Few would have thought that in 2012 one of the biggest topics of debate would be birth control.
While aspects of this debate are important, some of the rhetoric from both sides has just gone too far and way off topic.
Rush Limbaugh’s distasteful remarks about the student who testified in front of Congress completely missed the point of the debate, claiming that she was asking the government to pay for her birth control.
This was not the case. The student said insurance providers at her school, the Catholic university Georgetown, should have to cover birth control due to its other medical benefits.
The main contention for those on the other side, namely from Catholic institutions, is that institutions and organizations should not have to provide coverage for something that goes against their beliefs.
For those hysterics on the far right, the government is not going to start providing free birth control to everyone. For those hysterics on the far left, conservatives are not trying to make birth control illegal.
But while the rhetoric has been heated at times, a crucial discussion has been absent from this debate.
We buy car, life and renter’s insurance on an individual basis, so why are we reliant upon our employers to provide health insurance?
When most Americans change employers multiple times throughout their lifetime, why is our health coverage tied to where we work?
That seems impractical.
According to Dr. David Gratzer, author of “The Cure,” the reason stems from a mid-20th century change in the tax code.
In the early 1940s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted wage and price controls, making it hard for employers to lower or increase the wages for their employees. As a result, employers had to find other ways to attract workers to their business.
On October 26, 1943, according to Gratzer, “the IRS confirmed that employees were not required to pay tax on health insurance premiums paid on their behalf by their employers. Health benefits would remain tax-free, an idea codified in the new [IRS] Code of 1954.”
Prior to this time, employers rarely provided health benefits to employees, but by 1987, “70 percent of employers offered health benefits.”
As a result, we have a system of third-party payers, in which ordinary people do not really experience the true cost of their health care.
This incentive limits a person’s need to shop around, limits competition in the health care marketplace and increases health costs.
More importantly, this entire debate about Catholic institutions covering birth control would be moot without this tax incentive.
Individuals would be in charge of shopping for health insurance plans that cover the things they believe are important, and companies would not have to go against their consciences.
