Holy crap. It's like this guy took a reply I made on Facebook the other day and wrote a full piece up on it. I swear, if not for the fact that this stuff should be common sense, I'd say I could sue him for plagiarizing my Facebook feed.
Why we should care about the Hobby Lobby result
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Finger_Shocker
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You right -wingers can't have it both way, complain about leeches who use FREE gov't services and then bitch when a certain service are provide to WORKING employed individuals.
mrsilkunderwear
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Last time I checked, contraception did not lower costs or at least the studies were inconclusive.
Let me rephrase.. these people are not as careful as they should be when practicing safe sex. They might not have the proper education, resources or just reckless. Do you disagree?
In the end it is a matter of rights and wants. Demanding pills from another party is not a right.
sweeetja713
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Getting a wart removed is an office visit and a copay typically $10-20 depending on your plan. My vasectomy was 100 out of pocket. It's an outpatient procedure. As far as not needing the morning after pill accidentally. Well you've obviously never had a condom break or get pulled off during sex. I'm sure my girlfriend at the time would have much rather gone to a pharmacy instead of planned parenthood.
Agreed
Also if a company will cover a vasectomy, I don't know if Hobby Lobby does, they should be required to provide female birth control.
Also if they cover viagra. Cause really, you'll give a man wood but won't help prevent his spawn? But I can't make the cover all birth control argument there. That's just my view.
Syntax Error
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You must not have looked very hard or recently.
Estimates that calculate the potential cost-savings associated with contraceptive coverage suggest that contraceptive coverage saves employers money. According to both the Washington Business Group on Health and William M. Mercer (a human resources and employee benefits consulting firm), providing contraceptive coverage would reduce employers' direct and indirect costs associated with unintended pregnancy. These direct costs include health care expenditures associated with normal live births (vaginal and cesarean), abortions, miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies; indirect expenses include wages and benefits associated with employee absences, maternity leave, and pregnancy-related sick leave, as well as costs associated with reduced productivity during an employee's pregnancy and with replacing employees who do not return to work after a pregnancy. As a result, not covering contraceptives in employee health plans would cost employers 15-17% more than providing such coverage.
Well, we're just making up hypothetical people now so I guess they acted however we want to imagine they acted to suit our argument.
Do you also think insurance shouldn't cover falling off a ladder, dropping a chainsaw on your foot, getting into a car accident, tripping down a flight of stairs, getting shocked while working on wiring, putting your shovel into a wasp nest while gardening or eating a peanut butter brownie with an allergy? All of those people, I know we can agree, were not as careful as they should have been. Even reckless, perhaps.
Ah, the appeal to "rights". The last refuge of a political argument that has no logical basis. Both sides of this debate are about statutory, not Constitutional, rights. The rights provided by the RFRA and the rights provided by the ACA. This case wasn't decided because the ACA violated the First Amendment, it was decided that it violated the RFRA. Contraceptive coverage wasn't a "want", it was a statutory right provided to the public by the ACA.
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mrsilkunderwear
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Ruh Oh
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/cloudy-contraception-costs/
Oh you means teens and minorities do not get pregnant?
You have just described a proper insurance plan and not some health plan. Congrats.
I am having problems processing your last comment. You poke fun at rights and then you talk about contraceptive coverage being a right? You are correct about the the ruling being in regards to RFRA but it seems you forget that statutory law cannot be inconsistent with the supreme law of the land. We are talking about the supreme court after all, of course these things would be taken into account.
All in all, seems to me your right turned out to be a want after all.
Syntax Error
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So you'd agree that this contraceptive should be covered under any proper insurance plan. Awesome.
No, I'm poking fun at you for running to the "rights!" argument as thought that was some supreme writ. Both arguments rested on statutory rights. The Supreme Court didn't rule on it based on the "supreme rule of the land", they ruled that the ACA provision was in conflict with the statutory rights provided in the RFRA.
This does not mean that expecting coverage guaranteed by the ACA is just a "want". It means that the provision in the ACA was in error in its application to certain companies. For example, you still have a statutory right to the exact same contraceptive when insured through a publicly held company.
Edit: Removed an extraneous personal remark that adds nothing to the conversation. Mea cupla.
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You don't understand. He is saying that the situations you provided would be covered by an actual insurance plan (think catastrophic insurance).
sweeetja713
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Those are all clearly covered under a health insurance plan though. I really don't understand.
mrsilkunderwear
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Not really. I think this contraceptive could be covered under some plans as long as the employer agrees to pay for it. This employer should not be the government.
Right because Hobby Lobby is a private company and not a public one. If they had a case in regards to some large corporation I would expect them to rule the same way. Nonetheless the statutory rights are like the extension of the constitution. They would not vote in favor of one outcome or another if it violates a constitutional amendment.
Catastrophic insurance is not the same as what people think about now with health insurance. It is only for a catastrophic event that would essentially bankrupt you. This is actually more in line with home owner's insurance. If your house burns down or is damaged, you get money. If your house needs a new coat of paint, you don't contact your insurance company.
In reality, a person's healthcare like so many other things in life is his/her own personal responsibility. Health insurance as we have it today in the US is part of the reason for the ridiculous pricing in the medical field. The 3rd party payer messes up the supply and demand portion of healthcare since people don't look at how much procedures or medicines cost total, just how much the individual pays (premiums, deductible, and copay). They need to abolish the current system totally instead of just passing the ACA. The system is still broken. Like so many things in life, personal responsibility would help matters immensely. It would not solve all of the problems, but it is definitely part of the solution to most social problems.
RPGNinja
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You shouldn't care at all because Hobby Lobby is already providing SIXTEEN other types of birth control measures.
It is so funny how the liberals always leave this out.
And you want to talk about the real war on women? Why do Democrats run around acting like women are all sluts and whores who can't fend for themselves and they are helpless?
Besides the repeated fact that Hobby Lobby is already providing birth control they could just go out and buy it themselves.
It is so funny how the liberals always leave this out.
And you want to talk about the real war on women? Why do Democrats run around acting like women are all sluts and whores who can't fend for themselves and they are helpless?
Besides the repeated fact that Hobby Lobby is already providing birth control they could just go out and buy it themselves.
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sweeetja713
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I get they would be covered under other insurance policies as well but if I didn't have those policies my health insurance would still cover the situations put forth even though they are the result of an accident. Even better I don't have to file a claim with my other insurance if I had it thus not raising rates.
Again I've had safe sex with a condom, had an accident and had to go with my girlfriend for Plan B. Believe it or not sex accidents happen too and should be covered like any other accident leading to a health related issue.
People typically have a health savings account in addition to catastrophic health insurance, not 2 health insurance plans. This HSA would be used in the case of your plan B above as $20 would not come close to meeting the high deductible of a catastrophic plan.
I believe your premise is that the current system of typical health insurance is good or at least better than having only the catastrophic type of health insurance I mention. Please correct me if I am wrong. If I am not, I would like to know why you think it is better for insurance to pay for every health need? You can see my post above about why I disagree with this.
sweeetja713
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Not my intention at all to imply one was superior to the other. I genuinely didn't understand what catastrophic insurance would be for if ya had health, homeowners, auto, etc. unless you were just the really cautious sort. That clears up the whys of having it for me.
That's veering a little off topic though, given that all of those accidental situations are covered by a health plan, whether or not you have catastrophic, I fail to see why they were brought up to make a point about things that aren't covered. If the point was safe sex 100% prevents all accidents, I call bull as stated in previous posts. An accident from a faulty helmet should always be covered under health insurance, regardless of nature of said helmet.
You typically wouldn't have both catastrophic health insurance and another regular health insurance plan, just the catastrophic plan which has a really high deductible and an HSA. You use the HSA for medical bills up to the deductible which you are unlikely to meet in a single year. Essentially, no accident would be covered under the catastrophic plan so long as you did not meet the deductible. In which case a morning after pill would not even scratch the surface.
I understand your argument about a health plan covering accidents. That is certainly one way to look at it. If you were paying the bill for it, I think you should be able purchase the plan you want and indeed you are even in spite of this recent ruling. If you are not paying for it, who should chose? The Supreme Court believes (at least in this small area) that the employer does still have a few rights of choice. If you do not like an employer's health plan, you are free to find other employment.
I don't personally believe that employers or citizens should be mandated by the government to provide or have health insurance. However the majority of The Supreme Court disagreed with me on that one.
mrsilkunderwear
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I am starting to see too much common sense lately. Something is not right.
Why would anyone accept catastrophic insurance as the only insurance that is proper.
I tend to like this model because it makes the individual responsible for paying for much of their own healthcare. This encourages the person receiving the service to judge if it is worth the money spent or not. If your doctor says that you need an MRI and it costs $1000 at one place and $400 at another, you can pick the one you want to get. As it is now, the individual doesn't care since the insurance company is typically paying for it - and usually paying a price that is well in excess of what the same company would charge a person without insurance who pays with cash. In my book individual responsibility is a great thing.
mrsilkunderwear
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It is interesting you use the term model. Is there a country currently using your proposed system or comes close?
sweeetja713
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Agreed with a lot but took exception to this. I live in an area that's even doing fairly well economically with expansion regularly occurring but I have been in that sort of entry level situations desperately searching to go anywhere else before. Clinging to a job with crappy benefits because at least it pays rent. The health plan was a joke under that as was them calling me part time but consistently working me fulltime hours. If I were to complain though, my hours would have gotten cut. I rather liked a roof over my head and food to eat. Theoretically we are free to do a lot. Practicality is often another matter however.
Why do you think no country has adopted your ideas?
Have you ever read Kenneth Arrow's work on health care economics?
Likewise, no country has a system similar to the one created by the "Affordable Care Act"... but it was important that we pass *that* bill...
I will have to respectfully disagree with you. I have also had a job that I frankly did not like, because of the work conditions and hours (I did not use the medical benefits provided). I did what it sounds like you did, I found a different job. It did take me several months, but (per the topic of this thread) I am sure you could make do with other covered contraceptive devices until you found a different job, or pay for the morning after pill once or twice. Your argument seems to be that you are entitled to the healthcare you want because you have a job and that the employer should pay for exactly what you want. I disagree. I think that you are entitled to the wages you earn and the benefits you agree to when you are hired. However, I do not agree with employers working people full time and not giving them the full time benefits though.
1. The elected officials are too worried more about getting re-elected than helping the country in the long term. As a result, they only tell people what they want to hear instead of telling them the hard truth? Your question is an appeal to common practice which is a fallacy as pointed out by Uncle Bob's remark above.
2. Yes, I have read some of his work and in one of his papers he spends the first few pages talking about how to get a welfare model to be as good as the "ideal competitive model" (a quote from his paper in December 1963 "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care"). It seems that both he and I believe that a competitive model is actually a good model.
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Don't you think telling someone they can make do while looking for a new job is a little patronizing?
1) There is a lot more to it than that. I am astonished a person who can point to say a half dozen different models in operation for lifetimes is being accused of logical fallacies compared to a half formed thought exercise made of wishful thinking.
2) For some reason I don't think you read much. You talk about people comparison shopping for complex surgeries and don't even scratch the issues of asymmetrical information. Also, do you even pretend your "model" will have any protections for people with pre existing conditions?
1) There is a lot more to it than that. I am astonished a person who can point to say a half dozen different models in operation for lifetimes is being accused of logical fallacies compared to a half formed thought exercise made of wishful thinking.
2) For some reason I don't think you read much. You talk about people comparison shopping for complex surgeries and don't even scratch the issues of asymmetrical information. Also, do you even pretend your "model" will have any protections for people with pre existing conditions?
Patronizing or not, is it true? Is the only solution to this problem for the job in question to give him exactly what he wants? He noted that he was in this circumstance, as was I, and I believe that we both made do for a while. My intent was to convey a point, not be patronizing. In addition arguing that a point is patronizing is not the same as arguing that it is incorrect.
Did you or did you not intend to say that the catastrophic model for healthcare is bogus because no country has it as their exclusive model? If that was your intent, and I think it was, then it is indeed a logical fallacy.
So, does he indicate that the competitive model is ideal or not? It is probably better to just make your point instead of saying, "have you read an author's work". That way, I can't use the author's work to argue my own point.
No, I talked about them comparison shopping for MRIs not surgery. I understand that you can't always comparison shop for healthcare, so I did not use surgery as my example as many of these are emergency procedures. In addition, it is likely that a complex surgery would be covered as it would exceed the deductible, so why would I use this as an example?
As to asymmetrical information, I don't know of any healthcare system that will fix that problem. Is there something in the ACA that helps with this?
You are free to disagree with me about a point that I attempted to make in regard to the fact that a third party payer gets in the way of the normal supply and demand system and pricing. However, I made no indication that I either agree or disagree with protection for people with pre existing conditions, so why do you bring this up?
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I don't think it is true and I never saw a good reason why the employees have burden of proof.
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Perhaps you should better define competitive model, does your so called model cover people with pre existing conditions. Also if you aren't taking surgeries into account you probably need to work on your definition of catastrophic also.
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Perhaps you should better define competitive model, does your so called model cover people with pre existing conditions. Also if you aren't taking surgeries into account you probably need to work on your definition of catastrophic also.
sweeetja713
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The point is that it can and did in my case take a year or more. I am grateful that decent healthcare is finally available to those that were in my situation, even if the specifics aren't how I would have done it. However, since it's done we need to include protections. What's next a privately owned mormon company not covering blood transfusions?
Let's not even get into the logical issue of plan b basically being a highly concentrated dose of hormones you already get in regular birth control.
sweeetja713
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No one is saying they won't work. I am saying it's really shitty to have a job, even one that pays an dollar more than minimum wage but has horrible health care. Particulrly if you have pre existing. Medication I take for a gentic condition reaches over 400 a month without a health plan. Going without it for two years led to a cascading deteration and a host of nice complications. I had no health care, no one was offering. Its not a matter of not working unless you get it. It's about working and having no option to get the health care.
We can't even have a proper discussion on this topic when people don't understand the difference between "Health Care" and "Health Insurance".
Health care is when a doctor or other medical professonal reviews your situation (check-up, tests, etc.), develops a plan for treatment (drugs, a medical procedue, etc.) and executes this plan (perscriptions, surgery, etc.). Most employers do not offer Health Care.
Health insurance is when a third party gets between you and your doctor and charges you for the pleasure. This is what employers offer and what the government is pushing for.
I can't blame folks for not knowing the difference - hell, our government named the damn bill "Care" when it's mostly about "Insurance".
Health care is when a doctor or other medical professonal reviews your situation (check-up, tests, etc.), develops a plan for treatment (drugs, a medical procedue, etc.) and executes this plan (perscriptions, surgery, etc.). Most employers do not offer Health Care.
Health insurance is when a third party gets between you and your doctor and charges you for the pleasure. This is what employers offer and what the government is pushing for.
I can't blame folks for not knowing the difference - hell, our government named the damn bill "Care" when it's mostly about "Insurance".
sweeetja713
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Fine I'm on mobile right now but feel free to add plan after health care in the second sentence. The point stands. Paying for health care without a decent health insurance plan (which are often called health care plans in their own literature), is damned near impossible, and prior to the current, albeit screwed up system you were pretty much SOL with a large number of employers and looking for other employment is great in theory but its a long wait with uncovered stuff in the meantime.
That's the big problem though - Health Care is too expensive - so why add another layer (Health Insurance) onto the costs?
RPGNinja
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Nothing will ever trump the misnomer of "Affordable" Care Act.
K, so now we're finally back into a territory I feel better educated on. The cost of procedures is outrageous, and not surprisingly, inflated thanks to government intervention. Anecdotal, but one of my closest friends used to work for a major clinic in town, and I was venting on the topic. He said that the Clinic and anyone who accepts Medicare/caid cannot charge a customer less, than they charge the government. He said that the result is his Clinic had to quit taking on more Care/Caid patients, because the government payouts suck, they will frequently just refuse to pay with no recourse, and the payment terms and delays make it really hard to be profitable (which even the so-called non-profits are).
So you have government saying "you can't charge less than you charge us, even though we're a big pain in the ass", then you've got patients saying "costs are too high, government help me" and the whole thing ends up looking like, quoting Full Metal Jacket here, "Two retards fu*****g".
On the prescription side, we all know how patents and government protection have caused medicine to be over-inflated compared to our next door neighbors Canada and Mexico.
So the ACA is a nice thought, it wants to insure more people, saying that if they do premiums will go down, but since so many "affordable" plans these days are 70/30 or 80/20 after a decent deductible, people will still go into financial ruin paying 20% of an outrageous amount. If the Feds wanted to do something useful, they set a ceiling on pricing, not a floor, and they limit the percent a premium can go up annually. If that runs insurance companies out of business, nothing would make me happier. I'd go single payer system, but it would mean that we could revert to an era where you could truly pay cash for procedures, without being financially beholden the rest of your life.
Lobbyists will never allow this to happen.
So ta-da! Some folks pound their chests about lower premiums thanks to Obamacare. Others say "I lost ma plannnn. I wanted crappier insurance!", and others truly have gripes thanks to the inept system, and glitches, incompetence and stupidity. But we're never going to get to an AFFORDABLE health care model until medical school costs are lower, procedure costs are lower, and the politicians get the hell out of the way. Everyone wants as much money as possible, so it's multiple parties with divergent goals from the consumer.
So you have government saying "you can't charge less than you charge us, even though we're a big pain in the ass", then you've got patients saying "costs are too high, government help me" and the whole thing ends up looking like, quoting Full Metal Jacket here, "Two retards fu*****g".
On the prescription side, we all know how patents and government protection have caused medicine to be over-inflated compared to our next door neighbors Canada and Mexico.
So the ACA is a nice thought, it wants to insure more people, saying that if they do premiums will go down, but since so many "affordable" plans these days are 70/30 or 80/20 after a decent deductible, people will still go into financial ruin paying 20% of an outrageous amount. If the Feds wanted to do something useful, they set a ceiling on pricing, not a floor, and they limit the percent a premium can go up annually. If that runs insurance companies out of business, nothing would make me happier. I'd go single payer system, but it would mean that we could revert to an era where you could truly pay cash for procedures, without being financially beholden the rest of your life.
Lobbyists will never allow this to happen.
So ta-da! Some folks pound their chests about lower premiums thanks to Obamacare. Others say "I lost ma plannnn. I wanted crappier insurance!", and others truly have gripes thanks to the inept system, and glitches, incompetence and stupidity. But we're never going to get to an AFFORDABLE health care model until medical school costs are lower, procedure costs are lower, and the politicians get the hell out of the way. Everyone wants as much money as possible, so it's multiple parties with divergent goals from the consumer.
RPGNinja
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OBAMACARE was a bill of goods sold to the American people that was an outright lie from the beginning. Premiums were never going to go down and they had evidence all along it wasn't going to go down and they still pushed through with it anyway. Not to mention he repeatedly lied about keeping your current healthcare and even the most diehard liberals like Bill Maher admitted that was a huge blunder and he was stubborn for not admitting he was wrong right away.
Government does enough damage already they don't need to get involved in this. BUT OH NO WHAT ABOUT THOSE BIG BAD PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES? If that was the alternative I would still take it over the government but the thing was those companies were in bed with the politicians anyway so Obamacare is that even more multiplied. It is certainly not perfect at the moment and needs reform but this isn't the road to take and there is a reason people come from all over the world to get the Medical care here instead of their own country.
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I feel like he's slidecage with average writing skills and grammar.
sweeetja713
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That's a whole nother barrel of worms. I am in no way saying our current system is the best or even all that good. It's not. It's marginally better than what we had before though. The reality is the only thing that would get passed is something that would pump profits into some sector with too much money to spend on lobbyists. That said until some major political reform comes in along with major campaign reform thats the way a lot of our laws get passed and will continue to. Lining the pockets of those that pay for the campaigns and if it happens to help some of us, well that's a bonus because it's easier to sell come election time.
mrsilkunderwear
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Can you explain how the current system under ACA is better then what we had before? For example my insurance went up about 20-30% and yet coverage mostly stayed the same.
sweeetja713
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For you, then obviously I can't. My premiums didn't go up. I had several friends get coverage that had none before. For them it's better. For peopke who were in a similiar situation to the one I was in years ago, it's better.
In my household, our premiums skyrocketed when the ACA was first deemed Constitutional, then the Cover Oregon debacle (which is still FUBAR'd BTW, so much so that Oregon gave up and handed it off to the Feds) that my wife finally signed up under, actually had her premiums go down slightly. The lack of pre-existing conditions and coverage caps was long overdue and beneficial.
mrsilkunderwear
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bread's done