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<p>I don’t think that is true. Insurance is a huge, very profitable middle man/beast. It has never acted in a way to suggest it will do right by it’s customers without either heavy government regulation of the leverage of large groups.</p>
<p>I think women who seem less likely to use pills appropriately should be encouraged to use iud’s.
But as the sex drive is nearly as powerful as the instinct to find food & shelter, I don’t expect abstinence to work most of the time for most people. I mean sexual acts that are against the law, don’t stop some.</p>
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<p>It would require more than all of us wanting it. It would need to be a profitable business model, otherwise it won’t happen. Why would any private business take on the risk with no guarantee of a return? LasMa is right - what you are referring to is the equivalent of the public option, aka, government-run healthcare.</p>
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I could see having groups associated with professional organizations and other such things - American Society of Civil Engineers, American Physical Society, American Nurses Association, AARP. These groups often seem to get together and offer car insurance group plans, why not health insurance?</p>
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And for the married?</p>
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<p>That’s exactly my feeling. Sometimes, though, I read heated opinions that make it sound as if readily available contraception will turn Catholic campuses into—well, to quote Alicia Silverstone in “Clueless”: “Sexfest, occasional lecture.” :)</p>
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<p>Catholic women would be less likely to choose this option as the iud can be an abortifacient (because it can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting). I’m not making this comment to generate any kind of conversation on the pros and cons of certain methods (too controversial and thus verboten); I’m just pointing it out since much of this thread concerns birth control and its relationship to Catholicism.</p>
<p>There are groups that offer health insurance, but the insurance is inferior and still quite expensive because the employer subsidizes. The employers subsidize because the government subsidizes them. All group health insurance is government subsidized. Even though I’m self employed and have to pay for a personal policy, I subsidize those with employer group insurance. If you took the employer out of the picture, there would still need to be a pool of money to make the insurance affordable for the group members. People who don’t belong to a group would have to pay significantly more and perhaps couldn’t afford insurance at all. Young members in the group would gamble and not bother to buy insurance so the ones being insured would be older and sicker and insurance would cost a fortune. Gee, we’re right back where we started. The problem with the general public self insuring is that people just don’t want to pay for it until they need it. That can’t work.</p>
<p>I think it would be helpful to this discussion to know the manufacturer’s cost of producing bc pills, and the current full-price cost of a pack of pills. On this thread we’ve heard a range of $15 - $120 for the full-price cost. If we can put an end to potential price-gouging by the manufacturer, retailer, or others in the chain, then that would be one way to tackle the problem that might make both sides happy.</p>
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<p>You need to provide a credible source to support this. Credible, as in something that removes confounding factors. Correlation isn’t causation. </p>
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<p>Self-contradicting. The “relatively irresponsible” wouldn’t be using contraception regardless, in which case having ready access to same doesn’t make a bit of difference.</p>
<p>of course, that path takes you back to square one, bay. Why put price controls only onto birth control pills? Why not aids meds? Why not cancer meds? Why not condoms? Why single out birth control pills for price controls? Or, are you suggesting that all of pharma be price-contolled (which would lead it out of existence)?</p>
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<p>Male employees cannot get a prescription for birth controll pills. So, I guess that is a subset with unequal benefits.</p>
<p>Every employee who can get a prescription for birth control pills is treated the same–no co-pay.</p>
<p>Every employee who buys insulin has to make a co-payment. Thay are all treated the same. I guess that an employee who does not need insulin can be a subset that is not getting the same benefit as the employee who has a portion of the cost of insulin covered by the company’s insurance.</p>
<p>An employee who buys insulin and has a prescription for birth control pills has a co-pay and a non co-pay purchase.</p>
<p>The inequal benefits argument breaks down because to be trully equal treatment all employees would have to have the same needs. If any employee did not need a medication, then having the company insurance provide any portion of the cost for those employees who did would be unequal treatment as to benefits.</p>
<p>If a woman is unable to have children because of something beyond her control, I guess giving paid maternity leave means there are unequal employee benefits.</p>
<p>To me, equal benefits means that for each medicine or treatment that is covered, all those who seek it are treated the same.</p>
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And I disagree.</p>
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<p>The only way to do that has nothing to do with contraception. That would take very significant campaign finance reform. Nothing and no one can control big pharma, insurance or big business without it. The only thing that can bring about campaign finance reform now is a constitutional amendment. Don’t want to open that can of worms so I’ll leave it at that. That is how we know that the insurance companies don’t have a problem with this mandate. If they did, we wouldn’t be talking about it.</p>
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<p>I think there is an issue with the inflated cost of most drugs (is that why ‘generics’ were invented? - idk) The entire drug industry and pricing is so complicated and non-transparent. I don’t know that price-control is the answer, but if we knew the costs involved in producing a pack of pills, then it could encourage a competitive market for those who are uninsured, thereby potentially driving down the price. Especially if bcp were to become OTC.</p>
<p>Bay, making insurance companies provide contraception with no co-pay is one way to get the price down (in the sense of reducing the profit for pharma companies). If I walk into the drugstore with a prescription for bc pills, I’ve got no leverage, but when Acme Insurance is providing birth control pills to 2 million women, you can bet they’re right there in the pharma head office negotiating a deal with razor-thin profits for pharma.</p>
<p>zoos, thanks for your responses. I’m still trying to figure out exactly our areas of disagreement. Do you believe that insurance companies can offer no co-pay contraception with no effect on their bottom line, because of the savings from reduced prenatal/childbirth costs, or do you think that is not true?</p>
<p>Do you think insurance companies could provide insulin with no co-pay, with no effect on the bottom line, or do you think it would be more expensive (net, at the end of the year, considering all their diabetic customers) to the insurance companies to pay for people’s insulin?</p>
<p>“Why would any private business take on the risk with no guarantee of a return?”</p>
<p>Actuaries would set the rates, same as now. The insurance companies would compete on features and prices to make a profit (except for non-profits like Kaiser), same as now. The only difference is they would accept anyone who applies; we are all one big group, instead of lots of little groups.</p>
<p>The only additional government involvement is the regulation that insurers must accept anyone who wants to pay the premium the insurance company publishes for a given set of features. Government does this because we all want it this way.</p>
<p>I’m curious what people’s personal objections are to such a system.</p>
<p>vonlost, isn’t that what is happening with the ACA? Insurance companies can charge different prices based on the person’s age, but that’s all?</p>
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<p>This article identified that women as a group are significantly higher users of healthcare than males and therefore the cost often is reflected the differnce in the rates charged men and women in regular insurance policies. It also mentioned that while always higher users than the males, females useage changes depending on the age of the woman.</p>
<p>From an “equal benefits” point of view, just covering females results in inequality for the male employees.</p>
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<p>That is one way to look at it. There are at least 12 different brands of bcps (from my non-expert Google search). If those same 2 million women were shopping for the best deal in bcps, the price would come down, and we wouldn’t have to give away a little more of our personal freedom to the government.</p>
<p>Mary13, </p>
<p>The widespread availability of contraceptives has created a “contraceptive culture” that has convinced most people that there is really no connection between having sex, and babies. The opinions expressed in this thread are an example of that mentality – sex is a “right” and those who are not in the position to parent a child should not be expected to abstain from sex until their circumstances change. (I’m not referring to poor married people, or middle-class married people who are trying to wait a few years before they have another child, but unmarried people who have no intention of marrying their sexual partner and parenting children with them). </p>
<p>Unfortunately, many of those who have adopted this contraceptive culture are not actually USING contraceptives, or are not using them properly or consistently. In some cases, it’s lack of education, but in many others it is various forms of human weakness: “I didn’t think we were going to have sex – it just happened” or “He doesn’t like condoms” or “The pill messed up my body so I stopped taking it” or “I let the pills run out and forgot to refill them” or “I forgot to take the pill a few times” or “I left the diaphragm at home.” And then, of course, no contraception works perfectly. You can hand out free contraception in every workplace, and it won’t make much of a dent in these problems. </p>
<p>The types of “unintended pregnancies” that society in general and insurance companies in particular most want to reduce are also the most resistant to the sorts of solutions that work well for motivated, middle-class people. Like mandatory insurance coverage with no-copays. Which suggests that the mandate has a lot less to do with preventive health care and much more to do with politics.</p>