Barbara Boxer: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom

[juliee]

Barbara Boxer: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom

Barbara Boxer, the leading pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate, made some comments in a recent MSNBC interview that are sparking outrage across the Internet today. Boxer essentially says the right to insurance trumps religious rights and freedoms.

lifenews.com/2012/02/15/barbara-boxer-right-to-insurance-trumps-religious-freedom

 

[Publisher]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin.

 

[Tbrightson]

Typical brain-dead politician…

I can see a right to practice ones religion in the Constitution, but where in the Constitution does it say we have a right to health insrance?

 

[revert_jen]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin.

Do please understand that the Catholic bishops are not trying to limit the rights of people to have insurance. Nor are Catholics trying to limit the freedoms of non-Catholic employers to provide whatever insurance they like.

However, if you really believe that your right to both work for a Catholic employer and also to have that employer carry insurance that pays for you to voluntarily sterilize yourself, is more important than the employer’s religious freedom, then I guess there’s nothing anyone can say to that except, “I strongly disagree.”

There is no “right” to comprehensive health insurance, which covers voluntary procedures not designed to treat or prevent any illness or disease.

In any case, apart from the content of the health insurance plans, I am extremely uneasy of any law which allows the federal government to decide what private companies must sell. It is a slippery slope, with much room for future corruption.

–Jen

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin.

But you have no rights which can force us to give you the insurance you desire, especially if we think it is morally wrong.

You are, of course, free to try to get it irrespective of whether or not we think it wrong (unless you desire something so wrong that it it justifies being made illegal), but we don’t have to help you.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin./QUOTE
NONSENSE!!! What you and ms Boxer fail to understand is that this issue has nothing to do with a so-called “right” to have health insurance. It is about forcing a religion and its adherants into paying for services within that insurance that the religion considers immoral.
As for rights, show us where in the US Constitution does it say or imply you have a right for free contraception or abortions, or even for free health insurance!
This assault on Catholic beliefs is the same as if the US Government were to require Quakers to not only do military service, but required them to go into combat or face prison terms.
As for ms. Boxer, I only hope the Catholic voters in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia remember her next election day!

 

[sedonaman]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin.

Hold on. We are talking about Catholic institutions, here, not the every employer in the country. Why should we pay for your free sex? If you want what the Catholic employer won’t offer, stand by your convictions and find a different employer. As far as legal rights are concerned:

The United States Constitution provides for specified individual rights. However, it does not require that we pay, other than through constitutionally authorized taxes or borrowed funds, for others to exercise even those specified rights.

“The U.S. Constitution, Contraception, and Abortion”

 

[promethius]

Barbara Boxer: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom

Barbara Boxer, the leading pro-abortion member of the U.S. Senate, made some comments in a recent MSNBC interview that are sparking outrage across the Internet today. Boxer essentially says the right to insurance trumps religious rights and freedoms.

lifenews.com/2012/02/15/barbara-boxer-right-to-insurance-trumps-religious-freedom

I am completely unaware of any document whatsoever that declares and proves that there exists a right to insurance… it’s probably filed somewhere with the right to high speed rail and the right to high speed internet…

 

[sedonaman]

I am completely unaware of any document whatsoever that declares and proves that there exists a right to insurance… it’s probably filed somewhere with the right to high speed rail and the right to high speed internet…

Along with the right to happiness. :yup:

 

[garn9173]

I’d like to see were at in the Constitution it states this. Scary times we are living in.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

I’d like to see were at in the Constitution it states this. Scary times we are living in.

Take a look at the Supreme Court decision Employment Division v. Smith. When it comes to how the Supreme Court has interpreted the “free exercise clause” we are not in good shape. Our only hope for relief from the mandate is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which only binds the feds but not the states.

 

[garn9173]

Take a look at the Supreme Court decision Employment Division v. Smith. When it comes to how the Supreme Court has interpreted the “free exercise clause” we are not in good shape. Our only hope for relief from the mandate is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which only binds the feds but not the states.

Yet at the same time Father, we have the unanimous decision from The Supreme Court that came out a couple of weeks ago with the Hosanna-Tabor ruling.

inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12689/supreme_court_affirms_religious_exception_allowing_discrimination_retaliati/

 

[St_Francis]

Take a look at the Supreme Court decision Employment Division v. Smith. When it comes to how the Supreme Court has interpreted the “free exercise clause” we are not in good shape. Our only hope for relief from the mandate is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which only binds the feds but not the states.

There is a difference between requiring mething and forbidding something. The people involved in the case above were using peyote for religious purposes and working as counselors for people who wanted to quit using drugs.

This is a very different issue from requiring someone whose religious beliefs say not to do it to do it. The Catholic Church has always taught that artifical birth control and abortion are wrong. Under the US Constitution (that document that the President and his supporters in the Senate and House swore to uphold), they cannot do this.

In the same way that Quakers, Amish, and others can claim a religious exemption from fighting in war, so can Catholics claim an exemption from this mandate.

 

[St_Francis]

What I find interesting, in a sick sort of way, is how the supporters of the mandate are twisting this to be about artificial birth control–ignoring the voluntary sterilizations (expensive) and abortifacients (which more people are against than thise against abc), and about the insurance in general–as if the bishops were trying to do away with insurance altogether.

All that aside from ignoring the HHS mandate problem’s being one of the actual right of freedom of religion as guaranteed in the Constitution as opposed to the so-called right to health insurance, which is found nowhere.

 

[jilly4ski]

There is no right to insurance, to be paid for buy someone else. We of course can’t stop people from buying it. However, companies are not obliged (before Obamacare) to provide or pay for health insurance. It is a nice perk companies use to attract and keep high quality employees. But if this was a right, then all employee based health insurance would have to be the same. But some companies pay a little, some pay none, some pay a lot. Some plans cover a lot, some a little. Some are high deductible/low premium plans, and some are low deductible/high premium plans. Some cover dental, and some cover eye care, and some do not.

How is it that companies can offer plans with no dental, but now they can no longer offer plans without elective procedures/medication. It is like saying that all dental plans must carry orthodontic coverage.

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Yet at the same time Father, we have the unanimous decision from The Supreme Court that came out a couple of weeks ago with the Hosanna-Tabor ruling.

inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12689/supreme_court_affirms_religious_exception_allowing_discrimination_retaliati/

Yes but that ruling failed under the “ministerial exception” clause to employment discrimination. The scope of the decision was extremely limited in that the court declared that the government was interfering in the internal operations of choosing ministers. Laws that govern generally applicable external conduct are not generally considered exempt from the 1st Amendment by the court.
There’s always the possibility the court could revisit some of its former decisions…

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

There is a difference between requiring mething and forbidding something. The people involved in the case above were using peyote for religious purposes and working as counselors for people who wanted to quit using drugs.

The use of peyote was considered sacramental in their religion. The court ruled that even though they used it for purely valid religious reasons, the conduct was still able to be constitutionally banned.

This is a very different issue from requiring someone whose religious beliefs say not to do it to do it. The Catholic Church has always taught that artifical birth control and abortion are wrong. Under the US Constitution (that document that the President and his supporters in the Senate and House swore to uphold), they cannot do this.

The court declared: “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.”

As for activity one’s religion forbids, the decision stated: “an Amish employer, on behalf of himself and his employees, sought exemption from collection and payment of Social Security taxes on the ground that the Amish faith prohibited participation in governmental support programs. We rejected the claim that an exemption was constitutionally required.”

Obamacare would have to be found unconstitutional for the Mandate to be unconstitutional. However, there is possible hope under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. But that’s a statutory issue, not a constitutional one.

In the same way that Quakers, Amish, and others can claim a religious exemption from fighting in war, so can Catholics claim an exemption from this mandate.

AFAIK, that is only by Congressionall law not constitutional right. The one time the supreme court addressed it, it decided 8-1 that Congress did not act unconstitutionally by limiting conscientious objector status to those people who objected to all wars and excluded those opposed to particular wars. It would seem weird that the constitution only protects those who religiously object all wars but not those who only religiously oppose a current war. So it would seem to me that its merely a legislative right and not a constitutional one.

 

[Brendan]

I agree with her in the respect of your religious beliefs do not get to decide if I can be insured or not…your religious beliefs do not trump my rights to have health insurance…insurance that may according to your beliefs provide a benefit your religious beliefs forbid you to take advantage of but mine does not…nor the majority of the people seeking insurance.

Your rights end where mine begin.

And nothing the Church is proposing will prevent you, nor anyone else, from purchasing such insurance.

But your desire to have that insurance paid for by someone else cannot include forcing them to do so against their religious beliefs.

Your ‘rights’ stop when they try and compel someone to act against their religion.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I’d be interested in learning whether the newly discovered “right” to insurance includes the right to purchase health insurance plans across state lines, which would reduce an individual’s purchase costs through market factors, but which has been steadfastly opposed by this administration.

 

[St_Francis]

I’d be interested in learning whether the newly discovered “right” to insurance includes the right to purchase health insurance plans across state lines, which would reduce an individual’s purchase costs through market factors, but which has been steadfastly opposed by this administration.

Don’t wish too hard. If we could buy insurance across states, it would fall under the Interstate Commerce Clause. As it stands, the fact that insurance is not sold across state lines may factor into PACA’s Constitutionality, or lack thereof.