The Washington Post reports that the freedom-loving free marketeers at the Heritage Foundation are suggesting that Donald Trump should regulate insurance companies more heavily if he wins. In particular, they shouldn't be allowed to pay for out-of-state abortion:
The Heritage Foundation, which has been heavily involved in policy proposals for a Trump second term, has recommended that the Labor Department and Congress “should clarify” that federal labor regulations for employer-sponsored health-care plans “should not be allowed to trump states’ ability to protect innocent human life in the womb.”
If Dobbs is to be taken seriously, there's no way the federal government has the power to do this. On the downside, if Dobbs is to be taken seriously, state insurance authorities might very well have this power.
In any case, this is yet another indication—as if we needed any more—that social conservatives are in no way willing to abide by the federalism in Dobbs. They support it insofar as it killed Roe v. Wade, but their goal is to ban every abortion of any type for any resident of the United States. No surgical abortions, no pills, no traveling to other states, no traveling out of the country, nothing. That's the goal, and there's no way to stop them except to vote their asses out of office when they try to pull this stuff.
The goal is to use the law to punish sinners, full stop. That and racism supplies the GOP with voters, and malefactors of great wealth that don't want to pay taxes provide the money. To the MSM though it is all a big mystery.
Well, yeah. And I’m sure they are working to find other ways to restrict it even more. The only question is whether women are paying attention.
Wait... The people who think there are too many government regulations want more regulations? I am so confused.
Forget federalism. This proposal belies claims of want of smaller government and of a world free from Big Brother and his regulations that tell women what they can and can't do, with surveillance systems in place to ensure compliance.
Of course, calling out the hypocrisy won't compel conservatives to think twice. As Big Brother does, the doublethink and its derivative of doublespeak, hypocrisy is baked into the paternalism as a feature of control.
I suppose Republican women will never need or want an abortion.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-man-details-wifes-devastating-miscarriage-amid-states-strict-abortion-laws-nobody-uses-the-word-abortion/
"I want people to know that this really happens. My fear is that stories like ours will continue to get told and not believed," Hamilton said. "Everything in her life right now that she's having to do to get better is not just a reminder of the baby that we lost, it's a reminder of what they put her through, and she has to do it every day."
Yeah buddy... they don't care.
They want to reduce women to their status in Afghanistan. They are succeeding on reproductive rights.
I don't understand the problem, people voted for Republicans, they are getting Republican policies. It's what they voted for!!!
If they don't like it, there is a simple solution, vote for the Democrats.
One more step in the autocracy
I'm counting on the widespread variation in attitudes toward abortion among Protestant groups and within the American Catholic community to forestall the worst effects of Dobbs. The anti-abortion movement is rooted in Evangelical Christianity, and not very deeply -- it took hold only in the 1970s, I think. American Catholics are deeply divided on the issue. Also, it's just a terrible issue to hang your hat on politically. The zealous anti-abortion crowd may have pushed its line of advance as far as it can. We'll see.
Actually this seems likely to be broader than "insurance companies." Some employer insurance is purchased from insurance companies, a lot is self-funded, and self-funded plans are exempt from most state and federal regulations under ERISA. Under Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, this extends to exemption from mandates to cover contraception. So this proposal would be contrary to ERISA principles (which Burwell was not) and the result would be that employers could refuse to cover contraception *and* be prohibited from covering abortion.
Seems like the Comstock Act might be an easier lift? At least that's what Alito & Thomas seemed to be hinting.
This will never stop any Constance Gotrocks from getting one anytime and anywhere.