On Feb 7, 2012, at 6:09 PM, Francis Drouillard wrote: > Allowing Catholics (and many other religious groups) to practice their > religion is not a "special right." It is a right established in the first > amendment. Forcing them to participate in a practice that is against their > core beliefs is both unnecessary and unconstitutional.
<headdesk> NO ONE IS FORCING THEM TO DO ANYTHING. Under the ACA, ANY employer with (iirc) more than 75 employees may decline to provide health insurance for their employees, which puts those employees into the subsidized state health exchanges provided under the law. The company then will pay a penalty under the ACA for doing so. This penalty is, I believe, $2000 per employee, which is likely to be less than what they are paying for health care now. Economically it's a win.* Now, this may or may not affect the willingness of employees to work for such an employer, but that is the law. Passed by both houses of congress and signed into law by the president, no fucking "tyranny" involved. Your religious freedom does not let you pick and choose what laws to follow. Your religious rights do not extend to your employees (as it's a certainty that not every employee of ones of these organizations is, in fact, a Catholic). And again, your right to a religious conscience exemption to the law STOPS AT THE END OF YOUR NOSE. You do not have the right to impose the consequences of YOUR religious beliefs on others. I think, for instance, that pharmacists who refuse to dispense valid prescriptions for "conscience" reasons should quit serving the public (and ones that continue to do so while withholding valid prescriptions should have their licenses revoked), that city clerks who refuse to issue marriage licenses to people who are legally allowed to marry should be fired. The burden of YOUR religious conscience should ONLY fall on you. *And the ONLY reason the law is so complex and convoluted is because reactionaries in Congress made it so. The SIMPLE solution to the above would be: "Anyone who isn't covered by their employer can buy into Medicare." It's a well-run system (the lowest administrative costs of any for-profit health care plan, and if the Billy Tauzin Naked Corruption amendment hadn't been inserted into the medicare part D bill, would have been able to use it's considerable purchasing power to lower prescription drug costs, as well.) and has the great advantage of already being set up and running. Indeed, the influx of younger, healthier people into the Medicare system would have made it better, since as it stands now, it's only insuring the sickest, most expensive part of the population. Efficient, costs less, works....no WONDER corporate tools like Paul Ryan want to destroy it. -- Bruce Johnson "Wherever you go, there you are" B. Banzai, PhD -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot?hl=en.
