Today in Supreme Court History: June 30, 2014

6/30/2014: Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores is decided.

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

The ACA requires me to offer a health care plan to my employees, but I can now exclude emergency rooms visits. Because I'm a Christian Scientist. So you're out $5000 (a large part of your salary) because you have to pay for it yourself.

I can also exclude blood transfusions. Because my wife's a Jehovah's Witness. So you're out $6400 (a large part of your salary) because you have to pay for it yourself.

Yes, your kid lived after that unfortunate auto accident, but you're out of house and home due to the medical bill.

[Libertymike]

Third party health insurance schemes suck. Of course, the worst of all of them is the state being the third party.

[Krychek_2]

Disagree. Europe spends less of its GNP on medical care and insures everyone. (If I recall correctly, Germany spends 10% of its GNP on health care with 100% of the population being insured, as opposed to the US spending 16% with lots of gaps.) Plus, with the state as the single payer, issues like employer conscience go away.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, issues like conscience go away, which sounds really good until it's your conscience that's being violated. Like, forcing pro-lifers to pay for abortions. Or forcing alphabet soup people to pay for conversion therapy.

[bernard11]

Conversion therapy? Are you nuts?

[Brett Bellmore]

Abortion? Are you nuts?

[Krychek_2]

Abortion and conversion therapy is not an apples to apples comparison. Conversion therapy is quackery that makes promises it can't keep; abortion, on the other hand, does exactly what it claims to do and you merely don't like the result.

[Brett Bellmore]

Conversion therapy at least involves adults who can make their own choices, while abortion kills the innocent, who are given no choices. I see no reason why transgender treatments should be paid for, and conversion therapy not.

[Krychek_2]

Pyramid schemes and other rackets also involve consenting adults and there's a reason they're illegal.

If conversion therapy actually worked you might have a point, but it's basically a fraud, just like any other fraud. Spend a few minutes actually thinking through how hard it would be for you to change your sexual orientation, and you'll see what I mean. The issue with conversion therapy isn't that liberals don't like the results; it's that it's quackery.

And yes, I'm aware that your religious beliefs are that fetuses are persons. You're entitled to your religious beliefs.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and if transgender surgery actually changed your sex, rather than being a grotesque form of surgical mutilation, you might have a point.

Which therapy which doesn't actually work should be funded, and which banned, is very much a political issue, but only so long as the government is involved.

Put health care back in the private sector, and it returns to being a private decision.

[Krychek_2]

The actual medical profession disagrees with you.

[Brett Bellmore]

Psychiatry is the most politicized branch of the medical profession, by far.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Abortion and conversion therapy is not an apples to apples comparison. "

Nobody dies from conversion therapy so you are right.

[Krychek_2]

No person dies from abortion either, your religious views to the contrary notwithstanding.

[Bob from Ohio]

A human being is being aborted, your science denial notwithstanding.

[Krychek_2]

I'll go with the science.

[Krychek_2]

The nature of taxation is that everybody ends up paying for something they disapprove of. I object that my tax dollars go to pay interest on government bonds held by the Chinese government; I have zero interest in enriching Beijing. For that matter, there are people whose religion teaches that paying taxes at all is sinful. Unfortunately, part of living in as large a community as the United States means that we can't accommodate everybody's conscience all the time.

But at least you wouldn't be directly paying for it, which would be an improvement.

[apedad]

K-2 - Brett knows this.

He's just being his usual whiny bitch.

[Brett Bellmore]

Some people figure evils are things that should be minimized, other people think, "My faction is in control now, time to stick it to them."

[Krychek_2]

And some of us recognize that the nature of democracy is that nobody wins all the time. If this happens to be an issue on which your side has lost, well, that's the way it is.

[Dilan Esper]

There's a big difference between (1) not funding something yourself that you feel is evil, and (2) seeking an exemption from participating in a government program that does something you feel is evil.

And even if (2) should sometime happen, it should happen only when someone has demonstrated sincere fealty to a belief system that participation in the program is evil.

[Brett Bellmore]

The obvious answer is that not everything needs to be done through government.

In fact, as little as possible should be done through government, to minimize the evil of forcing people to pay for activities they find reprehensible.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Individualism can simulate collectivism by contracts, except for the coercive joining bit, but that shouldn't be a problem is socialism is as efficient and just as its proponents claim. But collectivism cannot even tolerate individualism, let alone simulate it.

[Krychek_2]

Nobody is claiming that *everything* needs to be done through government. But if national health care is more efficient than what we have now -- and it is -- then we can't accommodate everybody's conscience. Sorry.

[Brett Bellmore]

But, are you sorry about it? Not enough to avoid doing it.

I've noticed some people don't consider any victory complete until the opposition can be forced to accept that they don't get to make their own moral judgements, that they WILL be made complicit in what they regard as evil.

Will be forced to bake the cake, pay for the abortion.

And, by the way, I don't believe for a second that government funded health care in America would be more efficient than private sector health care could be if the government let go the strangle hold it has already achieved. Not just because most of the current inefficiency is the government's own doing.

Because our government is particularly dysfunctional and inefficient, and giving it more scope for that dysfunction won't cure it.

[Brett Bellmore]

I mean, what else is the government doing efficiently here in America, that gives you the impression they wouldn't screw up anything else they got their hands on?

[Krychek_2]

Inefficiency is a function of size; any large organization is going to have inefficiencies, and if you think the HMOs are efficient, I've got a bridge for sale.

Unless you are a total anarchist, anything government does is going to offend somebody. If you're seriously advocating for a society in which nobody is ever made to do something they object to, well, you'll find that society in some parallel universe somewhere with a pink sky.

[Krychek_2]

And the idea that the government screws up everything it touches is a right wing urban legend.

[Artifex]

But if national health care is more efficient than what we have now — and it is —

No, it is really not, but if you actually believe this is true you have options. Get together with a bunch of like minded true believers. Self fund and implement. If it really works, and your health care is better, I might even willingly opt in. My bets are it most certainly isn't better. It's sort of telling that no one does this.

In general, things that need to be implemented at the point of a gun are not in your best interest.

[Krychek_2]

Artifex, there are some things that only work (or at least only work well) if everybody participates. The problem with me and my friends getting together is that even if we pull it off for ourselves, what do people with pre-existing conditions do?

[Artifex]

... there are some things that only work if everybody participates.

Maybe, and in this case doubtful. Perhaps a true public good would fit the bill, but in no way is medical care a public good. As a note, here I use public good as the economics term not as its progressive redefinition.

what do people with pre-existing conditions do?

You do the ethical thing and fund them based on your own moral concerns. Whether or not your resources are used for charity is your ethical decision which I do not make for you.

[Krychek_2]

"You do the ethical thing and fund them based on your own moral concerns. Whether or not your resources are used for charity is your ethical decision which I do not make for you."

No, I do the ethical thing and elect legislators that will tax you to pay for it. We are not barbarians. We do not allow people to die because they can't get necessary medical care.

[Artifex]

No, I do the ethical thing and elect legislators that will tax you to pay for it.

Yes, you will ethically point a gun at another man's head and ethically steal his stuff so that you can ethically unload your moral obligation onto another man's shoulders. How ethical.

We are not barbarians.

"I" am not a barbarian and would help my fellow man. You, I am not so sure about. Pointing a gun and threatening others doesn't quite have the same altruistic feel.

[Brett Bellmore]

"No, I do the ethical thing and elect legislators that will tax you to pay for it."

You and I have a radically different idea of what's ethical, that much is obvious.

[David Nieporent]

No, I do the ethical thing and elect legislators that will tax you to pay for it. We are not barbarians. We do not allow people to die because they can’t get necessary medical care.

"I want. You have. I take." sounds pretty barbaric to me.

[Krychek_2]

And if that were the analysis in its entirety I would agree with you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What counts is shaping American progress.

And reason.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Your figures are as reliable as comparing crime statistics. There are so many things which go into health care, money-wise, quality-wise, quantity-wise, time-wise, and every which way wise, that they can't be compared like you imply.

[Bob from Ohio]

As Somin might say, foot voting says our health care is superior.

Plenty of people from Canada and Europe come here for care, few from here go there.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Simplistic analysis is attractive to simple people.

The current American health care system is great if don't care much about whether plenty of people are treated like dirt.

Much like 1980s Texas was great if you were rich, White, and didn't give a damn about anyone else.

I expect America to continue to improve against the wishes of those who think like Bob from Ohio.

[Currentsitguy]

My problem is that religiously derived convictions are given greater weight than those arrived at by other means. I happen to be an atheist. That shouldn't mean my moral convictions aren't as deeply held as those derived from a pulpit or book.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Limitless special privilege for claimed superstition is a recent and likely short-lived affectation in America.

[Brett Bellmore]

Our government gives religiously derived convictions great weight, because they are one of the few things that can motivate people to get into an actual fight with the government, one of the few areas where a significant number of people will, confronted with the government saying, "do this or else!" will pick the or else.

And our government, unlike some, isn't up for imposing the "or else" on a large enough scale to win that fight.

I'm somewhat bemused at the notion that atheism isn't a religious belief, by the way. Agnostics might have some claim to that, atheists are as irrational as theists in their claiming certainty.

[Currentsitguy]

Not a capital "A" atheist so I am hesitant to get into a debate on dogmatic issues but I will say an absence of belief in the wake of no demonstrable scientific evidence is not the same as a belief grounded in pure faith. I simply don't believe in a supernatural being in the same way I don't believe in Santa Claus. Its just something that my world view has no room for.

That being said I still have some deeply held values and convictions. I just have arrived at them by different means.

[Artifex]

an absence of belief in the wake of no demonstrable scientific evidence is not the same as a belief grounded in pure faith

There is not anything particularly wrong with this quote. As an Agnostic, I would say exactly the same thing. The trouble for you atheists starts with the mental slight of hand that jumps from the absence of belief to the positive belief that no supernatural beings exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I can envision many, many possibilities in which they exist and I cannot detect them or devise an experiment to find them. Atheists are just the less creative and sillier Agnostics. There is plenty of room in Kurt Gödel's gray spaces.