Fox News attacked Vice President Joe Biden for accurately explaining how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) helps free women from job lock and grants them greater independence and choice.
On the February 26 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck and guest Crystal Wright from ConservativeBlackChick.com launched a scathing attack on Biden, calling his remarks on the ACA and women “ridiculous” and “demeaning.” Wright argued that Biden “put women in stereotypes,” while claiming that Republicans “give women a choice ... you can be a career woman, you can be a stay-at-home mom.”
But even the clip of Biden's statement made on the February 25 edition of ABC's The View played during the Fox & Friends segment accurately demonstrated that his remarks referred to women's increased ability to choose their employment status because the ACA will reduce job lock. Biden noted that this will give women the ability, if they choose, to leave their jobs for other opportunities because they will not be dependent on the health care provided by that job:
BIDEN: This is about freedom. How many of you are single women, with children, in a dead-end job, you're there because of your health insurance? You would rather have the opportunity to spend the next couple years with your child until they get -- if that was your choice -- until they get into primary school. You're now trapped in that job because if you leave, you lose your health insurance. Now, you'll be able to do -- make an independent choice. Do you want to stay in that job and still have health insurance? Or do you want to stay in that job even though you can get health insurance absent that job? And it gives women a great deal more freedom.
The New York Times explains that job lock occurs “when people stay in jobs they dislike, or don't want, solely to keep their health coverage. A Harvard Business School study in 2008 estimated that 11 million workers are affected by this dilemma. Other studies show that when people don't have to worry about health insurance, they are up to 25 percent more likely to change jobs.”
Though Hasselbeck contended that women don't “just work for the free health insurance,” this ignores the 11 million workers who do, in fact, face this dilemma. The reduction in job lock enabled by the health care law will allow greater freedom and choice not only for women but for everyone in the labor force.
While Fox has repeatedly derided the reduction of job lock due to the ACA, economists praise the benefits; as The New York Times noted, the labor force can now “allocate itself more efficiently,” and reducing job lock will help spur entrepreneurship. The Congressional Budget Office also reported that the reduction of job lock will increase short-term opportunity for the unemployed, and will help stimulate economic growth.