The Contraceptive Mandate: Birth Control or Business Control?

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on March 25th, 2014, on the Tenth Circuit Case Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius and the Third Circuit Case Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius; a ruling is expected in late June.[i] Hobby Lobby and Conestoga are two prominent examples from over 71 cases involving for-profit businesses challenging the contraceptive mandate in the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act (ACA) on the grounds that this provision violates their religious beliefs under the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause, Establishment Clause, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).[ii] Specifically, the contraceptive mandate requires that “all health insurers and non-grandfathered group health plans that offer group or individual coverage for certain preventative cost services for women without cost-sharing.”[iii] A verdict for the government has large implications for for-profit businesses such as Hobby Lobby opposing the mandate.  To explain, “The companies could face steep $100-a-day Read the rest

Super Size My Premiums Please!

An analysis and proposed solution to the health care crisis brought on by the American obesity epidemic.

 


I: The United States’ BIG Problem 

As though a perverted manifestation of the maternal warning against making an “ugly face” (“or it will be stuck like that for the rest of your life”) has actually rung true, the playground taunt of “fatty, fatty, two-by-four” is no longer a simple and vindictive pre-adolescent utterance but a fact. Much like a face stricken with a permanently contorted expression, our nation has been punished with a nationwide obesity epidemic. Throughout this article, the term epidemic is used to mean a rapid and extensive growth and not the outbreak of disease. Short of pathogen-laden Twinkies or Little Debbie being diagnosed with tuberculosis, obesity is not a disease. The United States has devoted greater attention to the obesity issue in the past year, but the country

Read the rest