Forum Communications Refusing To Cover Birth Control For Employees

Apparently there is an internal food fight going on in Forum Communications Company (the organization that owns the Fargo Forum and the Grand Forks Herald and a bunch of other newspapers and television/radio stations). According to Jim Romenesko, FCC employees are using an internal company bulletin board to complain about a lack of coverage for birth control.

Here’s a screenshot he’s got of one of the FCC employee posts:

And another one:

Who else is not at all surprised, given the left-wing cant of most news reporters, that they’re taking a dogmatically left-wing view on whether or not their employer should have to cover birth control? The churlish shot about the “board of people I have never met” determining health insurance is so patently naive as to be almost funny (it would be funny if this attitude weren’t so depressingly common).

Employers have always called the shots when it comes to what the health insurance they’re paying for will and will not cover. This idea that employer-backed health insurance covering a list of specific mandates including birth control is somehow a right everybody is entitled to is an Obama-era political construct.

Obviously the conservative point of view is that something like health care coverage is a form of compensation, and compensation levels are something to be negotiated between employer and employee. I’ll bet every single FCC employee had the opportunity to review the health care policy before getting hired. If they weren’t aware that it didn’t cover birth control, whose fault is that?

It’s not like these are stupid people. These are journalists, for crying out loud.

And besides, who needs health insurance coverage for birth control? It’s really not that expensive.