Every company I’ve ever worked for has had reps from the financial planning company sit down with the employees directly. They’ll say “here are the mutual funds that we recommend after speaking with your employer.” Mutual funds are very transparent about the companies they invest in. An employee who’s done their research could absolutely say “please put my 401(k) in such-and-such fund”, and there’s nothing an employer can do about that, true.
Sure, but it certainly opens the door for other closely held corporations with different “sincerely held beliefs” to sue for exclusion of their unfavored medical care/devices.
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I hadn’t heard that. If that’s true that certainly changes my opinion on the matter somewhat.
But anyway, even though I think Hobby Lobbie’s actions are worthy of criticism, this whole thing with “supporting” companies with mutual funds is rubbish.
Mutual funds are usually extremely diverse and cover a wide range of industries. Anyone with strong feelings about anything will probably be able to go through a mutual fund they invest in and find a company whose actions they find distasteful. This might be connections to a weapons maker, Big Ag, Big Pharma, or unscrupulous financial institutions.
Even if you’re like me and woefully unprepared for the future and don’t invest in a mutual fund, you can do the same thing with the products and entertainment you consume. Perhaps it isn’t direct, but removed by a generation or two through subsidiaries.
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Is that actually true? I have only ever managed my 401k online, and through my employer’s online portal I have a choice of only about 20 funds to invest in, some of which are OK but none of which are the ones I myself would choose. How would someone go about choosing others?
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As a principle of law, the court can only decide matters at hand. Of course, how one defines the matter at hand is somewhat subjective, but in this case I think the court took special care to phrase the ruling relatively narrowly, without necessarily ruling out similar future exemptions.
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So, the employees are showing by their choices that they do not share the same religious viewpoint as their employer?
And now they’re required to follow their employer’s religious tenets or else lose their job (in a lousy economy). Thanks, Supreme Court, for upholding the First Amendment so gallantly!
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As long as the employees remember who their vagina -truly- belongs to, I don’t see it as a problem.
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I can’t speak to your specific financial advisor, but I know that with my old employer, they sat down with us individually (after a powerpoint and such) and said “OK, we recommend the Foo Fund, but here’s another half-dozen funds that we and your employer recommend; here’s some brochures, and you can manage it online or by talking to a rep at this number.” At one point I was an eco-warrior hippie sort of guy, and saw that all of their funds invested in offshore oil and shale. So I called up and said “hi, can you find me a fund that focuses on green energy?” and they said sure, here’s one, and that was that. I imagine I could’ve looked on Morningstar or Fool.com and said “Can you put my 401(k) in the Foobar Fund?” and they would’ve been cool with that too.
Pssst. Probably not. Check under the bridge before investing in that conversational partner.
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Er, yes, it’s quite true that financial advisors work with their customers to find funds they want to invest in.
That is quite true, of them.
Sure, but I like them to use some legal guidelines that they are applying consistently instead of just, “Well, we would like to throw our buds here a bone.”
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Sure, for this corporation. What’s the next corporation with “deeply held religious beliefs” going to refuse to cover, now that the precedent has been set and it’s okay? Jehovah’s Witnesses denying blood transfusions?
It’s the bigger picture you’re not looking at, although frankly I think refusing to cover IUDs is bad enough. Some women can’t take hormonal birth control and rely on other methods.
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You are concerned about this case establishing a precedent for future cases, right? Not to worry!
The Roberts Court has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to ignore legal/judicial precedent when delivering rulings. Previously defined interpretations of the law mean relatively little to the court; what matters to most of the SC justices are the outcomes of cases, not methodology. When the outcome does not matter to them, they usually decline to hear the case and either punt it back to the lower courts or defer to Congress. That is, unless/until Congress interprets the issue in a disagreeable way; see Citizens United, McCutcheon, etc.
So fear not! The Roberts Court is not guided by precedent, but rather by personal whim/ideology.
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And to paraphrase @beschizza’s tweet, how long do we have to wait for Corporate Overlord X to stop providing AIDS treatments because Teh Gayz?
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To underscore your thought on the bigger picture, I think it’s worth noting that the method isn’t what’s important here. Using legal birth control X instead of legal birth control Y because of whatever reason is not important since women ought to have access to any legal form of birth control.
This is a remarkably stupid ruling and I’m a touch afraid of what comes next.
EDIT: Rock on, Justice Ginsburg:
"Any decision to use contraceptives made by a woman covered under Hobby Lobby's or Conestoga's plan will not be propelled by the Government, it will be the woman's autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults." ... "The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."
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Oh, then by all means let Hobby Lobby dictate that the 4 methods a woman can’t get, despite her medical necessity, or that her doctor think’s it’s the best option for her. No business should ever be able to dictate to a woman what her reproductive options are. There is no wiggle room on this.
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Not so fast! The Supremes have clarified that it is a broader issue, and it does cover all contraceptives, where the company objects to all contraceptives.
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[quote=“jansob1, post:4, topic:36132”]The ones they didn’t cover were the ones that they believe cause abortion of a fertilized egg; in their mind, a person.
[/quote]
You accidentally get to the root of the problem right there: Hobby Lobby is a company, not a person with rights or a MIND, just as an egg isn’t either.
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That’s … so very reassuring. 
