Mr. Blunt and Cranky has written on the Constitutional aspects of religious entities cramming their beliefs down the gullets of their employees, the economic aspects of getting rid of the free riders from churches who hide behind their tax-exempt status, and so on. All good stuff, and important facts to know.

However, there is a very scary paradigm emerging amongst the Religious Right.  Example: Hobby Lobby tried to claim a religious exemption in order to undermine the care that their employees could get under the ACA. They said that the owners of the company had a religious objection to certain kinds of gynecological care, and so should be able to opt out of providing them to their workers. The courts have shot them down like bible-shaped skeet. So far.

Consider a more extreme (but highly probable) scenario: the First Church of Christ, Scientist. These people do not believe in medicine: they are faith-healers. So if your employers were Christian Scientists, they could deny you any and all health care coverage. You’d get nothing.  Except, perhaps, for a bunch of nimrods praying by your bedside as you died of appendicitis. This is a legal church, as legal as the Catholics, Babtists, Methodists and entitled to the same tax and legal benefits as any other religious entity.

If employers are allowed to use their personal beliefs to avoid paying for health care that they find objectionable, this writer submits that many tightwads will quickly “convert” to some sort of faith-healing sect in order to save money by denying their employees the care that that need. Soon, there would be few, if any, people covered by employer-based health care plans.

Think it couldn’t happen? Think again. In a society that rewards greed and glorifies ignorance, it is not only possible; it is predictable.

Mr. B & C