The Hobby Lobby case should never have happened

Consider this hypothetical: What if the government stupidly decided that food was best distributed as an employer-based benefit? Vegan employers might be forced to contract indirectly with abattoirs under a protein mandate. This would be an entirely unnecessary burden on the employer’s conscience, one that I would oppose. Skirt steak or soy — that is #notmybossbusiness either.

These moral conflicts are easily avoidable when employers pay in cash. An employer pays a worker with wages. The moral responsibility for how that money is used now lies entirely with the worker. But in the Hobby Lobby case, much of the rhetorical battle has been about who really is “buying” the insurance. Should we consider it the employees’ purchase, because it is part of their compensation, or the employers’, because they sign on the dotted line and write the check? It’s really both. And that’s the problem.

There are other reasons to end employer-based insurance besides maintaining social peace and medical privacy. People should be able to move from job to job without gaps in coverage, or be able to quit a job and start their own company, or devote more time to their family without losing health care.