Businesses Providing Birth Control Products

My opponent argues in “rebuttal 1” and “rebuttal 2” that employees DO have earned their benefits (including health care) but that employers have the discretion how to compensate their employees First of all, we are talking about large companies (>50 employees). Smaller businesses are not required to provide health care for their employees. https://www.healthcare.gov...(yes, that link actually works!) Having a legal business structure has several advantages, it provides personal protection (owner does not have to pay all the debt when the business goes bankrupt), tax advantages, etc. On the other hand, there are also obligations. Companies have to withhold federal /state income taxes, social security and Medicare taxes. So the company mediates between the government and the employee. Large companies are also required handle health care insurance for their employees. Again, this should be viewed as an obligation not a right. The government requires the employee to have health care (which mandates coverage for birth control). Companies have some discretion in choosing the health care, so that they can get a better deal by collective bargaining. This discretion should not be interpreted as a right. The company is still mediating between the government and the employee . If anyone would have a right to reject the mandate for birth control coverage, it would be the employee. The government requires everyone to have health care. For employees of large companies, employers are charged with the administrative task to make sure that employees have coverage. What is covered by the insurance concerns the employee, the insurance company and the government, but not really the employer. The employee, insurance company and government all have incentives for contraception coverage. If the employee uses contraception, she gets coverage for it. If she does not use it, it does not matter. Note that most women, even catholic ones, use or have used some kind of contraception. The insurance has a financial incentive to cover contraception, because it is cheaper. (More about this later.) The government ‘s goal is to provide the cheapest health care with the best coverage for its people. My opponent dropped her argument that the mandate would lead to discrimination Employer interference in employees health-care insurance is unreasonable What is reasonable? A pacifist should not have forced to fight in a war. (If there is a war draft he could do a different useful war.) That would be reasonable. It would be unreasonable if he does not pay taxes because some tax money will go to defense. A catholic employer should not have to buy contraception for their employees. That is reasonable. But it would be unreasonable for the employer, not to regulate health care insurance for the employees if these insurance policies happen to cover contraception. My opponent even believes, that a Jehovah’s witness should have a right to prevent an employee from having health insurance that covers (possibly life-saving) blood transfusions. Well, that seems to me unreasonable. Employers cannot argue that they would be paying for contraception First of all, contraception coverage is cheaper than no contraception coverage. “Some studies have looked at cost-savings for private insurers specifically. Notably, the federal government, the nation’s largest employer, reported that it experienced no increase in costs at all after Congress required coverage of contraceptives for federal employees in 1998. A 2000 study by the National Business Group on Health, a membership group for large private- and public-sector employers to address their health policy concerns, estimated that it costs employers 15–17% more to not provide contraceptive coverage in employee health plans than to provide such coverage, after accounting for both the direct medical costs of pregnancy and indirect costs such as employee absence and reduced productivity. Mercer, the employee benefits consulting firm, conducted a similar analysis that year and also concluded that contraceptive coverage should be cost-saving for employers.” http://www.guttmacher.org... But even if it was not cheaper, then employers still could not say that they are paying for contraception coverage: Suppose that employers were given the option not to pay for the coverage certain procedures/products that they object to. For example, instead of contribution to contraception coverage, they would pay for child birth coverage instead. In that case, the cost of contraception coverage would come from other employers who do not have the same objections. But giving employers such option would mean a lot more unnecessary administration, and in the end it would not make any difference.