This piece notes the rush of corporations looking for coverage in the Hobby Lobby fallout. It prompts a questions for me.
1. Are all of these companies going to opt out of ALL contraception or only the Roman Catholics?
2. Were these companies previously providing the ACA coverage for all contraception or didn’t they in the first place, were dragging their feet and now are looking for sanction?
3. Will this perhaps lead us towards ending the connection between employment and benefits or will it dig us further into this silly dead end?
Corporations Try to Limit Liability
When it comes to benefits corporate America has been backpedaling away from benefits for a long time. I for one am happy that the CRC didn’t follow the corporate trend into a the 401k style defined contribution plan that most of my friends who live in the corporate world have. Frontline did a piece on this a few years ago. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/
The CRC has kept its traditional pension plan which basically tries to insure that if I live to 75 or 105 I can receive at least some assurance of a level of income. It’s much more of an old style communitarian ideal.
At the same time, corporations have backed out of controlling someone’s retirement, and in some cases that has been good. If a corporation decides to withdraw commitments or raid pension funds the retirees suffered. They can’t do this with a 401k. The downside of course is that most of us are lousy fund managers. The CRC Pension board has done a far better job than I ever would even if they are possibly investing in corporations that create contraceptions they don’t wish to provide in their health insurance plans.
Egalitarian in Principle but not the Waiting Room
Despite our egalitarian chatter Americans have very much wanted to a avoid a single payer system. We don’t really want to share our doctors with the unwashed masses if we can avoid it. We are throwing a fit over the fact that some employed persons will not have medical insurance subsidized contraception even though because of their job they can probably afford to pay for it anyway. They are not blocked. If, however you have red-state Utah Medicare you can in fact get contraception paid for by the state. My guess the same is true in California. However, if you are on Medical what you don’t receive are vision or dental benefits. I’ve learned to spot those on permanent disability mostly by how bad their teeth are. Makes me think of proverbs with horses and mouths.
The ACA has never been more than an incremental improvement on a bad system. Ironies and inconsistencies will abound. Douthat pointed out in his piece on Saturday that on other scores Hobby Lobby is an ideal employer.
Poverty in America
What being poor in America really means is that you have few good options. Would you like to work for an employer who has a conscience, but whose conscience extends into your life in unwelcome ways? Should Apple corporation want its employees to try his herbalist medicinal approaches that cost Steve Jobs his life? Would you rather work for a corporation like McDonalds that doesn’t care if you have an abortion and will do what it can to insure it doesn’t have to give you any benefits at all.
If benefits are compensation they should be compensation not charity. HP shouldn’t tell its employees they shouldn’t donate to the charity of their choice with the money they earn.
Isaiah and the Employee of the LORD
Sunday I was talking about Isaiah and the “servant” of the LORD. I asked if we could substitute “employee” of the LORD in the passage. We are real fence sitters when it comes to which world we want. In our modern world a corporation owes nothing to an “employee” beyond what the contract requires. My class quickly picked up that the relationship between “master and servant” is broader and more complex. The servant owes things to the master our modern world recoils at, yet the good master cares for the servant in ways that most corporations couldn’t justify to their masters, the share holders.
Religions Doesn’t Fit
Religionists have always been foot draggers when it comes to modernity. We want to assert that McDonalds owes the counter workers more than what the corporation can get away with. If you believe that the youth in the polyester uniform is an image bearer of God you imagine she deserves better than the computer that will likely take her job 10 years from now. You imagine that McDonalds ought to treat the person with respect and honor their rights and even their desires because that is how people should be treated.
What if Hobby Lobby didn’t win and Dordt college paid for abortions and it was discovered that a member of the Dordt staff had an abortion. Do we say that is none of Dordt’s business? What if a Dordt staff person came down with a rare disease that by virtue of the swiss cheese coverage that many policies have (do any of you pay attention to your EOBs that come in the mail and wonder “why did they only pay $20 for this and I have to pay the other $80?) only to discover that this illness will bankrupt the family or this woman will not be able to get the treatment she feels best suits her and her needs? Do those obligations then go back to Dordt because as her “master” or “employeer” they are somehow responsible for her wellness?
pvk
Leadingchurch.com 
Hobby Lobby and how Religion Doesn’t Fit in the Modern World
This piece notes the rush of corporations looking for coverage in the Hobby Lobby fallout. It prompts a questions for me.
1. Are all of these companies going to opt out of ALL contraception or only the Roman Catholics?
2. Were these companies previously providing the ACA coverage for all contraception or didn’t they in the first place, were dragging their feet and now are looking for sanction?
3. Will this perhaps lead us towards ending the connection between employment and benefits or will it dig us further into this silly dead end?
Corporations Try to Limit Liability
When it comes to benefits corporate America has been backpedaling away from benefits for a long time. I for one am happy that the CRC didn’t follow the corporate trend into a the 401k style defined contribution plan that most of my friends who live in the corporate world have. Frontline did a piece on this a few years ago. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement-gamble/
The CRC has kept its traditional pension plan which basically tries to insure that if I live to 75 or 105 I can receive at least some assurance of a level of income. It’s much more of an old style communitarian ideal.
At the same time, corporations have backed out of controlling someone’s retirement, and in some cases that has been good. If a corporation decides to withdraw commitments or raid pension funds the retirees suffered. They can’t do this with a 401k. The downside of course is that most of us are lousy fund managers. The CRC Pension board has done a far better job than I ever would even if they are possibly investing in corporations that create contraceptions they don’t wish to provide in their health insurance plans.
Egalitarian in Principle but not the Waiting Room
Despite our egalitarian chatter Americans have very much wanted to a avoid a single payer system. We don’t really want to share our doctors with the unwashed masses if we can avoid it. We are throwing a fit over the fact that some employed persons will not have medical insurance subsidized contraception even though because of their job they can probably afford to pay for it anyway. They are not blocked. If, however you have red-state Utah Medicare you can in fact get contraception paid for by the state. My guess the same is true in California. However, if you are on Medical what you don’t receive are vision or dental benefits. I’ve learned to spot those on permanent disability mostly by how bad their teeth are. Makes me think of proverbs with horses and mouths.
The ACA has never been more than an incremental improvement on a bad system. Ironies and inconsistencies will abound. Douthat pointed out in his piece on Saturday that on other scores Hobby Lobby is an ideal employer.
Poverty in America
What being poor in America really means is that you have few good options. Would you like to work for an employer who has a conscience, but whose conscience extends into your life in unwelcome ways? Should Apple corporation want its employees to try his herbalist medicinal approaches that cost Steve Jobs his life? Would you rather work for a corporation like McDonalds that doesn’t care if you have an abortion and will do what it can to insure it doesn’t have to give you any benefits at all.
If benefits are compensation they should be compensation not charity. HP shouldn’t tell its employees they shouldn’t donate to the charity of their choice with the money they earn.
Isaiah and the Employee of the LORD
Sunday I was talking about Isaiah and the “servant” of the LORD. I asked if we could substitute “employee” of the LORD in the passage. We are real fence sitters when it comes to which world we want. In our modern world a corporation owes nothing to an “employee” beyond what the contract requires. My class quickly picked up that the relationship between “master and servant” is broader and more complex. The servant owes things to the master our modern world recoils at, yet the good master cares for the servant in ways that most corporations couldn’t justify to their masters, the share holders.
Religions Doesn’t Fit
Religionists have always been foot draggers when it comes to modernity. We want to assert that McDonalds owes the counter workers more than what the corporation can get away with. If you believe that the youth in the polyester uniform is an image bearer of God you imagine she deserves better than the computer that will likely take her job 10 years from now. You imagine that McDonalds ought to treat the person with respect and honor their rights and even their desires because that is how people should be treated.
What if Hobby Lobby didn’t win and Dordt college paid for abortions and it was discovered that a member of the Dordt staff had an abortion. Do we say that is none of Dordt’s business? What if a Dordt staff person came down with a rare disease that by virtue of the swiss cheese coverage that many policies have (do any of you pay attention to your EOBs that come in the mail and wonder “why did they only pay $20 for this and I have to pay the other $80?) only to discover that this illness will bankrupt the family or this woman will not be able to get the treatment she feels best suits her and her needs? Do those obligations then go back to Dordt because as her “master” or “employeer” they are somehow responsible for her wellness?
pvk
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About PaulVK
Husband, Father of 5, Pastor