Double Effect Regarding HHS Mandate?

[BillP]

EWTN would be fined some $600,000 in the first year!..and it would increase in the following years.

Well that implies that they have 300 employees. Let assume that they pay somewhere between minimum wage (14,500 per year) and the median HH income for the state of Alabama (42,000 per year). Their direct labor budget is therefore between $4.3 million and $12.6 million per year.

The Penalty will cost them an additional 5% to 14% of their labor budget. Note this assumes that they do not fund for their employees health insurance now. If they do spend money on insurance coverage now, they should deduct that amount from the equation.

Big deal.

Oh, and note, that even if they get an exemption from the providing the disputed coverage, they will still incur the costs of providing the health insurance that doesn’t include it, which will cost exactly the same (or more!) as the coverage that does.

How do they come out ahead if they get an exemption?

 

[Bookcat]

I refer you to the Bishops… EWTN etc…This is taking things off the topic of the thread…so I am not going to continue here on this aside.

 

[Rence]

I believe the horse is out of the barn and forever gone on this issue. Even if the mandate doesn’t stick and religous based employers refuse to insure their employees, and actually are able to push their weight around, that will give these employers a second-rate employer status, and the cream of the crop of employees will choose to work in places that offer the better more comprehensive coverage.

If the mandate winds up not applying to religous based employers, they probably will be able to opt out of providing insurance benefits to their employees. But at the very least, the employers are going to have to say that they don’t offer insurance at all, or admit they don’t provide the minimum requirements for coverage that the HHS is mandating.

I don’t even use these benefits and I would choose the place with the better benefits. They’ll just get employees who didn’t get their first pick of employers, and only until they can get a better job.

 

[Corki]

I believe the horse is out of the barn and forever gone on this issue. Even if the mandate doesn’t stick and religous based employers refuse to insure their employees, and actually are able to push their weight around, that will give these employers a second-rate employer status, and the cream of the crop of employees will choose to work in places that offer the better more comprehensive coverage.

This is the current situation, though. Employees who choose to work for religiously affiliated employers accept the benefits offered which are often different than if they worked for the government or a secular employer. If the “cream of the crop” aren’t leaving now, why would they leave later if nothing changes?

 

[Rence]

This is the current situation, though. Employees who choose to work for religiously affiliated employers accept the benefits offered which are often different than if they worked for the government or a secular employer. If the “cream of the crop” aren’t leaving now, why would they leave later if nothing changes?

That’s not true. I worked for a Catholic hospital years ago, before this melodramatic situation, and ABCs were covered with our prescription coverage. They’re not leaving now because most places provide coverage for ABCs…

 

[Corki]

That’s not true. I worked for a Catholic hospital years ago, before this melodramatic situation, and ABCs were covered with our prescription coverage. They’re not leaving now because most places provide coverage for ABCs…

We’re not talking about institutions that were already violating Church teaching. We all know of “Catholic” hospitals that have been involved in abortions and sterilizations and about “Catholic” colleges that hand out ABC to students and employees.

This is about **forcing **those institutions that want to follow Chuch teaching, and that have been doing so to this point, to change and participate in an evil act. If the mandate just froze the current position where those instituations that cover ABC continue to do so, there would not be such an outcry. Those institutions made their choice long ago - without coercion. It’s the one’s being coerced that are fighting back.