Barbara Boxer: Right to Insurance Trumps Religious Freedom

[JimG]

No one is advocating taking away anyone’s insurance. People have had health insurance for decades.

All we’re objecting to is mandating that an employer provide insurance of a morally reprehensible kind, when other kinds are available and the employer is already providing them. Do not force employers by goverment mandate to violate their religion.

Contraception is widely available. Insurance which covers contraception is widely available. What’s going to become unavailable is health insurance acceptable to Catholic employers. It’s a violation of religious freedom to require them to abandon their religion to comply with a government mandate.

 

[Tbrightson]

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.

Exactly…And if you recall the Amish were also excused from participating in Social Security. But they had to go to the SC to get that ruling. AFAIK, that ruling still stands…

On edit…I think I may have the Amish case wrong…U.S. v. Lee, 102 S. Ct. 1051 (1982)
Kinda confused…I always thought this the Amish won, but as I read the case…Im confused…

Also on this sentence:

“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.”

Key word is prohibiting conduct. The govt is not prohibiting conduct; it is forcing engagement in commerce that religious people find morally objectionable.

More SC decisions:

“Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their parents’ fundamental right to freedom”

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

Exactly…And if you recall the Amish were also excused from participating in Social Security. But they had to go to the SC to get that ruling. AFAIK, that ruling still stands…

On edit…I think I may have the Amish case wrong…U.S. v. Lee, 102 S. Ct. 1051 (1982)
Kinda confused…I always thought this the Amish won, but as I read the case…Im confused…

Amish exclusion from the Social Security program is something granted by Congress and not the constitution. Congressional law was worded in such a way that only self-employed Amish were exempt. However in the case you cited, the Court ruled that if the Amish employ someone they must withhold his social security tax and if they are employed by another their paycheck will have social security withheld. The Court ruled the Congressional law was narrow and they upheld it. There was no justification under the 1st Amendment.

“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.”

Key word is prohibiting conduct. The govt is not prohibiting conduct; it is forcing engagement in commerce that religious people find morally objectionable.

Yes, that one sentence would appear to read that way. But read the rest of the decision and it appears to go both ways. In fact, look up vaccination cases. The Court has found you can’t constitutionally refuse your child a vaccination on religious grounds.

“Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), is the case in which the United States Supreme Court found that Amish children could not be placed under compulsory education past 8th grade, as it violated their parents’ fundamental right to freedom”

Yes, but not a 1st Amendment right.

 

[sedonaman]

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.

Apparently, Boxer is the expert on this.

 

[beaker55]

Whoever wrote this story needs to write a retraction and the story should be re-written by an honest journalist. THIS is precisely the kind of unfounded, misleading journalism we completely abhor in the main stream media. Boxer never said what the writer claims… only what he/she wants you to THINK she said. The writer states, “Boxer essentially says the right to insurance trumps religious rights and freedoms.” (Emphasis on the word “essentially”.) Boxer never said that. Her argument was that given the way the Blunt Amendment is worded, that an employer could withhold “medicine” (aspirin? insurance coverage? WHAT?) from an employee based on religious beliefs. Never mind that Boxer and Sharpton were engaging in the typical Socialist/Communist ‘straw man’ diversion and their statements are cleverly crafted to produce unfounded fear in the minds of their very limited audience. But this piece is the equivalent of those half-fabricated, half-true, fear-induced broadcast e-mails that litter your inbox day in and day out. It reminds me of the old Telephone game we played as little children where the truth gets completely twisted in whispered iterations. This kind of ‘reporting’ doesn’t belong on legitimate blogs.

 

[sedonaman]

Whoever wrote this story needs to write a retraction and the story should be re-written by an honest journalist. THIS is precisely the kind of unfounded, misleading journalism we completely abhor in the main stream media. … This kind of ‘reporting’ doesn’t belong on legitimate blogs.

You don’t understand how politics works. I re-post this in case you missed it:

Pathological Politics

“…Because voters are rationally ignorant (the costs of gaining particular kinds of information are greater than the benefits since one vote is essentially meaningless), politicians must employ a language designed to evoke emotion – enough emotion to motivate the right people to turn out and vote. Thus, politicians rarely speak with precise meanings, marginal calculations, or logical reasoning; instead they manipulate effect, raw emotions, group identifications, and even hatred, envy, and threats. Because premature commitment to an issue can cause one to end up in a minority position, successful politicians equivocate, hint, exaggerate, procrastinate, ‘straddle fences,’ adopt code words, and speak in non-sequiturs. Understanding the politician is therefore extremely frustrating for those who value precise statements. But note that this problem is not the fault of the politician; it is rooted in the rational ignorance of voters, the distribution of conflicting sentiments among voters, and the nature of collective endeavor. What all this means is clear: Political communication is rarely conducive to rational or efficient allocation of scarce resources. This does not mean that the individual politicians are irrational in their choice of language and symbolic activities. Waving the flag and kissing babies are practiced because of their tactical value in an activity that is at once a rational game and a morality play; in that conjunction lies the endless fascination and frustration of politics.”

Chapter 4: “Pathological Politics” from Beyond Politics, by William C. Mitchell of the University of Oregon & Randy T. Simmons of Utah State University

What goes for the politician also goes for the journalist, since journalism is just another form of political advocacy.