An employer, or the government for that matter, owes you nothing. An employer has the right to put together a wage and benefit package they want to offer. If that package isn't acceptable then find a job with a company that does provide an acceptable package. What will happen to the employer is this.....they cannot find acceptable employees.....then two things will happen, they will either go out of business or they will improve their wage and benefit package to make it acceptable to the type of employees they wish to attract. I find myself getting very frustrated with this attitude that government must force it's opinions on business. This is not an issue of legality....this is an issue of employer choice and potential employee choice.

health insurance was being denied....simply birth control. Where does it all end? Viagra? Massages? Medical pot? Perhaps health insurance needs to be changed to only cover the major....like cancer treatments, etc......and leave the smaller issues to individual preference. That would put more pay in your pocket, and you can choose what type of birth control to use (pay for the pill, etc. or abstinence - the only guaranteed method and it's free). We all know the cost of health insurance is getting out of hand. Again, where does it all end?

Birth control is a major part of a woman's health. If you are not a woman, then trust me, you simply cannot comprehend the responsibility that is always laid squarely at your doorstep simply for having one. The uterus, a pretty big organ, which can have all kinds of issues treatable with birth control pills other than the obvious - and, being pregnant, a very, very big event in a woman's health - so the choices surrounding pregnancy should be included in women's health care and insurance.

what is 'major'? If a "moral objection" stands, then wouldn't lung cancer for smokers be denied? Ulcer treatment, if it was caused by drinking too much coffee and your employer is Mormon? How about blood transfusions if the business is run by a Christian Scientist? Heart disease and cholesterol if the business owner is vegan.
Where does it end indeed.

The point here is that lots of groups have different 'morals' or ideas internally, and that's fine. But you can't withold insurance or health care from the general population, who does not hold your personal views, based on the
whims of one of these groups without including all of these groups - and then ultimately you would be left with no health insurance at all.

@ages: we could always go back to a time when employers weren't forced to provide a benefit to employees (like safe working conditions, wages paid in currency rather than scrip, time off for being hurt on the job, etc.).

I think we can all agree that the U.S. was a better place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A veritable utopia where no one lived for want of anything, free markets provided everyone with efficient, high-quality goods, and there were no tensions between classes.

(also, birth control is certainly a men's issue, but as we don't suffer a single physical consequence from accidentally making a baby, it is primarily a women's issue)

I'm missing the whole contraceptive/birth control connection with healthcare...I'll listen to any explanation that will clarify why a woman's free pass to bump at will is on par with my anti-malarial 'scripts?

same reason I don't believe everyone should be entitled to non-consentual malaria -- we don't need it.

@Grendel: are you seriously comparing "non-consensual malaria" (wtf?) to consensual sex?

@Grendel: um, I am a dude, yes. It's pretty evident, given how I refer to "us" when I speak of men and "them" when I speak of women.

Anyway, you don't really have a point, do you? You think sex is bad (or at least "bump at will" sex). It's only bad because there are possible negative consequences. These consequences are easily preventable, but you are against offering prevention because you believe sex is bad. This is circular logic.

In reality, the sexual impulse is our second strongest instinct. You will not prevent people from having sex, no matter how enlightened and full of self-restraint you think you are. You can, however, ensure that when people do have sex, there won't be any consequences that negatively affect the individuals involved or the society around them.

Stop standing in the way of pragmatic solutions for real problems.

but I do get offended when women are singled out as pawns in this kind of garbage - when legislators (AZ) can put forth bills, which pass at least part way - that would allow doctors to LIE to their female patients and there isn't 100% outrage from EVERYONE about that, when states put forth "personhood" amendments which would make aborting an ectopic (100% fatal) pregnancy a crime, when the general consensus among conservatives seems to be that it is the woman's fault if she gets pregnant, that she is the permiscuous one, that if she's raped she should just deal, that if her husband leaves her because they weren't having enough sex it's clearly her fault, and that she should have to pay extra if SHE wants to have sex. Do you know how many boyfriends have ever offered to pay for 1/2 of their girlfriends contraception? Just a wild guess - I'd say a fraction of a fraction of a percent.

you fall into this category yourself as you clearly stated above "why a WOMAN'S free pass to bump at will" should be allowed - again, no man in this picture - just that slutty woman.....all by herself, and she and only she should abstain, apparently.

Answer me this one, Grendel -
Why didn't the Catholic associated hospitals express their outrage at being forced to pay through insurance for vasectomies? They perform exactly the same function as the pill when it comes to procreation, with none of the additional, potential medical uses. They are also covered by insurance. What disease do Vasectomies prevent?

what makes these situations you just described a matter of health care? Perhaps, as your experiences may indicate, a punch-card for mace or bear repellent would be a better investment to keep the shitflies away.

I have to ask, because I dont know the answer, but were vasectomies introduced in this HHS bonanza give-away? Or was this pre-Obamacare? If it was pre-Obamacare, then they MIGHT have been part of the insurance package(?), which is a free market experience. But if vasectomy-coverage was part of the big give-away, and the Church said NO to the pill/abortion/etc and YES to the vasectomy, then that points to a disparate standard.

Is it always that way with malaria? You just continue to have to deal with it. My sympathies.

The bill advanced in Arizona allowing doctors to lie to their female patients if they thought it would prevent an abortion (as in, 'no, you don't have an ectopic pregnancy' or 'no, your baby isn't downs/developing without a spine/etc.etc.) would have allowed for that -

More broadly, any state (MS was the one I was thinking of) who has put forward a "personhood" amendment to their state constitution (there are several states who have tried this) would classify a zygote as a person. This would have the effect of making any contraception method that deters uterine implantation, most forms of invitro fertilization, or any surgery to correct an ectopic pregnancy, and perhaps even a natural miscarraige, a crime.

It is worth, at this time in our history, keeping an eye on state-level politics. It is to me deeply disturbing that the GOP, while touting "smaller government" - apparently just wants to make it small enough to fit in your doctors office, or in your wife's womb. I completely agree with you that decisions regarding procreation are the most difficult, heartwrenching, and personal decisions a woman or a family can make. They should be left up to the individuals and their doctor. Period.

Arizona AND Kansas, and Oklahoma.

The AZ bill itself says that doctors are protected from any and all malpractice for NOT informing a woman of problems with the fetus. Thereby removing any accountability (lawsuit) if they don't tell a woman her fetus is ectopic, horribly malformed, developing with no brain, downs, etc. if the doctor believes an abortion may result. This allows any doctor who wants to, without fear of consequence, to withold vital information about the fetus from a woman or a couple who want a child. This is exactly lying to a patient.

Arizona - http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2012/03/06/senate-approves-bill-on-wrongf...

Kansas is currently sending similar legislation through it's legislature.

Oklahoma's is actually law, and is particularly nice, because it not only forces a woman wishing an abortion to undergo an ultrasound, regardless of rape or incest, where the fetus is supposed to be described in detail, but it ALSO allows a doctor to lie to her about what is on that ultrasound, or any other test performed by couples who WANT children. (but maybe wouldn't go all the way through a pregnancy only to find out at the end of 10 months that the doctor knew all along that the baby was developing with no brain.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/us/28abortion.html?_r=1

Are you kidding? I'm sure you'd be so understanding if your wife carried a baby to term the doctor knew at week 9 wasn't going to live......or if the ectopic pregnancy killed your wife and the doctor knew it would.

Find me something in the Affordable Health Care Act that says it will be ok to "withold information" from patients.

And how would that doctor answer the question EVERY woman asks - "is my baby ok?".........

I simply don't have words for the way your answer disheartens me.

There is no nuance.

The Catholic church (in theory) strongly condemns all artificial methods of contraception. This includes the contraceptive pill, condoms and also medical procedures such as vasectomy and tubal ligation. In fact, the church regards contraception as mortally sinful (that's the gravest classification of sin). The official position is stated in the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae, issued by Pope Paul VI in 1968.

Swimmergirl presses a fair point about vasectomies. And that point is called hypocrisy. In theory, vasectomy is no less grave than women's contraception. In practice, women are being targeted, not men. That being said, this would appear to be a relatively mild moral transgression considering what that awful organization has been shown to be capable of time, and time, and time, and time, and time, BREATHE, and time, and time again.

Mike