White House Resists Religious Pressure In Finalizing Birth Control Mandate

Bo Bright I dunno...you argue that the free exercise clause doesn't exist, then accuse others of being dumb.

If you're going to attempt to engage in conversation, I suggest you use your barain for something besides keeping your hair follicles warm at night.

edjoe3 "Full Monti(ni) - very nicely done sir!

zubutine My thoughts exactly....

zubutine Exactly, tax them all.

zubutine Unsurprisingly, I disagree for all sorts of reasons.

A church's tax exempt status is based upon the separation of Chruch and State. If you allow the state to impose taxes upona Church, you compromise the independence of that Church, which inevitably compromises its free exercise (for a similar reason, I oppose overnmet funding of Chruch run initiatives - he who pays thepiper gets to call thetune)

Educating its adherents in the real world implications of its beliefs is an essential function of a Church. If you attempt to interfere with that, you come very close to asserting the state's authority to approve or disapprove doctrine.

Finally, would you have been comfortable with a segregationist repealing tax exempt status from religious organizations that supported the Civil Rights movement? Would you have been okay if the Nixon administration had sought to repeal tax exempt status for churches that apposed teh vietnam war?

@Dave45 There is no controvery, someone else's religious dogma does not trump my healthcare

nowarino IT'S SPAM

jonwisbynowarinoIt's not SPAM. My point is that many generic medications (including some birth control pills) now cost less than what most people pay when they use their insurance and pay a copay.

Using your insurance to buy medications CAN result in your overpaying!!

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw4gM966fMQ&fea...

Dave45jonwisbynowarino Of course, everything that goes through insurance companies is massively overpriced, because insurance companies introduce massive waste into the system, whereas Costco is a large buyer with leverage to get good pricing. Want to be even more efficient? Don't prohibit the government from negotiating discounts for Medicare, etc.? :-)

Laird PopkinjonwisbynowarinoDo you really believe that Walgreens and the other major pharmacy chains are too small to get the prices Costgo gets? They ALL buy these meds for $1-$10 for 100 pills. Your copay is MASSIVE profit for them.

nowarinoDave45There is no controversy? You don't think it's controversial for health insurance companies to use a copay system that deliberately overcharges people for their medications?

People pay hundreds of dollars a year for prescription drug coverage and then use that coverage to pay MORE for their pills. Most generic perscription drugs are almost as cheap as generic aspirin but a $10 monthly copay for them adds up to $120 a year for many meds that can be bought for $20-$40 a year WITHOUT coverage.

Many people have $15-$20 copays wich is more than the $44 (for 3 months) example I gave above. Health insurance companies are robbing you TWICE this way!!

Dave45 DELETE SPAMMER

Dave45

Hey Dave...

Here's the prescription price specific to Costco for a single (1) unit Qvar 80mcg inhaler.

Find me a retail pharmacy outlet that sells a Qvar 80mcg inhaler for less than $50.00 per unit and I'll kiss your asteroid-orifice on YouTube.

That $50 price is what I currently co-pay through my HMO pharmacy. Try and beat it.

Oh and uh... Currently our total yearly premium for the two of us is $8500... And we've been members for 28 years.

Now run along and blow your smoke up someone else's asteroid-orifice.

~Red~

Dave45

Sorry Dave... Here's the link:

http://www.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&a...

~Red~

Red River RoverIf you read the next section: http://truecostofhealthcare.org/medications_ii

I'm very specific about which medications are still expensive and why. There are currently no inexpensive inhalers because, when they stopped using CFCs as propellants, the pharmaceutical companies got to extend all of their patents. No pharmacy can sell drugs for less than they pay for them.

My point is that about 80% of the medications that I prescribe every day can be purchased for less if you don't use insurance (asthma is an exception). The problem is we've become so accustomed to using our insurance for everything in healthcare, no one looks at the actual price of anything anymore. Think about it; Would you use your car insurance to fill your gas tank or change the oil?

Red River Rover

Furthermore, because we've allowed the insurance companies take take total control of ALL financial transactions, they also have complete control of the message. If we don't know what anything costs in this business, how will we ever control these costs?

We are constantly being quoted inflated unrealistic prices for everything in healthcare to scare us into paying enormous premiums. Currently, OUR health insurance (for a family of four with NO medical problems), is almost three times the price of all of our other insurance premiums COMBINED. And for what?

Dave45

So ... Dave ...

I guess from your long-winded response, I can safely assume I need not be kissing your asteroid-orifice on YouTube.

~Red~

Red River Rover

You pay $8500 dollars a year to get a $65 a month discount on your inhaler. Are you sure that your getting a good deal? And do you really think the pharmaceutical companies would get away with their prices if more people bought their meds directly? BTW: I have no interest in kissing you but did you at least take some time to read my long winded response?

Red River RoverSince you were nice enough to give me your link to the price of your inhaler, I thought I'd give you these links to the prices of 2 commonly prescribed blood pressure meds and a commonly prescribed cholesterol med. Take note of two things:

1. The enormous difference between the price of brand name and generic meds

2. How much would your copay be if you used your insuance to buy them?

http://www.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&a...

http://www.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&a...

http://www.costco.com/Pharmacy/DrugInfo.aspx?p=1&a...

I know these aren't the meds you're on but, do you think this info might be useful to someone?

Chesire I don't see where you're getting that from. The mandate does not force religious employers to give birth control to their employees. It just states that employers must offer plans that cover birth control. There is a difference.

Cyberduckie I agree that the mandate does not require the employers to give emplyees birth control. It does, however, require them to subsidize birth control through either employer provided group health insurance plans or by subsidizing plans that do offer birth control through things like the Massachusetts Health Connector.

The problem is that churches are being required, to aid and abet actions that violate the tenets of their faith. They are being placed in a position of obeying either their faith and violating the law or of obeying a law which renders them morally complicit in what their religion beleives to be a morally illicit act.

Chesire I don't believe that to be true. If the only thing being covered was birth control, then yes, you'd be right. But it's not.

I'd like to point out that most insurance plans freely and willingly cover Viagra and other medications for erectile dysfunction. These religious institutions don't appear to have a problem subsidizing a man's ability to have sex - and let's be clear, there are no provisions attached to these medications requiring that only married men use it and only with there wives.

Cyberduckie Again, I may be misreading the mandate (I am hardly an expert on the subject), but the fact that other services in addition to birth control are covered by the health insurance plans only clouds, but does not mitigate the problem.

Prescription coverage for Viagra, the use of which is not considered inherently morally illicit, is not opposed by religious institutions for the simple fact that it does not require them to facilitate acts which they beleive to be inherently morally illicit. Birth control coverage, on the other hand, does require complicity in acts they beleive to be intrinsiclly morally illicit in all circumstances.

Chesire Sex out of wedlock or extramarital sex is not intrinsically morally illicit? Again, there are no instructions that say Viagra may only be used by married men and only with there wives. There are also no instructions provided with birth control that indicates it can only be used to prevent pregnancy. Birth control is used for any number of reasons, several of which are listed lower on this thread. I think your reasoning is fuzzy - you can't say a specific medication should not be covered simply because it could be used in a "morally illicit" way and not expand that argument to include another medication that could be used in a "morally illicit" way.

Btw, if these particular employers do not have tax-exempt status, then they have no right using religious beliefs as an excuse not to follow the law.

Cyberduckie The difference is that, according to certain religious belief systems, Viagra may be used licitly or illicitly, whereas birth control is viewed as inescapably illicit.

Incidentally, I agree that religious exemptions should only be available to religious organizations that have tax exempt status as a function of their religiousity (if they are tax exempt only because they are a non-profit, that should not count).

Chesire Cyberduckie Birth control pills have been commonly prescribed to mitigate menstrual pain for at least 30 years. My cousin, a lesbian in a 15-year committed relationship, takes birth control pills for that reason.

And just this week, a big study *finally* validated using the pill this way:

http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/20/birth-contro...

The article mentions that the economic effect of menstrual-related absenteeism is estimated at about $2 billion annually.

ChesireCyberduckie Sure. And I have to pay for military actions that I disapprove of. That's what you get for being a part of a larger community - you don't get veto power over everything.

ChesireCyberduckie Why is it if you work in a Catholic school, your health insurance covers prosthetic penile pump implants, Viagra, vasectomies and male sexual dysfunction therapy... but not prescription birth control pills for women.

That says all you need to know.

CyberduckieChesire The difference in the view on Viagrand birth control again shows the straight up sexism of the Catholic hierarchy and other religious conservatives. Double pun intended.

Basil Forthrightly So are you meaning to suggest taht teh free exercise claquse applies only to religious doctrines with which the state agrees?

Laird PopkinCyberduckie You are absolutely correct, you do not get veto power over every government policy with which you disagree...you DO however, have a first amendment right to the free exercise of your religious faith. This is a right in both the positive sense of protecting you from being prohibited from practicing your faith or coerced into committing acts that are contrary to your faith - just as the state cannot prohibit spech, neither can it compel speach.

At its heart, this is not an issue of religious organizations imposing their religious beliefs on others, but of secular interests imposing their beleif upon churches.

tinskCyberduckie I would be surprised if the coverage included vasectomies. The reason it would cover the other treatments/therapies/medications is because they do not inherently violate Catholic doctrine. In any case, Catholic Universities generally operate independently of the hierarchy, which has only limited power to require obedience to the Magisterium.

edjoe3Cyberduckie Go read Humanae Vitae and at least a good summary of JPII's Theology of the Body, then come back and discuss, otherwise, you are quite simply too uninformed to comment on the underlying reasons for the Church'sdoctrine.

In any case, are you sure you want to go down the road of allowing the state the authority to override the First Amendment rights whenever it disgrees with how they are being exercised? Not much of a protection if it doesn't protect the things with which state disagrees.

ChesireCyberduckie I believe the larger problem here is pretending that the employer is "paying" for the birth control of their employees. While the check may come from the "employer," the health insurance/healthcare is payment to the employee for services rendered as result of their employ. Not only that my guess is a young woman of child bearing age who is on birth control is estimated to cost the employer less not more. Healthy young people are often welcome in health insurance pools.

If the insurance covers routine preventative measures it shouldn't exclude women's reproductive health. The real problem is that most of us expend huge dollars on "health insurance" for which we receive no health care or benefit. My health plan immediately disallow any drug that I have ever been prescribed.

This is about providing actual health benefits for which the employee works and is paid by receiving health insurance. But often health insurance is billed as "healthcare," which very frequently it has no relationship to healthcare.

ChesireLaird PopkinCyberduckie who are imposing their beliefs upon the women in their employ who are being paid through a benefit called health insurance . . .

Nope, this is ABSOLUTELY about religions imposing their views on their employees.

Chesire There's already been a movement afoot allowing pharmacists a "right of religious belief" in not prescribing medications whose use is contrary to their religious beliefs. As if medicine were about the doctor or pharmacist and not the patient.

Jim PasterczykChesire The movement is not even to not allow pharmacists to dispense medicines they don't want to.

These extremists actually want to allow pharmacists to not dispense the medicines, not find someone else who will, not refer the patient to another pharmacy - but to basically tell someone "I don't care about your rights."

If your religion or your personal beliefs don't square with your chosen profession - chose another one. If you hate the sight of blood don't become a surgeon and then demand the right to leave people at the operating table if you have a problem with it. If you don't condone drinking alcohol, don't work at a liquor store.

Or at least if you're going to do it find someone else who will so a woman who is raped isn't forced to go through an unwanted pregnancy because there are no other nearby pharmacies and you don't feel like dispensing her legally prescribed plan b pill.

RealWorldProgressiveJim PasterczykChesire Exactly. Policemen don't get to decide whether they personally approve of the laws, they have to enforce them all. Firemen don't get to let buildings they don't like burn down. Doctors have to treat patients that they don't like. And pharmacists have to dispense medication to all of their customers, not just the ones they morally approve of.

Jim Pasterczyk I have to admit to a certain ambivalence regarding the conscience protection rights for pharmacists. If a person has religious objection to some aspect of a particular job, they have the right seek employment in some other field to which they have no religious objection. It is another thing altogetehr for the state to require a religious institution to choose between violating the law or its own doctrines.

@Chesire

You fail to understand, as long as the right insists on employer based healthcare these things will come up. PPACA will get us to a national health plan because the control certain employers wish to assert.

nowarinoChesire I completely agree with you on this. Emploer based healthcare coverage is an absurdity that perverts the distribution of health services and imposes a massive de facto "tax" burden upon employers, stiffling ecoomic growth. It is time for national health care.

Chesire All do respect, because I enjoy reading your posts, but what you might be overlooking is the implication that "religious employers" don't use birth control. I know, for example, no Catholics who adhere to that restriction mandated by the Pope. "Religious employees" use birth control, religious zealots use birth control, religious leaders use birth control. It seems a monumental case of hypocrisy to then deny that access to everyone else based on "tenets of their religion."