How The Hobby Lobby Supreme Court Decision Is Being Distorted By Media

In headline after headline, the Supreme Court decision, siding with Hobby Lobby, is being grossly distorted by calling it a decision against a woman's reproductive health; or, more generally: contraception.  This is a complete lie.

What is not being told, is the fact that Hobby Lobby and the other litigant, Conestoga, already provided insurance with contraceptive coverage for 16 of 20 methods of contraception that were mandated by ObamaCare; meeting the contraception needs of 95% of the women working at their companies. Their's was not an argument against providing contraception or, somehow, a kind of war against women's reproductive health.  What they did object to is having to be told by Obama and his Department of Health and Human Services that they have to provide therapeutic abortion drugs such as Plan B as part of their medical insurance plans.  This is the only and true basis of their religious objection.

I think one of the most distorted headlines about the Supreme Court decision was this from NBC: "Hobby Lobby Ruling: Employers Don't Have to Cover Birth Control."  It paints "employers", in a broad brush fashion, being able to deny birth control coverage. That is simply a lie.  The decision by the high court was limited to companies that are non-public owned and whose ownership is closely held by, for example, a family -- as was the case for Hobby Lobby.  All other employers must comply with the ObamaCare mandate to provide total contraceptive coverage; including abortive drugs.

The reality is that many, if not most employers had already provided some forms of contraception; and, they did so long before ObamaCare.  It is just good business in several ways.  Coverage of contraception is a recruiting tool that is able to attract good, qualified female employees; just as other benefits would.  Also, a pregnancy can be very costly to a company.  Under existing laws, women are entitled to maternity leave with their jobs held for them when they return.  As a result, companies must hire some form of temporary help to cover the loss of a woman on leave.  While some lower level jobs are easy to cover with temporary help, some higher level vacancies must be supplemented with extremely expensive consulting and contract labor.

Now, one last important note.  ObamaCare is designed to literally destroy the system of employer-based insurance in this country.  That's why the penalty for not providing it is so low; relative to the cost of providing insurance. So, the Hobby Lobby win is a moot point because, that company, like so many others, will probably elect to pay the ObamaCare employer mandate tax penalty and force their employees to buy their own insurance through the exchanges; assuming ObamaCare hasn't been repealed.  And, once an employee is in the exchange, all forms of contraception are covered; including those designed to be abortive.

References:

New Research Shows that Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Provide the Contraceptive of Choice to Over 95% of Women it Ensures: http://reproductiveresearchaudit.com/new-research-shows-that-hobby-lobby-and-conestoga-provide-the-contraceptive-of-choice-to-over-95-of-women-it-ensures-only-330-women-likely-not-covered-for-abortion-causing-drugsdevices/

Hobby Lobby Ruling: Employers Don't Have to Cover Birth Control:  http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hobby-lobby-ruling-employers-dont-have-cover-birth-control-n144321

Obamacare And The End Of Employer-Based Health Insurance:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/2013/11/14/obamacare-and-the-end-of-employer-based-health-insurance/

Obamacare Architect Emanuel: Most Employers Will Drop Health Coverage: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Emanuel-employers-drop-health/2014/03/21/id/560906/