Misogynist Repug War on Women: SCOTUS Bros Clearly Don't Understand How Women ...

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SCOTUS Bros Clearly Don't Understand How Women Get Contraceptives

the conservatives on the court seemed to agree with the challengers and wondered, Why can’t all these female employees just go out and get a second insurance plan for their birth control?

“What type a burden does that impose? Is it because these exchanges are so unworkable, even with the help of a navigator, that a woman who wants to get free contraceptive coverage simply has to sign up for that on one of the exchanges?” Justice Samuel Alito asked, snarkily, about the Obamacare health insurance exchanges used by those without employer-based health care plans.

Verrilli pointed out that those sort of contraceptive-only policies don’t even exist on the exchanges, and in a hypothetical world where they did, that extra effort undercuts the reason Congress passed a mandate for preventive care in the first place.

“Her regular doctor has to say to her, 'Sorry, I can't help you.' It's not just that you don't get the prescription paid for. It's not just that he can't write the prescription, he can't counsel or educate the patient,” Verrilli said.

Alito didn’t believe that is what would happen, arguing that her regular doctor would just be paid for by whatever second plan the woman purchased. Verrilli countered it wouldn’t all happen so seamlessly.

“She'd have to go out and buy the separate plan, find a doctor who is willing to take the separate plan,” Verrilli said, but Alito's disbelief continued: Why can't Congress could simply subsidize second plans for affected female employees to purchase?

Verrilli reminded him that created the sort of jerry-rigged system Congress sought to avoid.

"Even those small barriers work as a sufficient disincentive that many fewer people use contraception,” Verrilli said.

The debate was important because it cut to the heart of what the conservative majority promised in their 2014 Hobby Lobby decision, the last Supreme Court challenge concerning Obamacare’s contraceptive regulations. The 5-4 decision saying certain for-profits didn't have to cover birth control pointed to the very accommodation for religious nonprofits that the nonprofits are objecting to now.

“The effect of the HHS-created accommodation on the women employed by Hobby Lobby and the other companies involved in these cases would be precisely zero,” Alito wrote then.

Furthermore, Justice Anthony Kennedy issued a opinion concurring with the decision stressing that contraceptive coverage for women does amount to a compelling interest for government.

Defenders of the contraceptive coverage took that opinion as a signal that he would side with them in upholding the accommodation. But in a troubling sign for them Wednesday, Kennedy seemed to buy the arguments that the women would be fine if the contraceptive coverage was not provided through their employer plans.

“If it's so easy to provide, if it's so free, why can't they just get it through another plan?” Kennedy asked Verrilli later on in the arguments.

Chief Justice John Roberts jumped in:

“So it comes down to a question of who has to do the paperwork? If it's the employee that has to do it, that's no good. If it's the religious organization that has to do it, that's okay?” he said.

As Roberts continued to insist that women could simply get contraceptive coverage on the exchanges, the liberal justices finally had enough with the idea.

“They're not on the exchanges,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor interjected. “That's a falsehood. The exchanges require full-service health insurance policies with minimum coverages that are set forth that are very comprehensive. We're creating a new program."

Justice Stephen Breyer offered an explanation of the concerns about women who are “inertia bound,” meaning that people who would benefit from contraceptive coverage but wouldn't have the initiative to get it on their own. Meanwhile Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pushed back on Roberts' suggestion it was just a matter of paperwork.

“Is it just a matter of filing the form for her, or is there a real difference between an employer saying we're not going to cover contraceptives ... and the woman who suddenly doesn't have it as part of her package and has to go out...” she said, as Verrilli jumped in to elaborate on the distinction.

A 4-4 tie would result in a patchwork of rulings across the country where the accommodation would be allowed to stand in some but not all states. To avoid that world, Kennedy would have to reject the argument Roberts espoused: That challengers’ objections to filling out a simple opt-out form, since it’s a religious objection, trumped the bureaucratic hurdles women would have to jump to get coverage, as well as the larger implications for public health.

“The difference is this: It's not just about filling out paperwork," Verrilli said in response to that argument "If you're a woman employee, you go to your regular doctor, you say you have a medical condition that puts me at risk of being pregnant, or I just want contraceptive coverage, or I need contraception to treat a medical condition ... the doctor has to say, 'I cannot help you with that.'"

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/scotus-zubik-healthcare?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

... these Repug assholes are supposed to the nation's best jurists with the best and brightest clerks. :lol

And Repug, Catholic, politicized, VRWC tool/shill Roberts was recently, falsely whining about "politicization" of the SCOTUS nomination process.
:lol

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The Right's 3 Big Myths About The Zubik Birth Control Coverage Case - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rights-3-big-myths-about-zubik-birth-control-coverage-case#sthash.dZ1BEQyg.dpuf

Myth 1: Obamacare Forces Objectors To Pay For Contraceptives

The Zubik case deals with the Affordable Care Action’s contraception coverage requirement. If a religious nonprofit employer with religious objections wants an exemption from the requirement, they can fill out a form to notify the government, which will then shift the burden of contraceptive coverage to the government and the insurance company.

The plaintiffs in the Zubik case, which is a consolidation of several cases, are challenging this accommodation, arguing that the exemption process itself amounts to a substantial burden on their religious conscience.

“Unlike in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, the 2014 case that asked whether secular, for-profit businesses should also have the right to pursue a religious exemption from the birth control benefit, the Roberts Court in Zubik v. Burwell will try to answer the question of whether completing the paperwork required to obtain that religious exemption is itself a substantial burden on religious liberty,” Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire writes (https://rewire.news/article/2016/03/21/everything-need-know-supreme-court-birth-control-case/). “If the plaintiffs win in Zubik, it could not only spell the end of the ACA’s birth control benefit; it could further open the door to launching wide-scale religiously based objections to civil rights protections.”

Indeed, some observers fear that employers could use a potential Zubik ruling to undermine health insurance coverage of vaccinations (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/02/religious_exemption_for_vaccines_christian_scienti sts_catholics_and_dutch.html) or HIV treatments (http://www.vox.com/2016/3/23/11293504/zubik-burwell-birth-control-supreme-court-hobby-lobby) if they claim such procedures violate their religious beliefs.

Myth 2: This Is About Abortifacients

Obamacare critics have frequently alleged (http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/03/22/zubik-v-burwell-the-conservative-abortifacient/209443) that the health care law forces religious groups to subsidize “abortifacients.”
But while some conservatives like to claim that certain birth control drugs are abortifacients, that doesn’t make it so. As Jamie Manson wrote (http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/what-abortifacient-and-what-it-isnt) in the National Catholic Reporter:

The HHS mandate allows women free access to all FDA-approved forms of contraception. This includes the IUDs (intrauterine devices), the drug Plan B (levonorgestrel) and a new drug called Ella (ulipristal acetate), which came on the market in 2010. Church officials and others have argued that because these three contraceptives are abortifacients, the government is forcing them to participate in the distribution of devices and drugs that cause abortion.

The reality is that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that the IUD and Plan B work only as contraceptives. Since Ella is new to the market, it has not been studied as extensively. But as of now, there is no scientific proof that Ella acts as an abortifacient, either.

There is only one drug approved to induce abortion. It is called RU-486 (mifepristone) and is not on the FDA's list of approved contraception. It is available only by prescription and no employer is forced to pay for it as part of an employee health plan.


A similar analysis by the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/health/research/morning-after-pills-dont-block-implantation-science-suggests.html) also showed that the contraceptives that some conservatives have decried as “abortifacients” do not in fact “meet abortion opponents’ definition of abortion-inducing drugs.”

The Zubik plaintiffs, it seems, are not only trying to challenge the established principles of religious liberty and the legal rights of their women employees, but they are also challenging mainstream science.

Myth 3: Religious Liberty Is Under Attack

Some Republican politicians are peddling the misconception that the Obama administration is trying to force nuns to pay for contraceptives. In reality, however, the Affordable Care Act offers religious objectors a way to avoid paying for services they find objectionable.

In this case, the employers are seeking to take away their employees’ access to birth control coverage through secular insurance plans.
The Zubik plaintiffs are taking issue with the accommodation found in the contraception mandate, which doesn’t apply at all to houses of worship and their auxiliary institutions, and which creates an exemption process for nonprofit religious employers that don’t wish to cover contraceptives.

Holly Hollman of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty points out that the plaintiffs may actually do great damage to laws (http://www.religionnews.com/2016/03/21/obamacare-religious-liberty-supreme-court/) that have created exemptions for religious institutions: “They argue the mandate’s exemption system is too narrow because these employers are not treated exactly like churches. At the same time, they argue it is too broad because if the government does not cover church employees it must not have a compelling interest in coverage. Government efforts to craft religious exemptions to protect religious liberty, while also protecting other important governmental interests, should be encouraged, not discouraged with such ‘all or nothing’ exemption claims.”

University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock similarly argues that a successful challenge “would do terrible damage to the larger cause of religious liberty (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-the-little-sisters-of-the-poor-put-religious-liberty-at-risk/2016/03/20/eaaa6a34-e4b4-11e5-a6f3-21ccdbc5f74e_story.html)” by targeting religious exemptions crafted into laws.

This is yet the latest example of the Right’s organized effort to redefine religious liberty (http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/persecution-complex-religious-right-s-deceptive-rallying-cry).

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rights-3-big-myths-about-zubik-birth-control-coverage-case

If Repugs and Christian Taliban lips are moving ...

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Supreme Court Conservatives Hate Obamacare But Have No Idea How It Actually Works


In the Hobby Lobby case a couple of years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare could not force all employer health insurance plans to cover contraception. This went too far, Samuel Alito wrote. The government might have an interest in providing women with contraceptives, but any requirement it imposes on employers with religious objections must be the least restrictive possible.

For example: "HHS has already established an accommodation for nonprofit organizations with religious objections. Under that accommodation, the organization can self-certify that it opposes providing coverage for particular contraceptive services."

That sounds great! All we have to do is put in place the HHS accommodation and we're all set. Organizations can certify that they oppose paying for contraception and their health care provider will then split apart contraceptive coverage from the overall insurance plan and set up separate payments.

At least, this sounded great at first. But three days after seemingly endorsing this solution, the court issued another ruling saying that the HHS accommodation might not be adequate after all.

Technically, you see, the Hobby Lobby opinion merely said that HHS had created an accommodation, not that the court majority necessarily approved of it. And now they weren't sure they did. It had all just been a trick.

So today the court heard arguments in yet another case involving religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage. Following up on the court's U-turn, the Little Sisters of the Poor are arguing that they object to even registering an objection. After all, that would set in motion a process that would eventually end with employees gaining access to contraceptives, which would make the nuns nominally complicit in something they consider wrong. It's all Thomist enough to make your teeth ache.

But here we are.

The question is, just how much of a burden can the government place on religious objectors?

And how much burden can they place on women who want contraception?

Those might be thorny issues at the best of times, but they become even thornier when the conservative men on the court apparently have no idea how either contraception or insurance coverage actually work.

Tierney Sneed reports: (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/scotus-zubik-healthcare)


“What type a burden does that impose? Is it because these exchanges are so unworkable, even with the help of a navigator, that a woman who wants to get free contraceptive coverage simply has to sign up for that on one of the exchanges?” Justice Samuel Alito asked, snarkily, about the Obamacare health insurance exchanges used by those without employer-based health care plans.

[Solicitor General Donald Verrilli] pointed out that those sort of contraceptive-only policies don’t even exist on the exchanges....“She'd have to go out and buy the separate plan, find a doctor who is willing to take the separate plan,” Verrilli said.

....“If it's so easy to provide, if it's so free, why can't they just get it through another plan?” [Anthony] Kennedy asked Verrilli later on in the arguments.

Chief Justice John Roberts jumped in: “So it comes down to a question of who has to do the paperwork? If it's the employee that has to do it, that's no good. If it's the religious organization that has to do it, that's okay?” he said.

As Roberts continued to insist that women could simply get contraceptive coverage on the exchanges, the liberal justices finally had enough with the idea.

“They're not on the exchanges,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor interjected.

“That's a falsehood. :lol

The exchanges require full-service health insurance policies with minimum coverages that are set forth that are very comprehensive. We're creating a new program."


This is really beyond comprehension.

These justices have already heard two major cases on Obamacare, and they've presumably read the briefs for this one. But they still seem unable to grasp the concept that you can't just go out to the exchange and buy a "contraceptive policy."

Nor do they seem to care that even if you could, it would mean not being able to get contraceptives from your regular doctor, which for some women would cause real problems with continuity of care.

Nobody expects judges to be subject matter experts on every case that comes before them. But this is kindergarten-level stuff.

How can they possibly pretend to produce a reasoned opinion if they literally have no idea how health insurance under Obamacare works in the first place?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/supreme-court-conservatives-hate-obamacare-have-no-idea-how-it-actually-works

the VRWC shill judges have no interest in a "reasoned opinion". They're POLITICALLY biased against the WH knitter and his fucking ACA.

It anybody thought Scalia's death removed inanity from the court, they were wrong. And of course, as are all conservatives, Bible humpers, they hate women, those feminazis.

It's hilarious to see the Catholic conservative men getting out smarted, out reasoned, out "opinioned" by the very women they hate.

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Speechifying, pandering to a snakepit of bankers, a misogynist MO Repug wants to desex a woman.

"Elizabeth Warren needs to be neutered!" - GOP Congressman; Her response is epic. (http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/17/1503108/--Elizabeth-Warren-needs-to-be-neutered-GOP-Congressman-Her-response-is-epic-Lol)

Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) made the comments during a panel discussion at an American Bankers Association conference Wednesday.

According to Politico, Luetkemeyer said people needed to “find a way to neuter” (http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-money/2016/03/morning-money-213256) Warren, whom he called the "Darth Vader of the financial services world."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/3/17/1503108/--Elizabeth-Warren-needs-to-be-neutered-GOP-Congressman-Her-response-is-epic-Lol