A gift certificate to a steak house is a poor analogy because the purchasing decision can only be used in one limited location on a very limited range of goods. A better analogy might be a law that said 10% of wages have to be paid in the form of food stamps which, like gov’t food stamps, can be spent on just about any staple type food one would find in a supermarket.

Here the strict vegan employer might note that many employees will spend those stamps buying food that isn’t quite vegan. Nonetheless the fact remains the purchasing decision is driven by the employee who is using her pay. The vegan is no more subsidizing non-vegan food than he is by simply paying employees cash wages….which he knows will likely to be spent in ways he disapproves.

And while we are on the subject what about a simple law that said wages have to be paid with money? You are aware 100 years ago there were ‘factory towns’ where employers paid in ‘script’ that could only be used for company housing and company stores. It sounds like your reasoning would defend the right of such an employer today who argued that only by totally controlling what his pay could be spent on could he be sure he wasn’t indirectly violating his religious beliefs by his lowly employees eager to spend their wages on immorality.

The piece you cite doesn’t make much of a case for the difference, other than to assert that religious beliefs are whatever a person who says he is religious happens to say they are. Hence you would seem to accept my hypothetical that an employer could use health coverage to also try to deny things like birth to women he thinks morally shouldn’t be having kids.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/01/7403/

The legislation even touts an altruistic sounding and rhetorically powerful title similar to the title of the ACA’s HHS mandate:”California’s Women’s Contraception Equity Act.” As the HHS mandate, the law equates women’s equity with unimpeded access to contraception. Furthermore, equally important to note, as the HHS mandate, both mandates require that employers’ offer all their employees—female and male –insurance-plans that cover contraceptive products for all employees. Likewise, the HHS mandate requires that employer-provided insurance plans cover all FDA approved contraception–contraceptive products designed and marketed to men very much included.

Returning to a more specifically jurisprudential note, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, the sole dissenter on the CSC, affirmed that the WCEA is direct violation of the Religious Clause–both the clause’s free-exercise and disestablishment parts.

In assuming the power to establish what is and is not a religious practice, Justice Janice Brown affirmed, the California legislature purposefully…

Keep in mind this argument doesn’t just limit itself to abortion or contraception. What about child birth? How about an employer who feels large families are immoral? Can he demand a policy that doesn’t cover pregnancy for 3+ kid families? Or the employer who deems single motherhood immoral and feels pregnancy should only be covered for married women? We could go on, the scientologist employer who thinks psychology is evil, the one who opposes blood and organ transplants etc.

Are these religious beliefs not worthy of respect as the employer who opposes abortion or birth control? I would say he is within his rights to hold his views but we should not consider a requirement that he provide coverage equal to him being forced to directly subsidize those things. The one making the decision to purchase childbirth over contraception, blood transfusions over no transfusions, etc. is the employee not the employer.

Joseph Knippenberg,

No, those businesses to which the mandate applies are required either (1) to provide the insurance the government requires or (2) pay a tax (or fee, or fine, or whatever you want to call it) of $2000 per employee. Since it costs considerably more than $2000 per employee to provide insurance, the company comes out ahead.

Now, there are other issues, of course. The business may want to provide its workers with insurance. It may put the business at a competitive disadvantage with similar companies that do provide insurance. On the other hand, a company that doesn’t provide insurance can afford to pay higher wages if it spends less on benefits. For some employees, it will actually be cheaper to buy insurance through a state exchange than accept it from the employer (because there are subsidies for people who buy their own insurance, whereas those who obtain insurance through an employer generally have to pay part of the cost).

I am of two minds regarding the contraceptive mandate, but it does seem to me that a business dedicated to religious principles is not necessarily being asked to make an unreasonable sacrifice to either comply with the mandate or pay the fine. Many businesses seek religious exemptions that they are denied. For example, the Amish opt out of Social Security for…

But whenever I talk about pay in the form of money, the response seems to be the employee is the one deciding to use his money for something therefore its not a concern. But you’re not paying anyone in abortions or contraceptives. You’re paying them in health coverage. How they use that coverage still seems to be their call, not yours.

Suppose you do, such mutual funds already exist. What does it have to do with the health care law or state mandates? You have a staff of say 20 or so workers who take people’s deposits and buy stocks in various companies. Before you buy a hospital chain you ask if they do abortions. If they do you don’t buy them.

How is this any different than a non-incorporated financial advisor simply telling customers “Don’t buy stock in XYZ, they are a hospital chain that does abortions but ABC does not”? If this is you followng your religious beliefs you’re free to do so either as a corporation or individual business.