Don’t you love it when this happens? Someone thinks he’s being super-clever by coming up with an analogy designed to show just how ridiculous the other side’s position is … and what it actually shows is that his own position is wrong.
Here’s the context. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, as you know, remains up in arms about some Catholic-affiliated institutions having to offer health insurance that covers services they don’t like – namely, birth control – even though, under the Obama compromise, the institutions now do not have to pay for it. Yesterday, one Bishop Lori, on behalf of the Conference, testified before Congress as follows:
For my testimony today, I would like to tell a story. Let’s call it, “The Parable of the Kosher Deli.”
Once upon a time, a new law is proposed, so that any business that serves food must serve pork. There is a narrow exception for kosher catering halls attached to synagogues, since they serve mostly members of that synagogue, but kosher delicatessens are still subject to the mandate.
You can see where this is going. Of course it’s ridiculous for the government to force a kosher deli to serve pork … but that’s exactly what ObamaCare is doing to us, right?
But if you think about it, you see that Bishop Lori is precisely wrong. The “parable of the kosher deli” is an exact analogue to what Ted Kennedy was doing with his proposed conscience clause: he wanted to exempt doctors and hospitals from having to provide services to which they objected. Government shouldn’t force an observant Catholic doctor to perform an abortion, nor should it force an observant Jew to sell pork in his deli. (For purposes of this exercise, we will set aside the fact that that the deli probably doesn’t depend in large part on taxpayer dollars for its operating budget…)
But the Blunt amendment is not about protecting service providers. It’s about health insurance. So the real analogy would be this: under the “Blunt/kosher deli” amendment, the owners of the kosher deli would be allowed to pay their employees in special money that cannot be used to buy pork anywhere. That’s not a problem for the employees who are observant Jews. But what about those employees of the deli who aren’t Jewish (or who don’t keep kosher), and who would like to take their earnings to the grocery store after work and buy some pork for dinner? Too bad for them – the money that their employer pays them cannot be used to buy pork in any store.
That, of course, would be absurd. That’s not what Ted Kennedy wanted. But that’s what Roy Blunt and Scott Brown want. That’s the difference. Thank you, Bishop Lori, for clearing it up.
Employees of Catholic owned businesses are not allowed to take their paycheck money and buy contraception? I don’t see how that could work. How does the pharmacy know where the money came from, or where the person works? “Sorry, says here you work at St. Elizabeth’s, so we can’t sell you any contraception”??
It’s only $20 a month, people can pay for it themselves. Why do you insist that everyone, including Catholics and people who think contraception is bad, should have to pay? Aren’t there enough charitable liberals to fund it for poor people?
The compromise that Bishop Lori so fervently objects to SOLVES that problem. The insurance companies pay, not the Catholic hospitals and schools.
David’s generous set aside (“the deli probably doesn’t depend in large part on taxpayer dollars for its operating budget”) is itself key. The most appropriate way for the institutions in question (like this Kosher deli) to avoid the dilemma is to not take the public funds.
The better analogy is a Kosher deli that refused to sell product to (pick your poison) non-Jews, blacks, women, or whatever. The law says very clearly that an entity that performs a public service may not discriminate that way. By the “logic” you offer, we should allow Jim Crow laws to be reinstated.
It’s clear from the objections of this overly-loud segment of the Catholic Church (it is not by any means universal) that the objection is NOT to paying for the contraception, because the compromise moots that objection. No, the real objection is to the fact that its female employees have full access to health care, including contraception.
That’s the bottom line, after all the sanctimonious and distracting hand-waving is done.
It still seems to me like everyone pays. Perhaps some hospitals and schools pay slightly less for their insurance, but that’s what any actuary would calculate for that pool anyhow, they are probably fairly healthy. But the cost still gets passed on to everyone, because now the operating costs of providing insurance go up, so the premiums go up for everyone. Can’t there be a voluntary check off for people to pay extra if they want to help poor people afford it? Why make everyone pay, it seems punitive.
And I’m even more confused by your kosher deli analogy than David’s. Let me repeat what confused me about David’s:
Is that true, that people who work at a Catholic hospital would not be allowed to spend their wages on birth control?
… compensation. So is the insurance you get. Insurance with strings attached is compensation with strings attached.
Where is this string attached such that “the money that their employer pays them cannot be used to buy pork in any store.” I get it that the insurance the employer pays them doesn’t give them free contraception, but what’s with the wild leap of fantasy to employees not being able to buy it in any store? What strings do that?
No, they don’t, because increased use of contraception lowers the cost of providing insurance.
This has been pointed out so many times in these threads that I have to think you have not been reading them, and just want to jump in and emit your contrary opinions. Do us all a favor and at least read the threads.
is in fact calling for more unplanned pregnancies and more abortions – the inevitable result, far costlier to everyone than the cost of contraceptives.
Anyone who seriously wants to reduce the number of abortions will support providing contraceptives. They will also support Obama’s health care reform (women with access to health care are less likely to have an abortion).
But the right wing so-called “right to life” people really don’t care about reducing abortions. They want to keep fulminating about fetuses to distract the gullible from their real mission: to further enrich the wealthiest 1%. I am reminded of Barney Frank’s quip that Republican concern for life begins with conception and ends with birth.
Sure the PILL is cheap, but what about a vasectomy or a blood transfusion. Yeah, don’t forget those are also against religious beliefs.
Amazing these conservative think $20 a month or $240 dollars a year isn’t a lot. But B*itch if taxes go up $100 buck a year
I found the fact sheet available at this link informative. It’s been many moons (no pun intended) since I last used birth control so I’m kind of out of the loop on its cost. But if you start going down the “people can pay for it themselves” road you’ll discover that soon enough you’re paying for a lot more than you bargained for.
just go here: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/BC_costs.html
You’re taking it way, way too literally. In case you hadn’t heard, there is also no government move afoot to require kosher delis to sell pork.
The entirely false premise that William Lori is attempting to advance is that he and the Catholic church are victims of anti-Catholic religious discrimination. Since America is exquisitely sensitive to charges of government antisemitism (the protestant rabid-right is among the most vocal of pro-Israel supporters), he hopes to strike a resonant chord with the pro-Israel extreme right.
Of course there is no move afoot to require Kosher delis to sell pork. The entire premise is one of those “big lies”, intended to obscure the even larger truth of the misogyny of the institutional dogma and policy that Mr. Lori advocates.
There seems to be a derangement syndrome going on with people believing that a company not covering BC is a complete ban of BC for those employees, as when you write “Too bad for them – the money that their employer pays them cannot be used to buy pork in any store.” That’s false, right?
… and failing miserably. Sorry, but if you’re not willing to play along with the game of hypotheticals that Bishop Lori and I are engaged in, I’m not going to spell it out any further.
Btw, what about people who don’t have an employer provided plan, because they don’t have an employer, or their job doesn’t offer one? Isn’t that a lot more people than however many ? Are they being denied access to contraception too, prohibited from spending their own money? Or are they allowed to pay the $20 a month themselves?
hadn’t finished formulating the point – aren’t there a lot more women without employer provided health insurance at all, than there are at these religious employers? Why is the focus on those few women, is it just about forcing everyone to have to support it?
The Pope just elevated his personal attack dog, Bishop Dolan in NYC, to cardinal. Points for consistently digging one’s heels in against the idea of the nineteenth century.