idiggory the Fussy wrote:
This really isn't a hard concept.
No. It's not.
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Employers aren't required to pay for anything they don't want to pay for.
Correct. This is the default condition barring a law stating otherwise. Cause, you know... freedom!
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They ARE required to pay for things they don't want to pay for if they decide to have employees. Like wages, and benefits, etc.
Incorrect. Until the passage of the ACA, only wages were required (minimum wage laws). Participation in things like payroll taxes, unemployment funds, etc were in there as well (but I'm assuming we can broadly lump that in with "wages"). But benefits were just that: Benefits. There were some regulations regarding "if you provide health care, you must include an HMO option", but at no point was anything remotely resembling the kinds of mandates that are in the ACA present.
What is so strange about this is that the whole point of the ACA is that it mandates both that employers must provided health insurance to their employees *and* it mandates what that insurance must provide. It's the cornerstone of the whole law. Yet, for some bizarre reason, it's like pulling teeth to get people to acknowledge that this is "new". Prior to this law, we did not require that employers provide any health care at all, and certainly didn't mandate what that health insurance had to cover. So it's not a given that employers must provide health benefits. That's the "new thing" that we're addressing, and the whole point of the case.
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That's it. That's the entire point. You think some aspect of being an employer in our society violates your religious beliefs? Don't be an employer.
Wrong. Prior to the ACA, an employer was not required by law to provide contraceptives to their employees. Now they are. Surely you can see how this puts employers with a religious prohibition against contraceptive use in a bit of a bind.
And no, the correct answer is
don't pass laws which mandate that employers must do things that violate their religious beliefs. Placing the onus on "being an employer" is wrong. Because by doing so you're basically creating a law which bars a whole set of religious people from having the right to run a business with any employees. Surely you can see how this might just be a bit of an infringement on religious freedom, right?
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You don't get to use your religious beliefs to pick and choose which legal protections you do and don't want to follow. If you're going to employ workers, you owe them at least minimum wage, safe working conditions, etc. If you're going to employ full time workers, you owe them benefits as well.
Benefits? No. You don't. They're called benefits for a reason. Why do you think this? It's arbitrary? Why not all workers? Why just full time? You're inventing requirements based on the law you're defending, not arguing for why the law should be that way in the first place.
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At literally NO point are you forced to pay out for anything you don't want to pay out for.
Huh? Of course you are. What do you think we're talking about?
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Once again, a very basic point completely eludes the conservative right - you're confusing religious persecution with not getting everything you want.
Seriously? I'm sure there's a huge gap between "getting everything I want" and "being forced to do something I don't want to". This law falls heavily into the latter category. I don't think it's unreasonable for the employer to decide what benefits, if any, he wishes to provide to his employees. And I'll point out again that it's frankly ridiculous that we even have to defend this right on some kind of religious grounds. It should be a right that all people have just because it's their property and the government shouldn't be able to force them to spend it in ways they don't want to. But now that the court has foolishly ruled otherwise, it's opened a Pandora's box of problems as a result. This is just one of a ton of different cases coming their way as a result.
Edited, Mar 25th 2014 5:47pm by gbaji