that Hobby Lobby decision...

[Michchamp]

... awful for a number of reasons. If you want to run your business according to your religion... don't incorporate.

the entire opinion + concurrences and dissents is 95 pages long... oy vey.

 

[TheVictors]

I love Hobby Lobby and like to just hang out there sometimes and look at the arts and crafts.

 

[Michchamp]

I love Hobby Lobby and like to just hang out there sometimes and look at the arts and crafts.

that's cool. just don't buy anything. make them spend $$$ to cool you with their air conditioning, and use the john & the water fountain as much as you'd like.

if they ask you to leave, quote that one Bible verse about people making you feel unwelcome.

 

[tazmac]

Why should a company be forced to cover your choice of using a condom or not. It is called personal responsibility. There seems to be a lot of that lacking lately.

 

[Spartanmack]

Why should a company be forced to cover your choice of using a condom or not. It is called personal responsibility. There seems to be a lot of that lacking lately.

because the government knows what's good for you better than you do. People need contraceptives, and if it's a need, they shouldn't have to pay for it.

 

[Michchamp]

because the government knows what's good for you better than you do. People need contraceptives, and if it's a need, they shouldn't have to pay for it.

they do pay for it. they work for a company that provides them with health insurance as part of their compensation.

I believe most health insurance plans cover contraceptives. Apparently Hobby Lobby's ruling family wants their employees to have health insurance that doesn't because they view birth control as a sin. the 13,000 or so serfs in this fiefdom have to obey the master's religious views and behave as he wants them to outside of work. Seems sad and pathetic to me, and out-of-place in the 21st century... but I'm not on the Supreme Court unfortunately.

I don't know how much this decision actually changes anything. The few summaries I've read point out that Alito tailored his opinion only to closely held corporations. Basically, now the corporation itself holds the religious beliefs of its shareholders.

I guess it gives Conservatives something to cheer about while not really affecting the application of the ACA in any meaningful, widespread way. The rhetoric is pretty irksome though, and a step backward in history.

 

[tinselwolverine]

I understand that the case was over the "morning after" pill; and the company didn't object to other forms of contraception being covered.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Employers shouldn't provide healthcare anymore. At all. For anyone.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Employers shouldn't provide healthcare anymore. At all. For anyone.

Why not? What if the employer views it as a means to attract and retain quality employees, and wants to provide it?

 

[Gulo Blue]

Why not? What if the employer views it as a means to attract and retain quality employees, and wants to provide it?

If employers want to attract and retain quality employers, why don't they send food to your house everyday and provide your house and everything else in your life? What's special about healthcare? There's nothing fundamentally bad about a company providing a worker with a benefit, but when it becomes the norm, and it dominates the industry like it did with healthcare, then all the decisions get made between big companies. The actual customers have no voice to drive improvement. Free-market capitalism mechanisms are broken. If companies provided all employees with food everyday, we'd all be eating nothing but McDonalds. There would be few or no better options.

 

[Spartanmack]

they do pay for it. they work for a company that provides them with health insurance as part of their compensation.

I believe most health insurance plans cover contraceptives. Apparently Hobby Lobby's ruling family wants their employees to have health insurance that doesn't because they view birth control as a sin. the 13,000 or so serfs in this fiefdom have to obey the master's religious views and behave as he wants them to outside of work. Seems sad and pathetic to me, and out-of-place in the 21st century... but I'm not on the Supreme Court unfortunately.

I don't know how much this decision actually changes anything. The few summaries I've read point out that Alito tailored his opinion only to closely held corporations. Basically, now the corporation itself holds the religious beliefs of its shareholders.

I guess it gives Conservatives something to cheer about while not really affecting the application of the ACA in any meaningful, widespread way. The rhetoric is pretty irksome though, and a step backward in history.

Those "serfs" are at will employees and they can choose to work somewhere else if they don't like the benefits that a particular employer provides. What is sad and pathetic is that people like you think it's ok for the government to tell companies that they have to buy a product they don't want or need and object to morally. Health insurance is not a right (the SC was so wrong on this one 3 years ago), it's a benefit and if your employer provides it by choice to attract and retain employees, it should be up to them whether or not it covers contraception (which is also not a right or a medical necessity).

 

[Spartanmack]

If employers want to attract and retain quality employers, why don't they send food to your house everyday and provide your house and everything else in your life? What's special about healthcare? There's nothing fundamentally bad about a company providing a worker with a benefit, but when it becomes the norm, and it dominates the industry like it did with healthcare, then all the decisions get made between big companies. The actual customers have no voice to drive improvement. Free-market capitalism mechanisms are broken. If companies provided all employees with food everyday, we'd all be eating nothing but McDonalds. There would be few or no better options.

what's "special" about healthcare is that employers can buy group insurance at rates that individuals/families can't get on their own. Clearly, too much power is in the hands of HMOs but that is more a function of bad regulation winning out over common sense regulation than employer provided health insurance benefits.

 

[tinselwolverine]

If employers want to attract and retain quality employers, why don't they send food to your house everyday and provide your house and everything else in your life? Free-market capitalism mechanisms are broken. If companies provided all employees with food everyday, we'd all be eating nothing but McDonalds. There would be few or no better options.

If the company wants to send me home with McDonald's every day, they should be allowed to. I have the option to take the bag or say. "No thanks I'm going to myself a peanut butter sandwich."

Just like I can reject being provided health care during open enrollment.

What is special about healthcare is, unlike McDonald's, where the unit cost is not going to change very much based on the "enrollment,"unit cost for healthcare is going to be substantially affected by the size of the enrollment.

Whether a person likes it or not, companies choosing to provide healthcare has been a norm for some time; and companies have traditionally elected to do it, again, as a way to attract and retain quality employees.

 

[Michchamp]

Those "serfs" are at will employees and they can choose to work somewhere else if they don't like the benefits that a particular employer provides.

when you describe it this way, you make it sound so easy! Don't like your job? just pack up, move and get another one. not like transaction costs exist or anything... and we haven't had persistently high unemployment and underemployment.

What is sad and pathetic is that people like you think it's ok for the government to tell companies that they have to buy a product they don't want or need and object to morally. Health insurance is not a right (the SC was so wrong on this one 3 years ago), it's a benefit and if your employer provides it by choice to attract and retain employees, it should be up to them whether or not it covers contraception (which is also not a right or a medical necessity).

is that sad and pathetic? I think it's more sad and pathetic that you dump this on "government" and ignore the pervasive influence the healthcare industry and their lobbyists have on said government. like there are some soviet bureaucrats in some building in DC forcing these decrees on business with no input from the industry... if anything it's one industry forcing itself on others.

 

[Gulo Blue]

what's "special" about healthcare is that employers can buy group insurance at rates that individuals/families can't get on their own. Clearly, too much power is in the hands of HMOs but that is more a function of bad regulation winning out over common sense regulation than employer provided health insurance benefits.

So what? That doesn't set healthcare apart. Employers could buy food at bulk rates too...or houses.

 

[Gulo Blue]

If the company wants to send me home with McDonald's every day, they should be allowed to. I have the option to take the bag or say. "No thanks I'm going to myself a peanut butter sandwich."

Just like I can reject being provided health care during open enrollment.

What is special about healthcare is, unlike McDonald's, where the unit cost is not going to change very much based on the "enrollment,"unit cost for healthcare is going to be substantially affected by the size of the enrollment.

Whether a person likes it or not, companies choosing to provide healthcare has been a norm for some time; and companies have traditionally elected to do it, again, as a way to attract and retain quality employees.

Yeah, brown bagging would get more expensive, just like getting your own healthcare plan costs more. If companies didn't provided everyone with insurance and everyone had to get their own plan, individual plans would be cheaper.

I get that it's the norm and everyone is used to it and it's a hopeless topic to pick on, but it's one of those things we all just accept that I think we're very wrong about. And I don't think it was elected to retain workers, I think it was pushed from the government so that employers would have a stake in the health of their employees. Not a bad idea at the time, but things have changed. You impact your health more by the things you do yourself than the things your company does now.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Yeah, brown bagging would get more expensive, just like getting your own healthcare plan costs more. If companies didn't provided everyone with insurance and everyone had to get their own plan, individual plans would be cheaper.

Well, the ACA is supposed to provide some cost remedy for people who don't have access to employer provided health insurance, so we'll all see how it works out.

 

[Spartanmack]

when you describe it this way, you make it sound so easy! Don't like your job? just pack up, move and get another one. not like transaction costs exist or anything... and we haven't had persistently high unemployment and underemployment.

That is just dumb. There isn't a single market HL operates in that they dominate so much so that their employees effectively have no choice. Even in OK City where they are headquartered they're only the 8th largest employer. Even if what you imply (that people who work at HL have no alternatives) is true, that doesn't justify forcing HL or any other company to buy a product they don't need or want. If people want to use contraception, they can do what responsible adults do - buy it.

 

[Michchamp]

That is just dumb. There isn't a single market HL operates in that they dominate so much so that their employees effectively have no choice. Even in OK City where they are headquartered they're only the 8th largest employer. Even if what you imply (that people who work at HL have no alternatives) is true, that doesn't justify forcing HL or any other company to buy a product they don't need or want. If people want to use contraception, they can do what responsible adults do - buy it.

So should at will employees have any rights with respect to their employers? Or should they just quit and go find another job whenever their employer decides it doesn't want to follow some legal obligation it has with respect to workplace laws?

but whatever... I called them serfs and I know you can't really argue in support of the actual result in this case without sounded foolish, so you have to pick at other points.

 

[Spartanmack]

So what? That doesn't set healthcare apart. Employers could buy food at bulk rates too...or houses.

houses are totally different. They are not a commodity product and would be much harder to gain any advantage - first, most sellers only have one house for sale so buyers don't have leverage to get the bulk discount. And people don't necessarily want to live in corporate communities where they see the same people they work with every day so buying whole developments from builders would not provide much perceived value to most employees - maybe they would value discounted realtor fees if an employer could negotiate a deal to steer employees to a particular firm but people don't trade in and out of houses very frequently - I think the average home buyer stays for 10 years so there probably wouldn't be much of a perceived benefit there.

As for food and other lower cost commodities, people prefer choice and will pay a premium for it, whereas with higher ticket items and more complex products like health insurance, they clearly prefer group discounts and are willing to give up some amount of choice for it.