The Contraceptive Debate - A Simple Solution

Easy to say, but society itself is crafted such that its benefits are channeled through certain mechanisms. So "looking to yourself" only serves when you have the means (read: affluence). In the absence of such means, you are essentially limited by society's structural limitations: There is no escaping those limitations. Some of the hardest working people I know still don't have affordable access to what some of the least hard working people I know regularly enjoy. This disconnect is structural, and so it needs to be remedied as a structural malady.

Violating the Constitution to mandate what employers cover is not part of the solution. Personal responsibility IS the solution.

Violating the Constitution to mandate what employers cover is not part of the solution.

Basic regulation of what is required in insurance plans doesn't come close to violating the constitution. Also doesn't violate the 1st amendment since it does make exception for religious institutions themselves, while their business arms are required to operate along the same lines as everyone else, something already constitutionally validated with discrimination law. Neither does an individual mandate if it's based on tax penalties since the 16th amendment is wide open on how the congress can apply an income tax.

Denying reality, Ringo, doesn't obviate reality.

Personal accountability is great stuff - don't get me wrong - but it works both ways: Everyone must be responsible, and that includes the responsibility of service providers to provide service responsibly; employers to provide working environments, conditions, and arrangements responsibly; and markets to provide access to goods and services responsibly; all not only in one's own personal self-interest, but also fairly, equitably, justly, and conscientiously in society's overall best interest.

I think the entire insurance system should be A-La-Carte.

Basic regulation of what is required in insurance plans doesn't come close to violating the constitution.

Then feel free to cite the part of the Constitution where that authority was granted to Congress. So far, nobody has actually been able to do that.

[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes

The commerce clause specifically gives Congress the right to regulate commerce.

Specifically interstate commerce. So technically, federal mandates cannot affect insurance companies that have offices only in one state, have no out-of-state affiliates or partners or service providers outside of the state the insurance company is based, outsource no appreciable operations out-of-state, cover no expenses incurred out-of-state, and serve no subscribers who live out-of-state.

The commerce clause specifically gives Congress the right to regulate commerce.

Two important bits there.....First: among the states, not within the companies and Second: regulate, which just so happens to NOT mean mandate

Let me know when you come up with anything actually giving Congress the authority to create a law like the subject of this discussion.

Sorry Ringo but your interpretation of the Commerce Clause is wrong. I know you want your narrow, arguably myopic interpretation to prevail, but it doesn't. People have been trotting out your tired old bit of nonsense for at least a hundred and twenty years, without success. It's a bit like saying the sky is red - you can say it a dozen times, but that's still not the color of the sky.

Sorry Ringo but your interpretation of the Commerce Clause is wrong.

You should actually read it sometime. I only read what it says instead of trying to magically invoke some secret meaning. You may like the meaning you create, but that doesn't change the fact that it isn't real.

I not only read it, but I read a hundred years of commentary on it.

You're wrong, Ringo - get over it. You don't get to place your personal preferences over the will of the nation as expressed by judge after judge for many times longer than you've been alive.

You're wrong. You don't get to place your personal preference over the basis of American law. The Constitution is that basis, and you lose your disagreement with it.

No, Ringo, I'm correct. Anyone can peruse the court cases and know that. Your intransigence about this just shows that you're not really interested in discussing the issue, but just repeating your preference as if it were fact, in a cynical attempt to try to deceive casual readers into your erroneous perspective. Well, you've been called out and will continue to be called out as long as you continue to try to do so.

Anyone with a decent handle on the English language and a willingness to devote ten minutes to actually reading the Constitution can see through your false claims.

Constitution > WaltDIS

And yet you continue Ringo, asserting your "handle" on the English language superior to that of generations of Supreme Court justices. Ridiculous. "False claims" - you're projecting Ringo. The only false claims here are yours.

The only false claims here are yours.

You're the one trying to argue with the Constitution, not me.

I'm not arguing with the Constitution; I'm arguing for the Constitution and the proper understanding of what is requires, uncorrupted by your faulty perspective.

I'm not arguing with the Constitution

You're arguing against what the Constitution says and in favor of something it doesn't.

uncorrupted by your faulty perspective.

Yet more of your lame, baseless claims about faulty perspective.....and yet you're utterly unable to come up with anything faulty about it.

No I'm arguing in accord with what the Constitution says, in favor of what it actually means, and against what you claim it means.

If your perspective wasn't faulty, then the laws as they're implemented would agree with your perspective, instead of running diametrically counter to it. Face it: You're wrong. I'm not going to provide you a convenient way to save face, this time. Just live with it.

You're arguing against what the Constitution actually says in favor of your own revision. That's why you've never been able to come up with anything from the Constitution to support your claim.

I'm sorry that you'd rather play pretend than discuss the real Constitution.

No, I'm arguing for what the Constitution says, in favor of the way practically all reasonable people understand what it says.

Your continued refusal to acknowledge that we've already "come up with" the portions of the Constitution that support what we're talking about is nothing but self-serving nonsense. Cover your eyes and ears to the truth, if you wish, but that doesn't obviate the fact that you've been served the underpinnings of the law as I've outlined it for you.

I'm sorry that you're continuing to insist that your own personal preference is the "real Constitution".

No, I'm arguing for what the Constitution says

You're arguing that the Constitution says something that A) I've already demonstrated it does not and B) you've never been able to support.

Your fantasy does not determine reality.

You're arguing that the Constitution says something that A) I've already demonstrated it does not and B) you've never been able to support.

You haven't demonstrated anything of the sort. You've made claims about the Constitution says, and folks have provided many references all over this thread showing that you're wrong about that. You're just unwilling to admit that you don't get to determine what the Constitution says; the Constitution itself says very clearly who gets to determine that, but you're unwilling to admit that either.

I only point out the fact that the Constitution doesn't say what you claim. That you STILL haven't come up with anything in the Constitution to support your claim is quite telling.

Of course, it isn't surprising that it works out that way when you try to fit fact to your desire instead of the other way around.

Repeating your misinformation doesn't make it any less false.

What isn't surprising that the way things actually work is consistent with how I've described the reality, and contrary to how you've tried to.

Repeating your misinformation doesn't make it any less false.

And yet you keep doing it and doing it.

And you have STILL never been able to come up with anything to support your claim.

I'm repeating the truth, because you keep denying it.

I've supported my claim as have others. Yet you keep denying it.

I've supported my claim as have others.

No, you haven't. You've claimed to have supported your claims, but you've never gotten around to actually DOING it.

You have still never cited this mysterious part of the Constitution that you keep claiming exists but is never found in the official text.

Why do you keep saying that? Of course I have. Now you're just being silly.

Why do you keep saying that?

Because it is the truth.

Of course I have.

Oh look, more of WaltDIS claiming to have done it, but never actually doing it.

I'm getting bored with your intransigence. I'll let others take you to task for this...

And you've been provided with numerous explanations from numerous experts explaining exactly why they feel that the law we are dicussing falls within Congress's Constitutional authority. You haven't attempted to refute any of those explanations in any substantive way, you've just relied on the wholly juvenile response of "nuh uh".

I get it - you don't think it's Constitutional.... and you're not willing to make even the slightest attempt to actually explain why :-)

So, we'll just keep adding to the river.....

http://jumpshotjarrod.newsvine.com/_news/2012/02/08/10351392-christianity-the-true-entitlement-mentality-in-the-united-states?last=1328968213&threadId=3340826&sp=0&pc=25#c62404577

I'll let others

Fail to ever back up their claim exactly like you? Go for it. They do say that misery loves company, so maybe you can all be happy.

Indeed, and beyond that, there is no requirement that a church "own" its own workforce. If the requirements place on employers become burdensome, for whatever reason, there are services that take your employees and essentially sub-contract them back to you. This approach is often used to avoid the cost of ensuing compliance with myriad regulatory submissions and such; there is no reason why a church couldn't use that approach to avoid having to offer any employee any benefit that they don't wish to. They simply have their staff work for the other company, and then the church sub-contracts to that other company, like many already sub-contract special cleaning services.

Of course, the real alternative to all this is government subsidization of contraception, available on demand from clinics and other sources of health care accessible to the poor. Would the Catholic Church support a measure where their hands can stay "clean" from their perspective? Of course not, because it isn't about staying clear of paying for contraception coverage - it's about the church demanding to control others in society.

Opting into the service defeats the whole purpose of the insurance in the first place. It would place the entire cost of buying the contraceptive on the woman, which is what this was trying to avoid. It's just not sensible. The only people who would opt into this are the people who want contraceptives themselves resulting in each individual paying virtually the same thing they would out of pocket. The employer isn't even picking up their normal share of this part of the insurance, so it truly is completely out of the woman's pocket. It's ridiculous. I agree with Grisham above. This is a non-issue. Actual religious positions are still covered my the ministerial exemption, so its only an issue in the public sphere, where everyone should be playing by the same secular laws, case closed.

I'm sorry, but I think the cost of this is so negibible that it's ridiculous to get caught up in it....

The critics are very careful not to bring up cost, because not only is it negligible, but it is as likely as not that more affordable access to birth control pills will reduce the substantially higher costs from unwanted pregnancies. I think I remember reading that a lifetime's worth of birth control pills costs less than one unwanted pregnancy.

I still say that you who want this mandate should be careful. One day, a mandate is going to come down that you won't like and the precedent will have been set.

I think you think that because you are looking at this mandate as a random mandate, when it is anything but. The mandate is nothing more than a manner of implementation. This doesn't establish a precedent for random mandates. It establishes a precedent for mandates that serve the very important societal purpose that this mandate supports.

No it wouldn't. We already tried eliminating alcohol and discovered that it was worse for society than taxing it heavily. The same is surely true of cigarettes, and no doubt would be true for fatty foods as well.

Walt, this is a purely hypothetical discussion concerning regulating "what is good for society".

So, because it's hard, or because it wasn't really enforced, then we shouldn't do it, even if we'd be better off with out it? If you check crime statistics, the elimination of alcohol alone would reduce crime by a significant percentage.

it cannot force you to perform physical actions.

I'd argue that taking rewards from my labor and giving it to a cause is just that.

Walt, this is a purely hypothetical discussion concerning regulating "what is good for society".

No it isn't. This is a discussion of the actual regulation of an actual thing, using analogies to other things to inform the discussion how effective various approaches would be.

So, because it's hard, or because it wasn't really enforced, then we shouldn't do it, even if we'd be better off with out it?

The assertion that prohibition was repealed because it was "hard" or because it was not really enforced is ridiculous.

If you check crime statistics, the elimination of alcohol alone would reduce crime by a significant percentage.

"Elimination" of alcohol isn't an option, any more than "elimination" of contraception or elimination of abortion is an option. So you're engaging in intellectual dishonesty to measure impact in that matter. There are many things that we work very "hard" at confronting in this society, with vigorous enforcement efforts, that still don't "eliminate" the scourge. We're humans, not Gods. Our option is to make something illegal, that's all.

Please try to keep it real.

it cannot force you to perform physical actions.

I'd argue that taking rewards from my labor and giving it to a cause is just that.

But you'd be wrong. It's not a physical action you're being forced to do. It is a financial action. I think you need to do a lot more research to come to understand what the constitutional protections against slavery provide for and what they don't.

(Beyond that, it isn't even something you're actually the one doing unless you're self-employed.)

The assertion that prohibition was repealed because it was "hard" or because it was not really enforced is ridiculous.

Check out the movie on Prohibition Movie on PBS.

So you're engaging in intellectual dishonesty to measure impact in that matter

I think you're the one who's being dishonest. You seem to want to mandate what you like and not mandate what you don't. I'm simply looking at it as though you apply the same concept to other issues impacting society.

It's not a physical action you're being forced to do

you say tomato, I say tomahto

I think you're the one who's being dishonest. You seem to want to mandate what you like and not mandate what you don't.

Then you're not paying attention to what I'm writing, and simply responding with whatever you can think up to try to have something to say in rebuttal. I was very explicit outlining the factual and legal bases for what can be mandated and what cannot be.

you say tomato, I say tomahto

The difference is that your perception of this issue isn't supported by anything other than your issue's own rhetoric, while my perception of this issue is supported by basic principles, and by legal precedent.

I'm paying perfect attention, you are phrasing your answers in a box.

I'm taking about a type of slavery where people are a slave of the state, not a person owned by another, but where a person's value is diminished, forcefully, to satisfy the needs of the state, or that a person is forced to perform some task that is at conflict with a personal freedom.

I'm paying perfect attention, you are phrasing your answers in a box.

I'm making sure that I don't post falsehoods. Correct. I'm making sure that my comments are accurate without having to back-pedal with conditionalizing them later. Correct. I respect my readers enough to give them a full and comprehensive understanding of my position up-front, rather than being vague or cagey. Where I generalize, it is because only the generalized comment is defensible.

I'm taking about a type of slavery where people are a slave of the state

Calling what you are referring to as slavery is intellectual dishonesty. It is calling something by a completely different word, that makes what you're referring to sound wrong when it isn't.

the word SLAVE has multiple meanings, not just one.

slave

 /sleɪv/ Show Spelled [sleyv] Show IPA noun, verb, slaved, slav·ing.
noun
1. a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.

2. a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.

3. a drudge: a house keeping slave.

4. a slave ant.
5 Photography . a subsidiary flash lamp actuated through its photoelectric cell when the principal flash lamp is discharged.

the word SLAVE has multiple meanings, not just one.

But it would almost surely be interpreted one way by most people reading your use of it in this thread, and that's the grounding for my objection to your use of it.

That is why I kept saying that if you are under force of the government, it is dominating your actions, so you can be seen as a slave. I have seen some articles and arguments by some, on both sides depending on the topic, claiming to be slaves of a government policy.