Health Care Reform and Religions Exemptions

[This was written in response to someone who posted the letter from the Hobby Lobby CEO as to why they were filing suit against the Health Care Reform law, since it "forced" them to pay for abortions.]

I hope you'll do more research into this issue.  The attached text is so full of half-truths, false implications and lies as to be nothing more than a partisan political spin.

Understand that the health care law that this is about is not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction of solving a major problem, and by the way you are benefiting from it right now by still being on your parents' health insurance and being able to REMAIN on it until you are 26, unless you get married.

At another time, if you like, I can go through a long list of what is wrong with our health care system.  It'd chill your blood, realizing the amount of suffering people can go through in order to increase the profits of insurance companies, and the extent to which one moderately bad disease can completely financially ruin someone today, and the number of people who do not have access to basic necessary health care.  There are a lot of different ways this could be solved, and honestly, the current system is NOT my favorite... it's just a step in the right direction.  AND, by the way, it's put together almost entirely of a set of proposals put forth by Republican/conservative lawmakers, who then turned around and called it a "liberal take over of health care, rammed down our throats by the President", when in fact if he'd REALLY given us anything like what the liberals wanted, we'd be in far better shape now.

So, there are several things at issue here.  We could talk about the hypocrisy of a man who is worth 4.5 BILLION DOLLARS, and whose family will never have to want for anything for generations, complaining about having to provide basic health care to people who have not had his good fortune and are struggling to get by.  Or we could talk about his use of false conservative talking points like calling businesses and rich people "job creators", when in fact they don't CREATE jobs, they merely make use of resources in order to capitalize on a market, if the market isn't there, they don't magically create jobs just because they have more money, they just … have more money.  They only hire more people if in the process of doing so, it stands to make them even MORE money.  We could point out the insanity of the position that saving money for rich people and corporations will create more jobs when a quarter or two ago, even adjusted for inflation, American corporations had their best year, profit-wise, EVER, and yet the jobs aren't there, meaning if they've got more money than ever but still aren't hiring, it's pretty clear that simply having money doesn't spawn some kind of altruistic job creation, and maybe putting a little more money into the hands of the people who BUY the products will do more to create jobs (by creating more demand) than putting more money into the bank account of a man who, with 4.5 billion dollars, really will never spend what he HAS, never mind needing more.

But let's focus on the central thrust of the piece, that Religious people should be allowed to dictate how "their" money is spent, even after it is spent on other people.

Religion is supposed to tell you how to live YOUR life, not allow you to tell other people how to live THEIRS.  If your religion tells you you should not wear yellow on days  containing a T, that's fantastic.  You should not wear yellow on days containing a T, and if your religion is correct and you DO wear yellow on such days, you'll face penalties in your ultimate reward.  What it does NOT do is give you the right to start insisting that no one ELSE wear yellow on T days, and I think you'll agree if I told you my religion said that wearing blue on Halloween was verboten, and therefore you could not wear that wonderful halloween costume you made in 2011 (and which is currently in your profile picture), you'd be a little miffed that your choice of costume, that you put so much effort into, couldn't be worn.

Now, the argument is that basic health care policies which are now required to be carried for employees might pay for something that violates his religion.  And I'm sorry for that, but let's point out that if we start making these exemptions, then the law is worthless.  There are fairly mainstream religions out there that don't believe in blood transfusions.  So should they be allowed to remove from their policies any coverage for blood transfusions?

The Christian Scientists (I think, I might have the wrong group) don't believe in ANY extreme medical intervention, believing that prayer is the only way to resolve medical issues, or that if prayer doesn't do it, then the disease and subsequent death were "God's will".  So… should Christian Scientist owned businesses be allowed to provide "health insurance" policies with exceptions so that they cover nothing at all?  If my company is owned by a person of this persuasion, and my child gets appendicitis and vitally needs an appendectomy so as not to die, should I be forced to bankrupt myself in order to provide it, because my employer was able to absent himself from the rules everyone else has to follow regarding basic health care coverage?

And given our current legal system, if you start allowing this exemption, how long until people start "religions" who disagree with basic health care in order to legally exempt themselves from having to provide health insurance, thus cutting off a significant portion of our society from access to basic health care, which is the heart of the problem we need to solve?

And from how many other laws, then, should we allow people to exempt themselves for religious reasons?  If your religion does not believe that taxes are moral, should you be able to not pay taxes?  If your religion says that employers should have no responsibility for the safety of their employees, should you be exempt from workplace safety laws?

What if the next step is for employers to say "I want to be able to pay this salary to my employees with a prohibition on its use for cigarettes or alcohol or gambling or … whatever.  I don't support those things, so I don't want my money going to them".  Once I earn the money, it's not up to my employer how I choose to spend it, it is no longer their money, and that's the case here, it's not that the employer's money is being spent on abortions, it's that the employer is paying benefits to their employees, who then have a range of options that *THEY* have the right to decide which to use and which not to.  Because let's say they manage to exempt themselves from things they find objectionable in the health care law.  Can they then say "Hey, we want to legally prohibit our employees from even GETTING an abortion, because they'd pay for it with salary money We gave them, and that means OUR money went to pay for an abortion?"  And again, if that's allowed, then do the Christian Scientists get to refuse to allow you to pay for your child's appendectomy even out-of-pocket, because you earned the money from THEM that would go to pay for it?

I don't have a problem with anyone following the tenets of their religion *FOR THEMSELVES*.  I have a little more problem with it for their children (there are several high profile cases of children dying because their parents decided that an easily treatable disease was really better treated through prayer.  To me, this is child abuse, and is tragic).  But I have a HUGE problem with members of one religion imposing their beliefs on people of other religions, and members of religions should have the same problem, because if you have the power to do it to someone else, then someone else might have the power to do it to you, and do you really want to suddenly live under Sharia (Muslim) law if Muslims manage to take power in your state, just so you have the right to impose Christian law on others?

This ISN'T a war on Christianity.  This is about a huge problem in this country, health care, and people's basic access to it.  It's not about "free health care" as some crazy people will tell you, it's about making sure that if you get sick, if you draw the short stick and are the unlucky one, health wise, that doesn't ALSO mean you're the unlucky one financially, or made all the MORE unlucky because you can't afford a basic treatment that would extend your life, save your limb or otherwise make your life better.

This is a long, nuanced issue, and I've taken up far more of your time than you probably want, so as I say, I'll hold off on more details of our fiasco of a health care system unless you want me to go through it.

Just please understand that it is not an attack on anyone's religion, it is an attempt to solve a real problem in this country.