If your health insurance did not cover contraception, would you still have access to birth control?

[Reverend Rick]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

 

[Quintessence]

The cumulative environmental impact of a child is an order of magnitude greater than a phone or computer. Humans are grossly overpopulated. If anything, the government should be offering incentives to have zero or one child per woman.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

Two reasons:

- if you're talking about American-style health insurance, it's different because I pay for it, either directly out of my own pocket or indirectly as part of the compensation package I earn with my labour.

- if you mean government-provided health insurance, I'd say it's more like getting your optometrist exams paid for, which in my case, they are.

 

[T-Dawg]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

In addition to what the others have already said: Why shouldn't the Government give you a phone and computer? It's either that or buy them from a private company (or go without a phone/computer).

 

[Reverend Rick]

Insurance should be for an unplanned event. I don't go to my car insurance provider for money to buy oil changes or gasoline.

Birth control is for recreational sex. Should the health insurance plan pay for your dinner and movie too?

 

[Father Heathen]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

If it would help people use it who otherwise wouldn't, society as a whole benefits.

 

[Father Heathen]

Should the health insurance plan pay for your dinner and movie too?

dinner and a movie doesn't produce mewling mouths to feed.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Insurance should be for an unplanned event. I don't go to my car insurance provider for money to buy oil changes or gasoline.

So you don't have dental coverage? Or does it just not cover cleanings?

Does your health insurance not cover checkups and annual physicals?

Edit: probably a big part of the reason why you don't submit claims for your car's gas is because "car insurance" is actually collision, theft and liability insurance specifically.

Birth control is for recreational sex. Should the health insurance plan pay for your dinner and movie too?

I don't see why you have such a problem with this. I mean, every group health insurance plan I've had (and I'm talking about supplementary coverage, not our public health plan) has covered massage. If I feel kinda sore after working out - something I do entirely recreationally - I can get a massage for free. Heck - I can get a free massage for no particular reason at all.

In my experience, health insurance covers all sorts of things that aren't unplanned emergencies. Don't they have coverage like this in the States?

 

[Reverend Rick]

dinner and a movie doesn't produce mewling mouths to feed.

Neither does foreplay.

 

[Falvlun]

Neither does foreplay.

Why would you need birth control for non-mewling-mouth-producing foreplay?

Most insurance companies cover preventative care; for instance, I am entitled to a yearly physical under my insurance. In other words, health care has historically covered "oil changes".

Additionally, most insurance companies cover Viagra. I find it disgusting that birth control-- something that is actually quite useful for a woman's health and gives her a measure of control over her future-- is up for discussion, but nobody gives a second thought about an erectile dysfunction drug.

 

[Scott C.]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

The idea that people are entitled to free birth control courtesy of the tax payers is ridiculous. The liberals are phrasing this as if conservatives want to deny women access to contraceptives. Say what??

Is there any attempt to ban the sale of contrceptives? No, not in my part of the world anyway.

A private company can compensate employees as they see fit. Insurance benefits are common, but must not be required. Companies can decide how much they will contribute to insurance and how much the employee will pay. If you don't like your salary, hourly wage, vacation plan, or insurance benefits, quit and go somewhere else.

The U.S. government needs to butt out of what benefits employers offer the employees.

This does not even bring into play the added insult of requiring a church to provide benefits that run against it's doctrine.

This Obama philosophy in and of itself is enough to vote him out.

 

[Falvlun]

Although, to be fair, when I wasn't covered by insurance, I could either a) get it for free from Planned Parenthood, with appropriate documentation or b) buy it cheaply from Walmart (which is what I did). It was $27 for a 3 month supply. It's not like it's crazy expensive.

 

[dawny0826]

What would stop you from purchasing birth control on your own? Why should this be provided to you?

How is this different than the government providing you a phone or computer?

Nothing. My reproductive health is my responsibility.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Why would you need birth control for non-mewling-mouth-producing foreplay?

Most insurance companies cover preventative care; for instance, I am entitled to a yearly physical under my insurance. In other words, health care has historically covered "oil changes".

Additionally, most insurance companies cover Viagra. I find it disgusting that birth control-- something that is actually quite useful for a woman's health and gives her a measure of control over her future-- is up for discussion, but nobody gives a second thought about an erectile dysfunction drug.

I don't want to pay for some old farts Viagra either.

What this country needs is catastrophic health care coverage with a substantial deductible. We need to take responsibility for the small stuff we can afford and get help for the things we cannot afford.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I don't want to pay for some old farts Viagra either.

What this country needs is catastrophic health care coverage with a substantial deductible. We need to take responsibility for the small stuff we can afford and get help for the things we cannot afford.

So you're really opposed to dental cleanings being covered by insurance? Really?

 

[Reverend Rick]

So you're really opposed to dental cleanings being covered by insurance? Really?

Yes, you can afford that yourself. I don't have a dental plan.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, you can afford that yourself. I don't have a dental plan.

But it sounds like you don't want anyone to have it. I realize that putting regular, foreseeable events on insurance really just amounts to paying for them by installments, but if someone finds this more convenient, why shouldn't they do it if they want?

 

[Songbird]

Insurance covers gads of preventative care, not just catastrophic stuff. It pays for my kids annual well-child visits, for vaccinations, for any prescriptions (the only way a person can purchase many forms of contraception), and lots of other things that fall into non-emergency categories.

Since bringing children into the world and raising them responsibly is a huge - one of the hugest - things a person should take seriously, I support insurance-covered contraception.

It doesn't begin to compare with phones or computers.

Dawny, if your reproductive health is your (financial) responsibility, what all does that entail? The cost of labor? Things that go wrong with your reproductive system, or with labor? Prenatal visits? Pregnancy complications?

 

[doppelganger]

What this country needs is catastrophic health care coverage with a substantial deductible. We need to take responsibility for the small stuff we can afford and get help for the things we cannot afford.

I heartily agree with this.

EDIT:

Though I would add labor and delivery costs alongside catastrophic care and some sort of income assistance for very low income families and children to assist with the costs of preventative care.

 

[Mathematician]

So you don't have dental coverage? Or does it just not cover cleanings?

Does your health insurance not cover checkups and annual physicals?

Edit: probably a big part of the reason why you don't submit claims for your car's gas is because "car insurance" is actually collision, theft and liability insurance specifically.


I don't see why you have such a problem with this. I mean, every group health insurance plan I've had (and I'm talking about supplementary coverage, not our public health plan) has covered massage. If I feel kinda sore after working out - something I do entirely recreationally - I can get a massage for free. Heck - I can get a free massage for no particular reason at all.

In my experience, health insurance covers all sorts of things that aren't unplanned emergencies. Don't they have coverage like this in the States?

If you pay out of the butt, yeah.

Individually, the insurance companies do not include birth control because it allows for a higher profit margin to exclude it, but as the reform in Hawaii indicates, the net effect of having it regularly available is that it reduces costs for everyone as less unplanned children are brought into the world -- including for the insurance companies.

But just like environmental policy in a market, individual firms don't all collude to provide the most profitable aggregate solution. The economist Sraffa pointed this out in the banking industry (banks individually start to make less conservative loans during a boom cycle, not caring that on the larger scale this weakens the economy since if they don't make these loans they'll be noncompetitive either way), but it can be applied to basically any market.