whether or not we want to be subjected to that and to vote out the SOBs that don’t listen and put in new folks that will undo it if we choose. Can’t do that at the national level, which is probably why it was designed to be unconstitutional.
Also if there is a regular required expenditure, then it ain’t “insurance” which is a pooled risk with a payout for a few folks that have losses. Calling it insurance just obfuscates what the government is doing. Adn it’s not medical “insurance” either, since it includes automatic payouts.