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The background of the Affordable Care Act
The background of the Affordable Care Act
Analysis of burwell v hobby lobby
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Historical Background and Issues On the 30th of June of 2014, the Supreme Court of the United States announced that “the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allows for-profit companies to deny contraception coverage to employees based on a religious objection”. Essentially, this ruling only applies to the contraceptive mandate in question, rather than to all possible objections of the Affordable Care Act. So, in layman’s terms the Supreme Court’s ruling is that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is to be read as applying to corporations [since they are composed of individuals who use them to achieve desired ends]. Before this case was taken to the Supreme Court, the Greens [representing Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.] decided to sue Kathleen Sebelius [the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services]. This case presented …show more content…
However, within these cases there were possessors of for-profit corporations, that had sincere Christian beliefs that life began at conception [and that it would be a violation of their beliefs to allow for access to contraceptive drugs]. It should be mentioned that :
…the Greens, their children and their companies – Hobby Lobby Stores and Mardel – were also denied a preliminary injunction, but the Tenth Circuit reversed. It held that the Greens’ businesses are ‘persons’ under [the] RFRA, and that the corporations had established a likelihood of success on their RFRA claim because the contraceptive mandate substantially burdened their exercise of religion and HHS had not demonstrated a compelling interest in enforcing the mandate against them…
With this reasoning, the Greens were able to gain the favor of most of the Supreme Court Justices.
Factual Background of the
Melanson, Glen. “How the Contractualist Account of Preconception Negligence Undermines Prenatal Reproductive Autonomy.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 38.4 (Aug. 2013): 420-425. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
It’s a privately held corporation that is owned by a group of devout Evangelical Christians. The case of Hobby Lobby vs. Burwell, surrounds around the Affordable Care Act and contraception. Hobby Lobby claimed the government “cannot require businesses to provide drugs that terminate a fertilized egg if they object on religious grounds” (Fox New 2014). Hobby Lobby stated that they would pay for 16/20 contraceptives offered under the Affordable Care Act, but would not offer the four that terminated a possible fertilized fetus, as it went against their religious beliefs and religious liberty. Hobby Lobby also appealed that they have provided contraception to women for years even before the Affordable Care Act. In the end, the Supreme Court recently ruled by a 5 to 4 vote that Hobby Lobby had the right to limit what contraceptives are offered in their employee’s health care plan on religious grounds. The decision was ultimately based around the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which states that “governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification”(Tannahill 2012). In other words, Hobby Lobby was going to be burdened with federal fines for not following the law stated under the Affordable Care Act. What also compelled the Supreme Courts’ decision was that Non-Profit Organizations were already exempt
They only have one simple view. They do not want the government to require them to cover certain birth control methods, to their female employees, which goes against their religious beliefs. David Green, CEO of the arts and craft store, Hobby Lobby, Inc., explains “We believe that the principles that are taught scripturally is what we should operate our lives by … and so we cannot be a part of taking life,” employers with similar views are strictly opposed to the contraceptive method, the intrauterine device (IUD), as motioned in the beginning. IUDs are small (usually around 40 mm long), plastic, “T-shaped” devices that women will have inserted into their uteri, by her health care professional, to prevent pregnancy.
As I was looking through dozens of articles about the topic of pro-choice I came across one article that
Since the initiation of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Americans have been put back in charge of their individual health care. Under this new law, a health insurance marketplace provides a haven for individuals without insurance to gain coverage. Just this year, citizens found out early whether they qualified for Medicare or the CHIP formally known as the Children’s Health Insurance Program. So much is to be learned about the Affordable Care act and this paper provides the roles of the different governmental branches, along with other important factors associated with this law.
No other element of the Women’s Rights Movement has generated as much controversy as the debate over reproductive rights. As the movement gained momentum so did the demand for birth control, sex education, family planning and the repeal of all abortion laws. On January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision which declared abortion "fundamental right.” The ruling recognized the right of the individual “to be free from unwanted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the right of a woman to decide whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” (US Supreme Court, 1973) This federal-level ruling took effect, legalizing abortion for all women nationwide.
Over the duration of the last century, abortion in the Western hemisphere has become a largely controversial topic that affects every human being. In the United States, at current rates, one in three women will have had an abortion by the time they reach the age of 45. The questions surrounding the laws are of moral, social, and medical dilemmas that rely upon the most fundamental principles of ethics and philosophy. At the center of the argument is the not so clear cut lines dictating what life is, or is not, and where a fetus finds itself amongst its meaning. In an effort to answer the question, lawmakers are establishing public policies dictating what a woman may or may not do with consideration to her reproductive rights. The drawback, however, is that there is no agreement upon when life begins and at which point one crosses the line from unalienable rights to murder.
If the United States had unlimited funds, the appropriate response to such a high number of mentally ill Americans should naturally be to provide universal coverage that doesn’t discriminate between healthcare and mental healthcare. The United States doesn’t have unlimited funds to provide universal healthcare at this point, but the country does have the ability to stop coverage discrimination. A quarter of the 15.7 million Americans who received mental health care listed themselves as the main payer for the services, according to one survey that looked at those services from 2005 to 2009. 3 Separate research from the same agency found 45 percent of those not receiving mental health care listing cost as a barrier.3 President Obama and the advisors who helped construct The Affordable Care Act recognized the problem that confronts the mentally ill. Mental healthcare had to be more affordable and different measures had to be taken to help patients recover. Although The Affordable Care Act doesn’t provide mentally ill patients will universal coverage, the act has made substantial changes to the options available to them.
Describe two to three performance measures that an analyst could use to assess the effectiveness of the Affordable Care Act. The New York Times article discusses several.
Supreme Court in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby (2014), in which the Court ruled 5-4 against the application of the contraception mandate to “closely-held corporations” (such as Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties) with strong religious objections. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) (and not the First Amendment) as the basis for the decision. Justice Alito contended that there is a compelling state interest in providing a full range of contraception options, but the forms of contraception deemed unacceptable on religious grounds by Hobby Lobby and others could be provided to employees through “less-restrictive means” (e.g., government provision) that do not burden their rights of free exercise of religion. In a sharply-worded dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned the degree to which for-profit companies can exercise a religious right in refusing to provide contraception coverage, particularly since such companies employ a wide variety of people including those who do not share the same religious beliefs. In the aftermath of the Hobby Lobby decision, there has been an intense back-and-forth between proponents and opponents of the decision, and the contraception mandate promises to continue to be a major bone of contention in American politics for the immediate
The Supreme Court case, Planned Parenthood of PA v. Casey, wasn’t known for what it did, but mainly for what it did not do, which was not overruling Roe v. Wade, but reaffirming a woman’s right to an abortion; it questioned a state’s right to impose or place an “undue burden” on women. Planned Parenthood of PA v. Casey was argued on April 22, 1992 and the official decision was reached on June 29, 1992. The case dealt with a couple of “hot topics” including privacy and abortion. At the time, Pennsylvania had made a new abortion control law in 1988 and it was finalized in 1989. This law requires all women to get informed consent and wait twenty-four hours before they are allowed to get an abortion.
Health insurance, too many American citizens, is not an option. However, some citizens find it unnecessary. Working in the health care field, I witness the effects of uninsured patients on medical offices. Too often, I see a “self-pay” patient receive care from their doctor and then fail to pay for it. Altogether, their refusal to pay leaves the office at a loss of money and calls for patients to pay extra in covering for the cost of the care the uninsured patient received. One office visit does not seem like too big of an expense, but multiple patients failing to pay for the care they receive adds up. Imagine the hospital bills that patients fail to pay; health services in a hospital are double, sometimes triple, in price at a hospital. It is unfair that paying patients are responsible for covering these unpaid services. Luckily, the Affordable Care Act was passed on March 23, 2010, otherwise known as Obamacare. Obamacare is necessary in America because it calls for all citizens to be health insured, no worrying about pre-existing conditions, and free benefits for men and women’s health.
Although abortion has been legal for more than 30 years, the Roe vs. Wade decision is currently in jeopardy of being overturned by the Bush administration. Weddington divulged her personal fears about the decision being overturned by the court on any grounds. She stated that the damage will be long lasting and many women will suffer. Currently, there is a big effort by those opposed to abortion to give the fetus rights. Recent Bush administration regulations want to declare that a fetus is a child under the government's State Children's Health Insurance Program. This change would refute one of Weddington's arguments in Roe vs. Wade that the government has never treated the fetus as a person.
...nvolving for-profit corporations. Hobby Lobby Inc. is one of the plaintiffs. David Green and his family are the owners and say their Christian beliefs clash with parts of the laws’ mandates for comprehensive coverage. Companies that refuse to provide the coverage could be fined up to $1.3 million daily. The Obama administration has defended the law and federal officials say they have already created rules exempting certain nonprofits and religiously affiliated organizations from the requirements. The cases accepted by the Supreme Court were Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-dudley/how-evangelicals-decided-that-life-begins-at-conception_b_2072716.html (DATE) Andrusko, Dave. 2006. “Our Leader, Henry Hyde” May. http://www.nrlc.org/archive/news/2006/NRL05/EditorialPage2.html (DATE)