<p>My husband has coverage provided by his union. We pay out for the prescriptions (including BCP) and the union reimburses us for the total cost.</p>
<p>“If a woman can’t afford to feed her children, she probably can’t afford birth control.”</p>
<p>I agree, but in the above situation, I wonder what percentage are on food stamps and Medicaid? Does Medicaid provide free b/c? I do not think this mandate will affect the above population to any significant degree. These people are also most likely uninsured, if not covered by Medicaid.</p>
<p>I still don’t follow how insurance companies weren’t providing this free all along if it “were in their best financial interests”. Mini-you said they were, and that was evidenced by no increase in premium. Are you saying your premiums haven’t increased? How could you possibly split out if that increase were caused by providing free/no-cost bc? </p>
<p>Regarding the food issue, I think there is true hunger in this country and it is growing. I raise my own beef and vegetables. I think prices at the grocery are very high, and that’s at Wal-mart, not some specialty store with specialty items. </p>
<p>I spent an hour Friday with an expert in the animal/ag side of a pharma co. He is adamant this country will face a “food emergency” in the next 25-30 years, and that almost no one in the general population sees it coming. Much of the price of food is driven by energy costs, land costs, input costs, and the price of corn. (a bushel of corn has skyrocketed the last several years, and corn/bean prices greatly affect the cost of meat).</p>
<p>Claremarie, in hopes that you’re just not “getting” what mini’s been saying because he’s been supplying TMI, I’m going to take a stab at it: What he’s saying is that under the “outrageous” new government “mandate” HMO’s are only required to treat BCPs like any other preventive medical treatment - like flu shots, vaccinations, etc. And those things typically are provided under health plans with no co-pay required (or as you would put it, “free”) even when the HMO charges a co-pay for palliative and curative treatment. </p>
<p>The reasoning is that in the overall pool of patients covered by the health plan, total costs of providing the preventive care is less than the cost of treating the consequence of not preventing what the treatment prevents.</p>
<p>Now, some HMO’s do charge a co-pay. I assume that’s a business decision - they’re pretty savvy. If 90% of your patients will get the preventive treatment if it’s free, and 60% will still get it if they have to pay $10, you can run the numbers and see which pencils out best for the HMO by comparing the total of the $10 co-pays against the increased cost of treating however many of the 30% get sick. (And don’t doubt for a second that they do exactly that, along with figuring in the cost/benefit of running ads encouraging their members to get the preventive service.)</p>
<p>Which is why, as Mini pointed out, the insurers aren’t howling about the new rule. I’m sure they’ve figured out it isn’t going to cost them anything. My DW spent 5 weeks in the hospital before giving birth to our (unplanned) third child. We certainly had no problem with becoming a family of 5 instead of 4, and she’s the light of our lives, but I’m pretty sure Kaiser would have made out better financially if they’d given my DW free BC pills after DS#2 was born!</p>
<p>I understand that some folks don’t like to think of BCPs as “preventive health care.” After all, the “gals” can just use the “aspirin between the knees” technique, right?</p>
<p>That’s where it comes back to my point: money and power. It’s about exercising the power to make women pay for the right to have sex on their own terms - even where in the context of an HMO there is actually no net cost to the system for providing them “for free”, which is Mini’s point. There is no economic justification for denying BCP coverage in a health plan. The only reason it’s done is to wield power over women. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>LIKE!</p>
<p>kluge: Thank you for that very clear post!!</p>
<p>We really need to get a like button for Alh. :D</p>
<p>You make an excellent argument Kluge and I’m really glad, too. I’ve been trying to figure out how to say that for years, now, and now I know.</p>
<p>“There is no economic justification for denying BCP coverage in a health plan. The only reason it’s done is to wield power over women. Plain and simple.”</p>
<p>Not so plain and simple, actually. Some employers, albeit a small minority, have religious objections to contraceptives, and decline to include them in health insurance policies, even with a copay. Other employer and insurance companies have reasoned, apparently accurately, that women who are sufficiently motivated to take birth control pills, consistently and correctly, are also sufficiently motivated to absorb at least some of the costs, and so will include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans but will require the same deductibles and copays that apply to other drugs. </p>
<p>It’s certainly more fun to imagine some sort of evil conspiracy against women among employers and insurers, but the reality is a lot less dramatic. </p>
<p>And amid all of the angst about “impoverished” women who will be unfairly denied “access” to contraceptives should the government deign to exempt religiously-affiliated employers from this mandate is the reality that no one is forced to accept positions with these employers, and that employees remain free to seek employment elsewhere if having free, employer-provided contraception is essential to their life.</p>
<p>
Can you direct me to an employer who has objected to the inclusion of anything that is not directly tied to women’s sexuality in a medical plan for religious reasons? Because I’m drawing a blank on that. And if, as I suspect, every “religious objection” to inclusion of something in a health plan is directed at women, I’m going to stick with what I said.</p>
<p>The Taliban would object to inclusion of birth control in a health plan (assuming they had one.) They would say it’s because of religion. I would say it’s because they want to wield power over women. It may be that their religion instructs them to wield power over women, but that overlay doesn’t change the ultimate fact.</p>
<p>Still plain, still simple.</p>
<p>
Sure, and hey, if they have no bread, let them eat cake, right? Because we all know that everyone has an unlimited supply of job opportunities, and they can easily switch from one to the other to get the terms in the health plan they want, right? :D</p>
<p>Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers. Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother’s home.</p>
<p>Shirin Ebadi</p>
<p>Awesome, kluge, in part because there are no logical or reality-based rebuttals to your explanations. Only emotional and/or misinformed ones. Not that those won’t still be advanced, but it’s now clear that that’s what they are.</p>
<p>kluge,
Are you saying that if the mandated coverage included a male contraception pill, no one would object? I feel like the arguments against it would be the same.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>ok…mind as well close the thread, no other opinions needed.</p>
<p>“Can you direct me to an employer who has objected to the inclusion of anything that is not directly tied to women’s sexuality in a medical plan for religious reasons?”</p>
<p>Vasectomies. Also, costs associated with any sort of gender-reassignment surgery. And in vitro fertilization. Just off the top of my head. Of course, all of these are related to sexuality, but they also affect men. </p>
<p>Again, let’s remember that women remain free to use whatever contraceptive devices they like, even if they are employed by repressive religiously-affiliated organizations. They don’t remain free to demand that their employers pay for those devices. Comparing these employers to the Taliban is a bit of a stretch. Sort of like blaming prolife advocates because they aren’t sufficiently “outraged” about the food-buying decisions made by poor people in Detroit.</p>
<p>The mandate is certainly about power: the federal government usurping the power of private individuals to make business decisions.</p>
<p>“Sure, and hey, if they have no bread, let them eat cake, right? Because we all know that everyone has an unlimited supply of job opportunities, and they can easily switch from one to the other to get the terms in the health plan they want, right?”</p>
<p>Everyone has the freedom to accept the employment offer that best suits their skill sets and family needs. They also have the freedom to acquire new skills, or to move to locations with more employment opportunities, if they find that their opportunities are unduly limited.</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Unemployment Up in February](<a href=“U.S. Unemployment Up in February”>U.S. Unemployment Up in February)</p>
<p>They also have the freedom to acquire new skills, or to move to locations with more employment opportunities, if they find that their opportunities are unduly limited. </p>
<p>So if it is so easy to pay for the acquisition of new skills, why do we have so many threads about how to pay for college? And my move cross country cost thousands of dollars, including rent, housing deposits, elementary school fees, job searches, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, times are tough all over. But consider the argument some are making here – because some women lack sufficient motivation or marketable skills to obtain employment from an organization that provides them with free contraceptives, and therefore find themselves involuntarily employed by religiously-affiliated organizations declining to provide such benefits, those employers should be forced to violate their religious convictions and to provide free contraception to all employees. And that, when the employers object, the government reminds them that, after all, lots of other Catholic employers provide contraception coverage, and most self-described Catholics are using contraceptives, so obviously it’s not much of a teaching, so why all the fuss?</p>
<p>To whomever said that the gov’t should provide vouchers (like food stamps) for BCPs, I have to disagree. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I have family on welfare. In fact, on my dad’s side of the family (the one side of family that lives in the US), my household is the only one who isn’t receiving gov’t assistance. Even though my mom’s family doesn’t live in the US, if they did, at least 3/4 of them would likely receive gov’t assistance. I truly know that hardships poor people go through.</p>
<p>For 25 or 26 years now,starting with my great-grandma, every other household but mine in my dad’s family have all received gov’t assistance. When we visit them, I see the people living in areas around them that still receive gov’t assistance, and those people were receiving them 7 years ago also. If you listen to any of them (including my family) speak, they act as if welfare is their right, rather than a helping hand until they can stand on their own. There has to be a better solution than just “giving BCP away” with vouchers. There needs to be some ownership of this, IMO, otherwise it will end up like the welfare system, with a lot of wastage going on.</p>
<p>MizzBee,</p>
<p>Of course, it’s not “easy” to acquire new skills, or to move where the jobs are. Economic advancement usually requires some risk and sacrifice. Few of us would be living in this country if we didn’t have parents, grandparents, or other ancestors who were willing to take those risks and make those sacrifices. But there seem to be far too many of us who aren’t even willing to pay for our own contraceptives, let alone move across town or across the state for a better job.</p>
<p>Well, that may be how you see this argument, but I see it as an acknowledgement that birth control is the equivalent of a flu shot and that insurance companies will no longer make that particular preventative treatment optional based on the employer. It takes the private medical decision and places it back to the patient and the physician. </p>
<p>Along the way this thread has floated to class, sexual politics, government and racial freedom, abortion, classism and outright insults. We have also had brilliant posts from many that are reasonable.</p>