Interior of the U.S. Supreme Court
MANCHESTER, Conn.
For years the political left has argued that medical insurance should be disconnected from employment. The national medical insurance law known as Obamacare began the disconnection, establishing government-subsidized insurance for private-sector workers and granting employers religious exemptions from providing insurance for contraception and abortion.
Nevertheless, last week the left exploded in rage when the U.S. Supreme Court, with two of its four liberal justices joining the five conservatives, upheld exemptions granted by the Trump administration to religious employers, thereby disconnecting contraceptive and abortion insurance from certain forms of employment.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal declared indignantly: "To the women of America, the message of today should be: You have a right to control your future. You have a right to control your body and your family and your health care, and we are going to fight as long and hard as necessary to make sure that right is protected."
But neither the Supreme Court nor the Trump administration has taken those rights away from anyone. The issue of the case was only who should have to pay for the insurance coverage in question -- and cost here isn't such a big deal, since most people can obtain contraceptives and even abortions for little or no cost from Planned Parenthood or similar organizations. Meanwhile government Medicaid pays for contraception and abortion for the poorest.
Besides, as Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch wrote, if insurance for contraceptives and abortion is such an important right, the government itself could provide the insurance to everyone, not just the poorest.
The political left isn't pressing this issue out of medical necessity but rather to bludgeon people whose religious convictions the left considers backward. But the right to religious convictions, however backward they seem, is ancient and was placed in the Constitution more than two centuries ago, while the right to make someone else pay for your contraception and abortion is a very recent concept.
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Now that local governments in New Haven, Windsor and Manchester, Conn., and other places have declared racism to be a "public-health crisis," what exactly is to be done about it -- and not just the supposed crisis but also the supposed racism?
Where exactly is the racism in public health? Who are the racists?
The examples offered are few and weak. Yes, the poor tend to live closer to pollution sources than the rich do, and poverty correlates with race, but housing always will be cheaper near pollution and someone always will be living closer to it than someone else.
Besides, pollution is not why the recent virus epidemic has afflicted people of color more than whites. The disparity in affliction also correlates heavily with poverty, and perhaps with biology as well, since medical authorities increasingly believe that darker skin pigment weakens immune systems by reducing the body's ability to produce Vitamin D from sunlight. (Maybe government should distribute Vitamin D pills without charge. At least that would be something.)
No, these public-health crises are being declared because cries of "Racism!" are more magical than "Open sesame!" Nobody in authority dares to talk back to such cries and attempt rational discussion, and why bother when they can be deflected with empty gestures? These days if racism is invoked as the cause of a problem, any local government might be glad to declare a crisis in flat tires, paper cuts or burnt toast.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.
