Businesses Providing Birth Control Products

1. Employees have EARNED their health care benefits “Indirect Compensation definition Non-monetary remuneration provided to employees, including annual leave, overtime allowance, health insurance, life assurance, company car and mobile and pension funds. Note that both ‘standard’ contractual features (annual leave) as well as valuable benefits (health care) can be included in indirect compensation. Indirect compensation compares to direct compensation, which is monetary remuneration paid directly to employees for their services, starting with a basic salary. The total remuneration package is a combination of direct compensation and indirect compensation.” Source: http://www.hrzone.com... For their work, employees are compensated by direct and indirect compensation. Direct income is their regular paycheck. Indirect compensation (see the definition above) includes health insurance. In other words, employees have earned their benefits. 2. Employers do not have the right to restrict how employees spend their salary Since employees have earned their salary and their benefits, so these are rightfully theirs. So employers can decide how to spend their own money, but they cannot decide how the employees spend their money. It is the same for indirect compensation. Employers cannot take away part of the employee’s indirect compensation that they are legally entitled to. Should a Hindu, Buddhist or Jainist employer be allowed to reduce the salary of an employee if they spend part of their salary on eating meat? The employer would argue, that it is against his religion to pay for slaughtering animals. http://en.wikipedia.org... Suppose that the employer is a Jehovah’s Witness, whose faith does not allow blood transfusions. Should the government make an exception and not require that the health insurance covers blood transfusions? http://en.wikipedia.org... If I am a pacifist, should I be allowed not to pay taxes, if some of these taxes are spent on wars that I do not approve of and go against my conscience? This kind of logic does not make sense. Christian business owners look at this the wrong way. They are not responsible for the choices of their employees. Their concern that they are birth control products is misplaced. Here is a solution: The health care premiums of employees whose object to birth control, will only go towards non-birth control costs. And a larger share of the health care premiums of all other employers will go to birth control costs. This way, all employers will still pay the same, but Christian Business Owners no longer have to have the feeling that they are paying for birth control. Of course the “solution” above means no change at all in practice. It is a psychological solution to a psychological problem of perception. 3. price of non-compliance “Faith” cannot be an excuse to break the law. So there is no problem with fining business who break the law. These Christian business owners can use the political process to change the law. Until then, they have to obey the law. This is the democratic process. 4. discrimination? Opponent: “Definitely not in all businesses, but it isn't unrealistic to suggest you would see businesses hiring men instead of women to avoid covering costs of birth control insurances.” Because of the affordable care act, health insurance companies are not allowed to charge more health care premiums for woman than for men. In other words, the affordable care act prevents gender discrimination. So, the affordable care act does not allow health insurance companies to charge extra to cover for birth control products. http://www.care2.com... 5. Religious freedom of employees Freedom of religion is limited when the freedom of religion takes away the right of other people. We also have to take into account the religions freedom of the employee. For example, the religion of the employee may require the employee to prevent unnecessary suffering. If the employee is pregnant with an embryo that will be born with birth defects, will have severe pain, and will have only a short time to live. It may well be employee’s opinion, that a termination is the moral thing to do according to her faith. The infringement of the employees rights could be seen as religious bullying as explained in the following opinion piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com... Conclusion Employees have earned their benefits, and employers have not the right to make decisions against the coverage that the employees are entitled to according to the law. The argument that the Affordable Care Act might lead to discrimination is invalid, because the Affordable Care Act prevents gender discrimination.