<p>What does the title of the thread have to do with the subsequent article and discussion?</p>
<p>Oh well, addiction is a terrible thing. Hold on (or hold your breath)…it’s only hours until the thread is reopened. Then again, all should now have the mandated health insurance and can run out an see an addiction counselor today! :-& </p>
<p>“Furthermore, if pp is outside of your network, they can be very expensive”</p>
<p>What does this mean? PP charges on a sliding scale for 0 - whatever depending on income so for low income women it cannot be too expensive since it can be really cheap. That said I do think this is weird. But there are workarounds and it’s just the beginning of a bunch of problems when you get politics involved in personal decisions. </p>
<p>This is why the issues around contraception are complicated, I have heard people say that women can get the pills elsewhere, etc, but it isn’t as simple as that. First of all, if I read the article correctly they forbid doctors from prescribing birth control, not just dispensing it. Yeah, you can order birth control pills over the internet but you need a prescription to do so, they aren’t otc (and if we tried to make them OTC, the same people who write these bans would scream bloody murder, already happened with otc morning after pills). It goes beyond that, though, because these hospitals today also run doctor’s offices as well, my local doctors office is basically owned by the local hospital, and many more are doing it…so if the hospital network covers most doctors in an area, where do you go for birth control? </p>
<p>Not to mention that those hospitals are not funded by the church alone, they take money from medicare and medicaid, and they are a public facility. Where do you draw the line? If fundamentalist Christians took over a hospital, could they forbid doctors associated with the hospital from treating gays and lesbians? Could they tell doctors if someone had an STD that they shouldn’t treat them? If Jehova’s witnesses run a hospital, should they be able to refuse to do blood transfusions? Could Christian scientists tell associated doctors not to prescribe antibiotics?</p>
<p>It is very easy to say “they can go to PP”, but in a lot of places PP has been defunded or put out of business by the same types that issue bans like this. One of the first rules of medicine is first do no harm, and that the welfare of the patient comes first, but this is saying that a hospital can tell a doctor based on religious belief who they can treat or how. Once a hospital takes the kings shilling, they are a public provider and religious belief has a strong burden to overcome, despite what some think, freedom of religion being part of the first amendment doesn’t make it supreme, and when religious groups operate in the public sphere that exemption doesn’t have the weight it does in a church, and shouldn’t. </p>
<p>There is a very scary case in front of the Supreme Court that takes this one step further. Hobby Lobby is arguing that they don’t have to pay for contraception in their health plan (which I believe is self insured), that the religious belief of the owner is such that it is a violation of his rights to have to provide that. It is a dangerous precedent, because where does this end? If the court rules his religious belief affects all his employees, why couldn’t a Jehova’s witness ban blood transfusions? Worse, why couldn’t an employer claim that his/her religious beliefs are such that they can’t hire someone who is (gay/a woman/of another faith), and that his beliefs supercedes any anti discrimination laws?</p>
<p>Religion is like any other freedom, including freedom of association, they are tempered in the public square where multiple views are.</p>
<p>What is really bad is that with the consolidation of hospitals, with hospitals merging and so forth, often Catholic and other religious group affiliated institutions are the only game around, so if the doctors and hospital are all aligned, what happens?</p>
<p>This doesn’t surprise me, a lot of this IMO is a back door way for the religious conservatives, who have been losing so many battles to have their faith beliefs as law, especially same sex marriage, are looking for back doors to get court rulings that freedom of religion can be used to roll back changes. I don’t think it is going to happen, even if SCOTUS rules on birth control in the Hobby Lobby case, i suspect the language will limit it to a very narrow focus.</p>
<p>The only thing Hobby Lobby is asking is not to be forced to pay for it. It’s interesting since they apparently had no problem paying for it until they were forced.</p>
<p>I sound like a broken record, but this is another glaring example of why we need to move towards nationalized hospitals and insurance. Many people in this country do not have a choice other than their religious hospital. Religious leaders should not be making medical decisions for us. It’s ridiculous. No, it’s disgusting and barbaric. </p>
<p>Well, I would prefer not to have politicians making those decision, either. But, it may be too late.</p>
<p>Planned parenthood in Oklahoma & I believe also Kansas does not receive federal funding. Really limits health care for women in those states. ( state officials have blocked it)
But as earlier mentioned, the merger of hospitals is limiting health care even in secular regions like Seattle Washington.</p>
<p>If you really think about it, most birth control is not health care. A woman needs birth control because of human behavior not because of an illness or sickness. Are doctor’s prescriptions really necessary except for the major stuff like IUD, etc? Why isn’t more birth control available over the counter so idiots who don’t believe in birth control can be avoided.</p>
<p>If the doctors were not employees of the hospitals they would have autonomy to practice as they liked. Unfortunately, doctors-employees rather than independent doctors are becoming the wave of the future.The bureaucracy, the regulations, the economics cause a lot of doctors to leave private practice and become employees of the hospitals. </p>
<p>Pregnancy isn’t a health condition? </p>
<p>Birth control really IS health care- it is a form of preventative medicine. There are PLENTY of health conditions that we prevent that are primarily due to human activity: asthma, etc from smoking, liver issues from drinking, the list goes on.
The only thing different about pregnancy is that we live in a sex-negative society and for some reason we consider sex-related outcomes morally bad and some consider them not worth preventing but smoking, drinking, etc- related outcomes are excused and we treat those.</p>
<p>Pregnancy is a health condition, preventing it is not a health condition. It can be prevented by behavior independent of any birth control.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s much more complicated than people disapproving of sex. Merging government and religious institutions is bound to cause problems. Who thought this was a good idea, again?</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE:</p>
<p>You all know you’re not supposed to discuss moderation on the public forum. Knock it off. I had to delete quite a few posts.</p>
<p>Even though I personally have no use for it for the forseeable future, I have no issue with birth control and do think it helps a lot of women. HOWEVER, no way do I want to live in a country with ‘nationalized’ healthcare - lived in one, and it was horrendous.</p>
<p>And also, I do think it’s up to the hospital to make that call. I may not agree with the call, but it’s not anyone’s place to tell them how to run their business - the only legitimate way I see of doing that is through making government money contengient on them providing certain health cervices. But other than that, they are a private business (as far as I know). I detest a lot of things that come under the guise of free speech, for exampe, like racist or bigoted remarks, but that doesn’t mean I want to get rid of free speech. Same here.</p>
<p>"The only thing different about pregnancy is that we live in a sex-negative society and for some reason we consider sex-related outcomes morally bad and some consider them not worth preventing but smoking, drinking, etc- related outcomes are excused and we treat those. "</p>
<p>^^^And that statement is really extreme. I think people are just advocating some personal responsibility. If you have to drive home, don’t drink at a party. If you don’t have ready access to birth control, don’t have sex until you find access. And yes, some people are just young or uneducated, but plenty of people are plain irresponsible. Impulse control issues is not an excuse to bring a new life into the world.</p>
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<p>That’s a good point, but not anyone can open a hospital like one can open most other businesses. When communities grant hospitals the right to do business in their community it is typically with requirement that they serve the public good. The question then becomes what is the public good.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, that’s an excellent point as well. I will say up front I have NO idea about the laws for opening a hospital and how this fits into that. But just because they decide not to deal with reproductive issues (or a certain aspect of it), doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t do ANY good - they might have other excellent departments. Let’s say the hospital just completely eliminated a reproductive health department, WOULD it be wrong to allow it to exist? I am not sure it would… It’s a complicated question. </p>
<p>Or, to put it another way, let’s say a hospital opened that only dealt in traditional Eastern medicine. Should that be closed down as well because they didn’t believe in certain procedures or modern drugs, or should people be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to use it?</p>
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There is a difference between nationalized healthcare in countries such as England and what is being proposed here which is nationalized health INSURANCE.</p>
<p>You’re right. I lived with that too and wouldn’t want it. But I do want to live in a country where every citizen has health insurance.</p>
<p>I was just referring to an earlier post that talked about nationalizing hospitals - that’s what I DON’T want.</p>
<p>Okay, maybe I’m missing something but I I’m not seeing the distinction apart from an entire industry being subsidized by taxpayers. The government essentially is still in control since they basically own the health care industry either way. </p>
<p>Birth control is still accessible to women in Oklahoma. At a bare minimum, there are still eight planned parenthood clinics within the state. They accept insurance, you can get services on a sliding scale down to paying zero. There may be other community clinics and other doctors that they can get prescriptions from.</p>
<p>Not saying this issue isn’t outrageous and ridiculous, that women even have to worry about getting their birth control from their own doctors. I’m just saying that people do not have to claim that women, especially poor women, are getting pregnant because of lack of access to birth control. Not that anyone is saying that here, it’s just a long and tired argument that always comes up.</p>
<p>I also would be screaming if this was happening within our state. But I would do what it took, even if I had to drive 40 miles periodically for that first doctors appointment, or take a bus, in order to get birth control.</p>