Any Other Dems Slightly Scared Now?

[Wisconsin+17]

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If a business would refuse service to someone because they were black or white or whatever - they should be required to post that on a sign in front of the door. I have no problem with that, provided that it's put on a sign. Businesses refuse people all the time, if they happen to be carrying, and a business owner does have the right, but they have to inform the public before the person enters the premises.

[7,052,770]

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Ah, you are aware that Obama has attempted to bar the Church from choosing their own priests? He got slapped down, hard, by the Supreme Court 13-0 over this.

Did you read this in a chain email or something?  How could a so-called high school teacher believe there are 13 justices on the Supreme Court anyway?  When will you reveal yourself as a liberal just trying to spoof religious conservatives?

[Wisconsin+17]

I WROTE 12 - why is that 13?!

Damn fat fingers. Fixed.

[7,052,770]

Also, I think Ben has a pretty clear misunderstanding how health insurance works... if you purchase insurance, your money doesn't go into some personal account that just pays for you.  It pays for everyone, and everyone pays for you.

If you buy the product, you're paying for any service anyone gets, so even if you somehow get a contraception-free plan (remember, most states already require contraception service at the state level without Obama's compromise), your premiums still go into the pot that pays for others' birth control.

[opebo]

Hey Sibboleth, you never answered my question - do you agree with Opebo that only white people can be racist?

Come on buddy, don't pester him about that.  It is obvious to all thinking people.

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It refers to power, Ben.  Whites have all the power.  Other races could in theory be racist where they have real power - such as perhaps in some Asian countries.

[7,052,770]

I WROTE 12 - why is that 13?!

Damn fat fingers. Fixed.

Possibly the greatest post in the history of the forum.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Typos happen when I don't proof carefully enough. *sigh*.

[opebo]

In a word, the return of job opportunities for everybody no matter what one's race, sex, or age is. It will take time, but by the end of Romney's first term we will see a REAL turn around

By 2016?  Good lord man,  you're starting to try to lower expectations in case he wins?  Seriously, four years from now?  If he can't turn it around next year, given that Obama's already baked the cyclical recovery into the pie, he's hopeless.

[Wisconsin+17]

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I should, at least in a so-called free country, be able to purchase health care coverage that meets my needs. Why does contraception and abortion coverage have to be bundled in? Why can't I go a-la carte and pick the options that I want and save money?

[Wisconsin+17]

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His silence is deafening. If he believes this, then he should express his convictions.

[opebo]

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His silence is deafening. If he believes this, then he should express his convictions.

He doesn't want to soil himself by debating such as you.  He's ridiculed you, and that is all you can expect.  Al and I don't like each other (as far as I can tell), but I think he's right quite a lot of the time.

[Wisconsin+17]

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Then perhaps he should come out from behind the apron strings.

[Brittain33]

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I should, at least in a so-called free country, be able to purchase health care coverage that meets my needs. Why does contraception and abortion coverage have to be bundled in? Why can't I go a-la carte and pick the options that I want and save money?

This confirms the theory that you don't understand how health insurance works.

Your female coworkers have insurance that covers prostate cancer and testosterone treatments even though they will never use them. That's how insurance works.

I'll give you a hint: imagine what the insurance market would look like if, per free market principles, people had the right to choose whether their insurance would cover cancer treatments or not. The term you'll want to google is "adverse selection."

[Wisconsin+17]

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I'm aware of this. I'm asking why is this the case?

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You're aware of the fact that women make substantially more use of health care than men? By charging the same for men and women - you're having the men subsidizing the women.

Personally, the only woman's health care that I want to be paying for - is my wife's.

[Brittain33]

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I'm aware of this. I'm asking why is this the case?

Insurance works by smoothing all costs across the entire population. That eases the issue of apples-to-oranges comparisons (mammograms vs. prostate treatment) by making them all health care costs and having the price be comparable for individuals.

Now, the problem in the U.S. is that this doesn't match the colloquial definition of insurance and lumps in routine health care expenses, like doctor's visits and inexpensive medications, with the occasional big hit that "insurance" is meant to cover, like surgery or catastrophic illness. We put them both together and call it insurance. If we're going to do that, to smooth out risk and share costs, that means defining health care and making it all coverable and making it a shared and common expense for everyone. When you carve out exceptions, you make it easier for people to game the system and drive up costs.

I will never have children or father children and I am perfectly ok that my insurance costs are higher because it includes the expense of others' childbirth and natal care.

[Wisconsin+17]

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In theory, but in actuality - whenever you disassociate cost from usage - costs will rise. A better way of controlling healthcare costs would be to have health care saving accounts - where there is an incentive for people to only use what they need and to save up. Right now - there's no incentive not to waste scarce resources on unnecessary treatment.

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Insurance should only cover catastrophic costs and not day to day anticipated expenses.

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Fine, but you're not giving me the option of saying no. It's my money, I should be allowed to spend whatever I want on health care - even none, if that is what I want.

[7,052,770]

I WROTE 12 - why is that 13?!

Damn fat fingers. Fixed.

Are we just going to let this one slide?

[J. J.]

Well, in terms of job creation, Obama is making him look like a genius. 

Objectively, the job losses of Obama's first year in office (ie, nearly all of them) can only be attributed to Bush.

Objectively, they got substantially better under the first four years GWB:  http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The first four years, sure.

We don't have a second Obama term (and may not).

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

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I should, at least in a so-called free country, be able to purchase health care coverage that meets my needs. Why does contraception and abortion coverage have to be bundled in? Why can't I go a-la carte and pick the options that I want and save money?

This confirms the theory that you don't understand how health insurance works.

Your female coworkers have insurance that covers prostate cancer and testosterone treatments even though they will never use them. That's how insurance works.

I'll give you a hint: imagine what the insurance market would look like if, per free market principles, people had the right to choose whether their insurance would cover cancer treatments or not. The term you'll want to google is "adverse selection."

What was odd about the insurance at one of my previous employers was that it covered breast cancer for women, but not for men.  (Yes, men can get breast cancer, tho it is very rare.  Still it seems odd that they'd limit the coverage to women only.  Talk about penny pinching.)

[Wisconsin+17]

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I'm amused that you believe I don't believe what I believe.

Have you never encountered a conservative Catholic before? I know they are more common in TX than in MS - but still.

[Brittain33]

I WROTE 12 - why is that 13?!

Damn fat fingers. Fixed.

Are we just going to let this one slide?

I'm going to hope it's a reference to the apostles and not literally about the Supreme Court.

[LastVoter]

Yes, there is possibility of Mitt Romney winning by changing his campaign on veiled racism, considering he can win 4 swing states +CO through other means.

[anvi]

Ah, you are aware that Obama has attempted to bar the Church from choosing their own priests? He got slapped down, hard, by the Supreme Court 12-0 over this....
Obama has already tried to take control of the Church via appointing his own ministers (similar to what has been tried in China, and in England and many other countries in the past)...

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-553.pdf

Unanimous rejection of Obama's law.

A few things, Ben.

The Supreme Court has 9 justices, not 12. 

The law that Perich invoked to file suit was not "Obama's law," but the Americans With Disabilities Act, passed in 1990 under the Bush '41 administration.  Perich was, within our legal system, I hope you'll agree, entitled to legal representation.  Churches are not the only entities with rights in the U.S., individuals have and can claim them too  And she sought that legal representation with the EEOC because she claimed, based on the text of her termination letter, that she was fired in part for threatening legal action, which is supposed to be illegal under the ADA.  It is the EEOC's mandate, party granted by the Americans With Disabilities Act itself, to legally protect citizens against employment discrimination.  SCOTUS agreed to hear the case, and ruled that the church and school named in the suit could fairly invoke the "ministerial exception" based on the terms of her employment.  Your posts make it sound like Obama himself is invoking the right of kings or something to appoint ministers to churches, and that's not an accurate description of anything that happened in this lawsuit.  If anything, the very questionable way that this particular church and school worded parts of her termination letter was what left them open to such a suit in the first place.

Now, in other circumstances debated in the immediately preceding posts, employees of Catholic organizations like hospitals, schools, goods shops and so on, are very often not themselves Catholic, and there is no "ministerial exception" the church can claim in their cases to protection from being denied services they would otherwise receive.  The church doesn't have the right to unilaterally decide on public policy matters for all employees outside of its ministerial purview.  Individual citizens have rights and can lay claim to them too, no matter what the religious affiliation of their employers happens to be.