Tag: affordable health care act

Double Barreled Shotgun Aimed at Our Rights

Donald and his Republican NRA-driven Congress can’t get gun control done but they sure can come after our civil rights, which includes the right to control out own bodies.

Today, Donald Trump issued two new rules which allow employers to deny women copay-free birth control.

This is discriminatory and a direct attack on a fundamental component of the Affordable Care Act. Birth control is expensive and, for many, not affordable.

They have also cut funding to all programs that assist educating or raising kids – special needs or otherwise. But they want to force women to keep having them.

This comes from an administration that has shown total disregard and disrespect for  women, particularly lower wage earning women. It is also an all-out assault on people of color of all ages and genders.

In the past 6 weeks, we’ve also witnessed the huge distinction in attitude and attention paid by this administration to hurricane victims in Texas and Florida as compared to those in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. FYI: The people of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands cannot vote for president. One might conclude it’s all about the Donald and his base.

That’s who the Donald plays to.  His  personal obsession for attacking all things “Obama” really gets them revved, and also distracted. His base doesn’t care about Iran or North Korean, but they do care about making their religious convictions the law of this land.

Earlier in the week, the House passed a 20-week abortion ban. Now it is said to be heading to the Senate.

Read: 20-Week Abortion Ban – No Big Deal? Think Again!

The Iowa Supreme Court just upheld a 72-hour waiting period — Another REALLY big deal

Remember: Just like shotguns, elections have consequences, and we are clearly on the wrong end of this one.

You Can’t Have It Both Ways!

Sorry, Mitt, Corporations are NOT People!

Last week, the Supreme Court heard Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

This case pits corporations against women’s health care.
â–ªThe Affordable Care Act requires health insurance plans to cover contraceptives without additional cost-sharing; and
▪Hobby Lobby, Inc. (HL) does not want to comply. It is claiming that the requirement to cover contraceptives violates its “personal” religious beliefs.

But HL is a corporation, an “it”, a thing, not a person. And the founder of HL, David Green, made the decision to make HL an “it” years ago. Corporations do not have a gender, or personal identity, or religion.

That is what makes this lawsuit so completely outrageous.
A corporation is an independent legal entity owned by shareholders. This means that the corporation itself, not its shareholders, is held legally liable for the actions and debts the business incurs. When an individual or group of individuals chooses to incorporate a business, it is because that individual or group wishes to be shielded from personal liability and to realize significant tax benefits. HL and David Green have been reaping the benefits of HL being a corporation for over 41 years.

When David Green decided to incorporate HL in 1972, making it a corporation, he accepted the trade off.  Becoming a corporation limited Green’s personal liability, but it also technically made him no longer the owner. The corporation and the individual were no longer synonymous.

Officially and technically, Green became a shareholder. That means that if something bad happens – for example a child suffers lead poisoning as a result of an HL-sold craft – HL would be sued, not David Green. Green’s personal property would not be at risk.

Furthermore, all corporations enjoy great tax benefits, including the shareholders of closely-held ones, like HL. (A closely-held corporation is one in which there is only a limited number of shareholders.)

Shareholder Green and HL should be told they can’t have it both ways. And if Hobby Lobby doesn’t want to provide contraceptive coverage, the corporation should pay the fine!

The truly frightening thing is that HL could win because we have pro-corporation justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts has already tried to distinguish between the rights of corporations and closely-held corporations. Huge corporations such as Dell and Heinz are also closely-held corporations. HL grossed more than $3 billion last year and has 14,000 full time employees working in more than 600 stores. If it walks like duck, and quacks like a duck…