By Michael Bryan Corporations have religion? Who knew? The Arizona Legislature, apparently… from the striker bill HB 2625, providing a Blunt Amendment-style 'religious conscience' exception that in Arizona, having failed in the U.S. Senate: "NOTWITHSTANDING SUBSECTION Y OF THIS SECTION, A CONTRACT DOES NOT FAIL TO MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF SUBSECTION Y OF THIS SECTION … Read more
By Michael Bryan
The recent concern over "religious conscience" brought into focus by the controversy over mandating contraceptive care by self-insuring religious institutions to their employees, and exacerbated by a pending amendment in the Senate which would allow any healthcare insurer to deny any care that offends a moral sentiment, mistakes religious freedom for religious tyranny.
When relgious practices impose on the choices of others, the government has a legitimate role in ensuring that unequal power relationships do not result in imposition of religious beliefs on others in our society. Obama's contraceptive coverage mandate respects freedom of religious conscience by ensuring that employers cannot impose their religious beliefs about reproduction on their employees. When that employer is a religious institution, obviously the temptation of the employer to impose their views is manifest.
Of course, many in the GOP don't see it that way.
They think that religious freedom only includes the right of religious institutions to impose their views on others, using whatever means of coersion is at hand, including employment, ecomonic power, and contracts. Any move by the government to prohibit such impositions on others is viewed as a "war on religious belief", or some such nonsense…
Here in Arizona, Steve Yarborough and number of primary co-sponsors, including CD4 GOP Congressional Candidate Ron Gould, are bringing this pernicious conceit to Arizona with SB 1365, which would prohibits the government from denying, revoking or suspending a professional or occupational license based on any action deriving from a person’s religious convictions.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie: (Reposted from April 6, 2011) Last week, Florida Rep. Scott Randolph (D-Orlando) suggested that his wife "incorporate her uterus" so that Republicans would stop their relentless attacks on abortion rights. The logic was, of course, that Republicans would never permit similar regulation of Florida businesses. Randolph's comment inspired the Florida American Civil … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
In somewhat of a surprise this week, the main anti-abortion bill of the Christian Taliban aka Center for Arizona Policy, House Bill 2838, which proposed to toughen state abortion requirements including banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, died after it failed to draw enough support to merit a committee vote.
Perhaps our Tea-Publican legislators were watching the mass protests in Virginia this week that caused Gov. Bob McDonnell to drop his support for the state-sanctioned rape by trans-vaginal ultrasound probe abortion bill. Sen. Jill Vogel, the sponsor of the bill, said she will strike her legislation, killing the bill.
This was followed by the Virginia Senate voting 24-14 to scuttle a bill that would have given fertilized eggs the same legal rights as people (the "personhood" bill). Huzzah! Virginia puts 'personhood' bill on hold until next year.
If only we were so lucky in Arizona. The point man woman for Center for Arizona Policy, Rep. Kimberly Yee (R-Phoenix), plans to paste the language of HB 2838 into another of her bills, HB 2036, as a "strike-everything amendment."
HB 2036, which originally dealt with regulations in the Attorney General's Office (private attorney retention; contingency fees), already passed the House and is scheduled for a hearing on Monday in the Senate Judiciary Committee at 2:00 p.m., in Senate Hearing Room 1. Get yourself there to testify in person or sign up online to testify.
h/t Daily Kos for graphic
By Michael Bryan
The American healthcare system is not a market at all. And it is certainly not a 'free' market.
That may be a counter-intuitive statement, given the political discourse around the American healthcare system. But allow me to make the case before you reject this premise.
Any economist will tell you that a free market system for exchange of any good or service requires several basic preconditions in order to work. Some of those prerequisites are: the existence of fungible goods in the market (substitutions are possible which leave the consumer equally well off), pricing information freely available to consumer and providers, freedom by participants (especially buyers) to select the timing of their purchases, and freedom to choose whether to enter the market at all.
None of these preconditions obtain in the American healthcare system.