1) The government does NOT provide it. The government provides Medicare to people over the age of 65, and Medicaid for people under a specific income bracket. In order to qualify for Medicaid, you have to have no assets (like, say, a house). You have to make yourself as poor as you can in order to qualify for…

1) Medical care is not a commodity, it is essential to life. All other Western governments recognize this and provide national healthcare to their citizens in one form or another. There is a range of quality of these services by country, but at its foundation it is acknowledged that the best interests of a country…

If they want to, yes, as a benefit. But employees should have the ability to buy their own healthcare coverage if they don't like the employer's plan. The purpose of the state health insurance exchanges is to allow regular individuals to be able to purchase health insurance on their own at an affordable (at least…

I don't even know where to begin with this:

But you're willing to force Catholic organizations to give up their freedom of religion? Either we all have it or none of us have it.

I'm in support of the ACA going further than it went. Its current iteration is a sop to the insurance companies and basically is a gigantic cash-grab for them. Without the public option (and eventually single-payer, which would take a decade to implement) what we have is, well, what we have: a market that is…

Aw, poor snake.

I'm not "treating" them like anything, nor do I think nuns need to be saved from anything, except maybe those meddling old motherfuckers running the show. I'm saying that this has the stink of "Bishop" written all over it. Jesus. Get a grip.

I don't think that applies, this isn't a tax they're paying to run the city of Jerusalem its funds that go into a pool that specifically pays for a thing that is against doctrine. That isn't Caesar's realm, that's god's.

What the buggery fuck are you talking about? I'm talking about the hierarchy of the Catholic church and the authority (or lack thereof) that nuns have relative to the Bishops, and how much they have to toe the line regardless of their personal opinions on a given topic.

They have some agency, but not as much as they want or need. They're still under the control of their respective diocese.

I'm not in the insurance industry. I'm in the healthcare industry. If I was in the insurance industry, do you really think I'd be such a huge vocal proponent of a single-payer system? Really?

The nuns I know are way more level-headed and pragmatic but they still have to abide by what the bishop says. This reeks of dioscesian bullshit.

I know what health insurance is, I work in the industry. I also don't think any employer should be compelled to purchase it for their employees. It should be a benefit, which is what it originally was, with the ability for employees to purchase their own at a rate that's affordable by ordinary human beingss. If the…

The law does care, and exempts religious people and institutions from laws under limited circumstances; churches being tax-exempt institutions comes to mind, as do conscientious objectors.

They are required to purchase a plan that offers BC. They want to be able to purchase a plan that doesn't. Cost is not the issue; the issue what that money will be used to pay for.

That's because our healthcare is tied to our employer. If that relationship was severed, by offering a public option (like we have in Massachusetts, and was part of the original ACA proposal) this would not be an issue for anyone, ever. Employees would be free to shop for competitive healthcare plans outside the…

That's quite the non-sequitur. Do you have anything to contribute to the discussion about the merits of this lawsuit, this part of the mandate, the ACA in general, or how healthcare is managed and paid of in this country?

They're being required to purchase health insurance for their employees that offers birth control without a co-pay, versus health insurance that does not include birth control as part of the coverage. This is what they object to — their money being used to provide contraception.

They're not interested in "controlling other people's behavior". They're interested in not using their money to pay for it. That seems like a reasonable request.