bbauska

What other benefits are "rights" that must be provided by the employer?

Oh I don't know. Protection from dangerous working conditions? A minimum wage? Maximum hours? Protection from sexual harassment? Protection from racial discrimination? Insurance for work place injuries and accidents?
I think its quite odd that the US made the decision to try and create accessible and universal health care insurance primarily through employment law. But you have....
So the question becomes, why should an employer be able to ignore the law becasue they have a moral objection to the law? And if its contraception today, what is next and who will espouse their moral objection?

archduke

Absolutely not. I am saying the laws should not be implemented in the first place.

But they are there, and have been in place for many years... Are you saying that its okay to selectively ignore laws you don't agree with? Just as long as its for reasons of morality.... ?

'ebonic'? I thought thats was what black slang and dialect was called. Are you saying I'm calling you a redneck who uses ebonics?

Whatever, that was not the intent. The 'eevul gubmint' meme is all over the internet, and I don't personally associate it with 'rednecks', 'hicks' or 'ebonics'. I do, however, associate it with parody of internet libertarians. I know you are not that either, and it was not meant to be personal. I've use it before with Guapo and Vince and others and they did not take offence like you have.

interestingly, your reponse is to cuss me out, having in an earlier post made the assertion that a woman with ovarian cysts is 'too damned lazy' to look for a way to get treatment.

what's more you appear to be ignoring the point that a company is not a person. It's owned by people, but it is not an extension of them and does not inherit their individual rights. And as they are legal instruments, they are - more than anything, subject to the law.

Ricky has made a strong point here.

Dangerous working conditions, workplace safety is important and needs to be a BASE level (not the current OSHA hyper-standards).
Minimum wage... don't take the job. If all employees wanted a certain wage they would find the job that pays it. If all employers wanted a certain pay, they would either get employees or not based upon the market.
Maximum hours: See minimum wage above.
Sexual harrassment? Laws are in the books already, not a workplace issue.
Racial discrimination? Laws are on the books already, not a workplace issue.
Insurance for workplace injuries? Good business sense to have it. Otherwise a legal suit can destroy the business.

If it is contraception today, what will it be tomorrow? I shudder to think of that...

Should the US Government provide contraception via pills and or condoms? (I would be fine with that rather than forcing employers to be forced to provide that. Make the government pay for it, so people can see that the taxes will go up, rather than prices of services. Much more honest.

Chances are that taxes would not go up, it may even save money, but don't let that stop you.

As for your list above, maximum hours should be considered part of health and safety. Minimum wage is a defence against a race to the bottom, and discrimination based on race or sex is indeed already in the law - the 1964 Civil Rights Act covers rights at work. And in my experience, it very much is a workplace issue, along with sexual harassment. Workplace insurance is not just a good idea - if an employer 'chooses' not to have it and a claim can't be paid, it can fold without fulfilling the claim.

So, given your ambivalence to even some of the most basic employment laws, I'm not at all surprised that you are opposed.

As always, clarity above agreement.

bbauska

If it is contraception today, what will it be tomorrow? I shudder to think of that...
Should the US Government provide contraception via pills and or condoms? (I would be fine with that rather than forcing employers to be forced to provide that. Make the government pay for it, so people can see that the taxes will go up, rather than prices of services. Much more honest.

Why do you keep bringing taxes into this? The premiums for health insurance are paid for by the employees with a required Employer contribution. In effect it is part of the employee compensation.
What the regulations do is ensure that employers are providing sound and fair health insurance, not defrauding their employees with patchwork plans.
What women are complaining about is that the moral judgement of someone other than themselves is being applied to the health insurance coverage. And the arguement being made is that a corporations moral choices should allow them any measure of control over this coverage. And from there, what else?
Laws and regulations are brought in as a reaction to past failings... In removing them it is incumbent upon those who would like to show how the conditions that previously existed without the regulation will not reoccur.
A great example of deregulation occurred within the oil and mining industries over the first 6 years of the Bush administration. Apparently regulation and enforcement of regulation were allowed to erode at the MMM becasue they were creating financial hardship for oil and mining companies. (So said the corporations)
What followed were a series of deadly mining disasters and the BP Oil rig explosion and spill. With a cost of 11 lives and to BP of as much as 30 billion $ (The fund set aside, some 19 B which was aportioned yesterday) it would seem that BP were n't very good at assessing potential risk. And I'll bet they wish the MMM had forced them to a higher standard now....But, thats their hindsight ... .
So leaving aside our, or any corporations ability to accurately guage what the level of risks is acceptable....

How should a corporations or organizations moral stand affect their application to any law? Why should the Catholic Church or the LDs, or the Jewish faith or any faith allow a person or corporation to ignore laws and regulations? Rail all you want about any law or regulation .... what your asking for is a the ability for a persons religion to exempt them from any regulation or law that they think contradicts their religions morality.
This is a direct contravention of the seperation of church and state and completely discriminatory. And, unworkable.
All we need do, at the Church of the Great Spaghetti Monster, is write our moral code in order to ignore all laws and there we go...

A tax is money that you have to spend based upon a mandate of the government.

I am all for religion and state to be separate. It would be nice if the government felt the same way.

No, Brad, a tax is money you are mandated to pay to the government. If it isn't going to a government agency at some level, it's not a tax.

In the same way that mandatory car insurance is not a tax, or minimum wage is not a tax.

Perspective. Money taken that is paid to the government is given to others, whether it is the corporate welfare, the general welfare, military, or whatever. It goes to someone other than the government.

You are saying that it is not a tax if the people are mandated by the government to pay for the cost of something, but it is a tax if the people pay the government for the same thing?

Respectfully disagree with your semantics.

Let's stir the semantic pot some more...

Health insurance premiums are non-taxable. Does that make it subsidized?!

bbauska wrote:Perspective. Money taken that is paid to the government is given to others, whether it is the corporate welfare, the general welfare, military, or whatever. It goes to someone other than the government.

crucially, though, even if the money ends up going to someone else, it's a 'tax' only when it does so via government or a government agent. Now, somepayments to governments are not taxes (fees, tolls, fines)

You are saying that it is not a tax if the people are mandated by the government to pay for the cost of something, but it is a tax if the people pay the government for the same thing?

Respectfully disagree with your semantics.

On what basis? That you have evidence that tax means something else, or just because you don't like what dictionary definitions say? It may be pedantry or semantics to you, but without a legal redefinition of what taxes are, these are taxes.

similarly - 'marriage' has a meaning. We can try to redefine it, but not arbitrarily just to wrench an argument in a particular direction.

As I understand it, employers have a choice. A limited set of options, but choice nevertherless. They are:

1) accept the mandate to provide insurance to employees, accept the contraception inclusion, and pass the moral decision down to the individuals who it actually affects.
2) accept the mandate to provide insurance, but trigger the compromise opt out, leaving the insurance provider to contact the insured and get their decision on whether or not to opt in, again leaving the moral decision to the person who it actually affects, but imposing on them an extra step and giving the employer an arms length further distance
3) deny employees mandated insurance and pay the fine
4) don't employ people if you can't abide (by) employment laws.

SLO - nice trolling...

It could be seen either way, but lots of things are not taxed and this doesn't necessarily mean they are subsidised. I guess it depends on whether an entire class of something is tax exempt (eg: in the UK, basic foods, children's clothing and second-hand goods are not subject to VAT), or whether a universal rule applies.

still, that presents a question back. If pretax spending like employee health insurance and a regulated pension is a 'subsidy', does the same apply to tax exempt charitable donations? Meaning... is government subsidising loads of charities, making those charities de facto agents of government?

if you start defining a lack of something as being the same as the inverse of it, you get odd situations. In Mathematics, it leads to paradox and so is not done. In public policy, I suspect it opens the door to all kinds of interpretations of reality that may not be helpful...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/marriage

Funny how you used the word marriage for an example. It is a perfect example of "wrenching"... The definition of marriage has been, for a VERY long time, just the 1st definition. Only recently the definition has been changed to "wrench" the argument in a certain direction.

Given the 4 choices submitted by you; I choose #4.

The issue is not a religious one to me (as I am not Catholic). It is a government overreach of power. It is not only the recent overreaches either. There were/are overreaches back in the early1800's til today.

danivon wrote:SLO - nice trolling...

Happy to contribute

On marriage, I chose it for a specific reason. There is a definition (although the history of marriage has included things like polygamy, different levels of commitment, the concepts of brides as a bought commodity, forced or coerced arranged marriages, etc etc), but people are trying to change it through altering the legal definition (as we have done before when outlawing common law marriage or setting a lower age limit on consent to marry).

what I was calling you on was the misuse of the legal definition of a word to try and hook the debate somewhete else. If you want to redefine the meaning of 'tax', start a campaign, but don't expect anyone to buy your redefinition just because you assert it.

by the way, these 'overreaches' from the early 1800s, does this mean while the founding fathers wer still around, or at least in living memory, enough for them to be overuled? Were they all ruled unconstitutional, or perhaps were the founding generations of the USA more lax than 'original intent' buffs of today would have us believe?