Eugene has a very good point. My employer gives me a choice of signing up for
(1) employee-only health insurance (lowest cost) , (2)
employee-plus-one-dependent insurance (higher cost), or (3)
employee-plus-two-or-more-dependents insurance (highest cost). (And then the
premiums are also differe
But wait: How can you read ACA as setting a baseline that the
parents should guarantee their adult children a full bundle of health services?
The ACA doesn't require parents to do this. It allows parents to do this, and
many parents do indeed do this, but adult children have n
Eugene and I agree that this legislator is not substantially burdened in
his religious freedom, because he is under no duty to buy a family policy.
He can avoid the burden without the government penalizing him.
So he is in a different position than employers, like Hobby Lobby, who will
have to pay
I agree; as I wrote near the start of the thread, "I'm not sympathetic
to the legislator's claim, and I'm not sure that the provision of only a
general insurance policy and not the one with the exceptions substantially
burdens the legislator's belief. Indeed, the legislator's ability to
Take the hypothetical of food stamps that cover the purchase of meat,
including pork. Could a kosher person or a Muslim who believes his
religion does not permit eating pork sue successfully to compel the
government to issue food stamps that do not permit their use to buy
pork? Wouldn't the a
I still don't understand the rhetoric of "imposing on his
daughters" here. Plaintiff is entitled, as a benefit for himself because of
his employment, to coverage for his 18-year-old daughters as well as for
himself. But it's his choice; he is entirely free to say "Sorry, gals,
Well, the Court wouldn’t have thought there was a compelled
speech claim, if the money were used to pay for old-age homes rather than for
political advocacy. But that’s just because the compelled speech doctrine
applies only to compelled exactions of money for speech purposes (a
The difference between the college scenario that Greg raises and the health
insurance scenario may be the universal entitlement to the latter that the
ACA creates. As others have said, the Missouri plaintiff is not obligated
to have a family health insurance policy, nor is he obligated to include
I appreciate Eugene’s referenced to Abood, which indeed is a trouble case. Can
it legitimately be restricted to its facts—i.e., the extraction of funds to pay
for what everyone would recognize as taking “political” positions. Would the
Court have come out the same way if the funds were used, s
I agree with Ellis that the Free Exercise Clause shouldn't
generally be read as mandating religious exemptions. But the debate these days
(at least on this blog) is usually not about the Free Exercise Clause but about
RFRAs, which do involve legislatively created exemptions (alb
I appreciate Sandy’s point, and as one of the few people who
thinks the unanimous Abood decision was unanimously mistaken, I would take it
quite a distance.
Nonetheless, Abood illustrates, I think, that even in the Free
Speech Clause context the law distinguishes
This scenario is occasionally litigated, without the religious twist, in
bitter divorces. Dad refuses to help pay for college, or refuses even to
fill out the financial aid forms, and the courts say he doesn't have to. The
support obligation ends at 18.
That obviously doesn't fit with the reali
I know this point has been made literally dozens of times before, but I
continue to be unable to ascertain the difference between “government-mandated
funding of contraception” and government-mandated funding of brutal weapons of
mass destruction or the training by the United States of personne
I fear that many of you will think I am pompous, if not arrogant, in saying
what follows, but I feel compelled to respond to Brad Pardee's post. For years
now, I have been reading all the posts on this blog, most of which have dealt
with the issue of when, on the basis of religious liberty, per
I wonder how far some would be willing to take this proposition, that a
parent's financial support for benefits to an adult child can rise to the level
of coercion/leverage that if exercised with religious motivations could have
constitutional implications.
Let me offer a different scenario, on
There's much to what Chip says in general. But, as applied, I
wonder. If refusing to support your adult child is an "externality," then
nearly everything becomes an externality. (Incidentally, does the ACA even
purport to legally require parents to include adult children under
That's one reason why I suggested it may matter whether family members all
agree, and that it could be possible for the state to offer the 18 and 19
year-old daughters a waiver of coverage, to accommodate the family's concerns.
Mark
Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
Malibu, CA 90
I'm not certain that this is a correct understanding of the purpose of freedom
of religion. It's always been my understanding that the essence of religious
freedom is that a person is not forced to choose between obeying their God and
obeying their government. That's certainly at the heart of
Cutter v. Wilkinson, and other Establishment Clause decisions (e.g.,
Caldor) teach that statutory accommodations of religion should be construed
with an eye toward possible negative externalities of the particular
acommodation sought. Would accommodation of this Missouri legislator, and
other simi
I'm still not sure I understand. This is plaintiff's insurance, which
he either has to pay for or which is provided as a perk of his job. How is he
an "officious intermeddler" under such circumstances? He's not going into
court to seek an injunction barring an 18-year-old from getting
One problem,in my opinion, is that RFRA mandates a compelling interest
test in areas unsuited to it. Regulation of employment and insurance
coverage falls within the province of the legislature, and while I am
worried about limits on freedom when the legislature gets too involved,
this is not
Eugene--
You are right that there is no obligation for you to furnish them insurance.
But under the ACA individual mandate, the children are required to have
insurance that includes certain women's health care coverage or else pay a
penalty. And we have set up a system where it is much cheaper
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