Will “We” Really Be Paying Sandra Fluke’s Healthcare Insurance Premiums?*
Highlights from the transcript of Rush Limbaugh’s uber-viral Wednesday diatribe against Sandra Fluke (in case y’all missed it):
What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. (interruption) The johns? We would be the johns? No! We’re not the johns. (interruption) Yeah, that’s right. Pimp’s not the right word. Okay, so she’s not a slut. She’s “round heeled.” I take it back.
And:
Well, I guess now we know why Bill Clinton went to Georgetown and why Hillary went to Wellesley. Well, all the sex going on at Georgetown. Sandra Fluke. So much sex going on, they can’t afford birth control pills. She said that to Nancy Pelosi yesterday. Pelosi probably said, “Have you heard what Botox costs? I can relate!”
And:
So, Miss Fluke, and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives . . . we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”
Expressions of disgust by, well, everyone have flooded the news media and the general web. But, to my knowledge, no one’s asked why Limbaugh thinks “we” will be paying for Fluke’s, or other Catholic university students’, contraceptives. Or (presumably) why he thinks “we” will be paying for the contraceptives of employees covered under employer-provided healthcare insurance, whether at Catholic universities, hospitals and charities, or elsewhere.
The government doesn’t pay student medical insurance premiums; the students do. Nor does the government pay the medical insurance premiums of employees at any of the other employers who will be obligated under the ACA to provide minimum healthcare benefits; the employer and the employee together do. That, of course, is what’s caused all the controversy about whether it violates freedom-of-religion guarantees of the government to require that the healthcare insurance that Catholic universities hospitals and charities provide their employees include contraception. If the government were paying these premiums, this controversy wouldn’t exist.
So Limbaugh’s statement directed at Sandra Fluke was vile, but it wasn’t just about Fluke and other students at Catholic colleges. It targeted all women whose healthcare insurance, via premiums, covers contraception. Limbaugh called them all sluts and prostitutes, and wants them to post videotapes of the sex lives in exchange for their school’s or employer’s, and their own, payments of premiums.
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*UPDATE: Limbaugh has now issued what he characterizes as an apology to Fluke for calling her a “slut” and a “prostate,” saying that the words were ill-advised and that he didn’t intend them as directed personally at her. Earlier today, Fluke had said she’s considering suing him for libel.
The Washington Post article about Limbaugh’s statement quotes him as saying, yesterday:
Amazingly, when there is the slightest bit of opposition to this new welfare entitlement being created, then all of a sudden we hate women.
According to the Post, his statement today, a rambling press release, says:
I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?
So even as late as this evening when he released the statement, he’s claiming that taxpayerswould be paying the part of employee and student healthcare premiums that cover contraceptives. And that taxpayers pay for running pants, shorts and tank tops for employees and students who jog, but don’t pay for the Nikes and Reeboks.
Weird.
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ALSO SEE: “Insurance and Birth Control” and “Rush Limbaugh Says Tax Money Pays For Students’ and Employees’ Jogging Pants As A Welfare Entitlement,” above, posted today respectively by Jazzbumpa and me.
Umm, help me out here. No, not trying to defend Limbaugh, something a little different.
“The government doesn’t pay student medical insurance premiums; the students do. Nor does the government pay the medical insurance premiums of employees at any of the other employers who will be obligated under the ACA to provide minimum healthcare benefits; the employer and the employee together do.”
I thought that Obama’s suggestion was that employers don’t have to pay for contraception if they don’t want to (ie, Catholic etc, whatever). But that insurance companies must provide it despite not being paid for it?
Given that the cost of providing contraception doesn’t go away just because the President has said it does, where does that cost fall?
I can think of only two places: one is on the employer/employee in what they have to pay for heralth insurance or upon all buyers of health insurance who end up subsidising those employers who don’t want to pay for it but whose insurance companies must provide it.
That first solution seems to breach the idea that those who don’t want to pay for it on moral grounds have to anyway. That second seems to mean that it is indeed all having to pay for it and thus it is indeed a public issue.
So I’m really very confused as to why this solution is seen as a solution.
This is quite apart from the fact that contraception really isn’t something that’s amenable to being paid for through an insurance model anyway. Yes, sure, it’s health care, it’s important, everyone who wants it should have access to it. But handing over (just examples these numbers, entirely made up) $50 in premiums each month to get $30 of the pill, paying $20 in overhead for the service, just doesn’t seem all that sensible.
Don’t pay the premium, save the $20 and buy $30 of pills oneself. Why go through the insurance company at all?
The insurance company can buy contraceptive meds or devices at greatly reduced prices. You don’t get that break as an individual at your local pharmacy. A doctor’s visit to obtain the required prescription for a birth control med/device is also discounted. So, using the insurance model passes along savings to the insured and ultimately society as a whole. This country has maternal and infant mortality rates comparable to those of some developing countries. So, pregnancy is a medical risk even for healthy young women. I can’t see an argument against making contraception available to reduce that risk. Well, unless you’re not Limbaugh. NancyO
The insurance company can buy contraceptive meds or devices at greatly reduced prices. You don’t get that break as an individual at your local pharmacy. A doctor’s visit to obtain the required prescription for a birth control med/device is also discounted. So, using the insurance model passes along savings to the insured and ultimately society as a whole. This country has maternal and infant mortality rates comparable to those of some developing countries. So, pregnancy is a medical risk even for healthy young women. I can’t see an argument against making contraception available to reduce that risk. NancyO
Using similar logic, Allstate and State Farm can buy light bulbs and air filters at greatly reduced prices. I don’t get that break as an individual at my local hardware store. But I’m not lobbying the government to require homeowners’/renters’ insurers to mandate light bulb replacement in their policies, nor am I shopping for a policy that covers such “losses”.
As Tim alludes to, paying for insurance under any actual or theoretical construct is a negative NPV transaction to the purchaser. The more that’s covered, by government mandate or market standards, the greater the negative NPV of the transaction.
So if you have a heart attack the emergency room treatment that saves you life, but is paid for with insurance has a negative NPV?
No in that instance it doesn’t have a negative NPV.
Nor does buying 20-year term life insurance and getting hit by a bus the next day, nor buying collision insurance and wrapping your car around a tree as you drive away from the agent’s parking lot.
I guess to avoid snide comments from people who should know better, I should have been more precise and said “negative expected NPV”.
In aggregate, the purchasers of insurance are expected NPV negative, to spread the losses across the heart attack, bus attack, tree attack victitms, and to provide for return on the capital of the insurer (even in the cases of mutual insurers like State Farm or USAA, NFPs like Kaiser)
Sorry m.jed and Tim, but the figures I have seen indicate otherwise on the NPV. They appeared to indicate cost of insurance would go up a bit without the contraceptive coverage. How to sort that out in price points is something beyond my knowledge. I need to backtrack to find some numbers.
Tim, making up numbers to suit is rather offhand in this instance.
Allstate and State Farm aren’t insuring against light bulb loss or air filter depletion. They could, if anyone would buy their product. Reproductive issues are either health care or they’re not. If you come down on the side of not, then go read up on the negative health effects of pre-eclampsia, diabetes triggered by pregnancy, premature births and/or other diseases and conditions of the reproductive organs of women which carry a significant risk of disease, disability, and mortality.If a medications existed which would prevent testicular cancer or male infertility, it would clearly be appropriate to cover them in an HI policy. The same should apply to medications which prevent pregnancy as means to preventing other potentially life-threatening conditions.
Now, I don’t see infertility as a treatable medical condition. But at $10K a pop, many insurers are willing to pay for fertility treatments. The insurer pays whether the treatments are successful or not, and the cost is shared with all insureds in an HI pool. If so, why isn’t birth control coverable as well? Put it this way, how important to our economy is the health and well being of half the population? Watcha–that’s a trick question. NancyO
Oh, and don’t forget the desired result of infertility treatments–babies who are often premature, underweight, and subject to any number of neonatal conditions requiring extensive and expensive medical treatment. (Many such babies are eligible for SSI/Medicaid under special provisions for neonates. Should we as insured individuals or taxpayers share the cost of caring for these infants or should the parents be on their own? FWIW. NancyO
Tim the answer may be “nobody pays” if the costs of providing the contraception are balanced by savings in other medical care costs. And, from I’ve seen, this is about right. Further, if an insurer charged a group rate consistent with a group policy of not using contraceptives, I think the rate would be higher than the norm to cover all the additional pregnancies (and dependents). So perhaps the question isn’t who pays for the contraceptives that the bishops don’t want us to have, but who pays for all of the additional pregnancies that the bishops want us to have?
As usual, we come down to government mandating then coverage versus insurance companies choosing to provide the coverage because it makes economic sense to their shareholders/policyholders. I’m fine with the latter, and if the evidence is as strong as you cite or Rdan alludes to, have a hard time understanding why government involvement was necessary in the first place. Surely, given how price sensitive the issue is, and the apparent lack of any negative economic side effects of covering contraception, at least one insurer could’ve figured this out and gained lots of profitable market share through better underwriting, branding goodwill, and becoming a low cost provider.
Oh, I get it, Tom. So when someone who’s insured through his or her employer or through a student-insurance plan has, say, heart surgery, “we” are paying this person to have heart surgery, because, after all, this will impact the cost of premiums for everyone who’s covered through that insurance carrier?
Fluke wanted to testify against the bill that would allow employers that are not already exempt because they are actually part of religious practice (e.g., churches) to plead conscience and therefore get an exemption from compliance with the ACA for healthcare coverage of any sort that they say conflicts with the employer’s conscience. In doing that, Fluke illustrated the impact of this on students at Georgetown who pay for healthcare coverage through a student insurance plan. Student-insurance plans are not, to my knowledge, included in any mandate in the ACA; Fluke was simply using the impact of Georgetown’s student-insurance exclusion of birth-control; pills to illustrate how exemptions of that sort impact woman who have coverage that has that exclusion.
Hope I’ve helped you out here. As you requested.
Tim, not Tom. Sorry.
Tim, not Tom. Sorry.
Rdan
since I am already on the feminist ‘hit list, let me say that I think I agree with … argggh… tim and jed. health insurance ought to be to cover unexpected unaffordable events. i don’t expect health insurance to pay for my toothpaste, though i am sure that would save them costs for my eventual tooth decay related heart problems.
on the other hand, it may be that, given the intelligence of the people, it is better for me to pay for your toothpaste than to pay a higher premium to cover your heart attack.
is a puzzlement.
what i hate to see is it sold as a women’s rights issue on the one hand, or a moral issue on the other.
question: are rubbers covered by your insurance?
MJ–Many states including Southern states like GA have already mandated insurers cover various womens’ services like mammograms, treatment for breast and cervical cancer, and contraception. And, many employers health care plans cover these services otherwise. It makes sense to do so since contraception costs less than a complicated pregnancy, for example–result, cost savings. So, even if the feds didn’t require it, employers’ health ins plans would be offerring these services anyhow.
Silly me, I thought someone would say so and put a stop to all this bullshit about “religious freedom.” But a lot of the institutions and their religious leaders decided to play it as “religious persecution.” Meanwhile, insurers will be offering the same coverage and nothing will change except for one federal regulation. Oh, that and some conservatives kinda got caught in a bad spot in an election year and Limbaugh is losing sponsors. Tant pis, M’sieur Limbaugh. Tant pis. NancyO
Funny, we never had these deep economic discussions concerning the NPV of paying for boner pills for men, at $15 a pop.
Really, Rush has blown the cover off all of the dodges that this is about religious freedom, or socialism, or economic NPV. What Rush has said out loud is the real motivation which is that men are angry about women who might be having sex without them. In fact Rush was even more explicit about this when he said that he was okay paying for it if she would provide videos for his enjoyment. The truth is, this is about men controlling the sexual activities of women, which they have for centuries, and resentment about women they can’t have sex with.
Funny, we never had these deep economic discussions concerning the NPV of paying for boner pills for men, at $15 a pop.
Really, Rush has blown the cover off all of the dodges that this is about religious freedom, or socialism, or economic NPV. What Rush has said out loud is the real motivation which is that men are angry about women who might be having sex without them. In fact Rush was even more explicit about this when he said that he was okay paying for it if she would provide videos for his enjoyment. The truth is, this is about men controlling the sexual activities of women, which they have for centuries, and resentment about women they can’t have sex with.
Funny, we never had these deep economic discussions concerning the NPV of paying for boner pills for men, at $15 a pop.
Really, Rush has blown the cover off all of the dodges that this is about religious freedom, or socialism, or economic NPV. What Rush has said out loud is the real motivation which is that men are angry about women who might be having sex without them. In fact Rush was even more explicit about this when he said that he was okay paying for it if she would provide videos for his enjoyment. The truth is, this is about men controlling the sexual activities of women, which they have for centuries, and resentment about women they can’t have sex with.
Well here we go. It is instructive to see what other meds and items are covered by insurance. Viagra also has medical/health uses, the same as say estrogen/progestion contraceptive pills for endomitriosis etc…..the distinctions then between ‘lifestyle’ and medical can get quite fuzzy. Viagra is in coverage on a par with pills. No one seems to object.
It is well within insurance parameters to include a bunch of items in these categories…why pick on only one.
Rdan
let me be the first to object to covering Viagra.
let me also say i am open to being persuaded to cover b.c. pills, but the arguments i have read so far tend to offend me.
and it’s hard for me to raise an argument against without offending others.
my basic objection to any of this is that paying for an expectable moderate cost ought to be something a person budgets for, not insures for.
if the insurance co. or the government thinks that paying for b.c. saves the other customers money, or has important national general welfare implications, i would probably not object. but casting it as a moral issue, either way, ah, offends my sensibilities.
BillB
that may be “the truth” for Rush and you. It is not for me.
Though, to be honest, given what i think i know about humans, it might be a good idea for the b.c. to come “free” with the insurance so the lady doesn’t have to ask her man (husband) for money to buy pills. the poor guy probably doesn’t even know where babies come from, and certainly can’t be expected to think any more clearly about it than he does about taxes.
BillB,
I’m pretty certain that if the government mandated coverage of Viagra, all the same issues would be raised – except, I’m equally certain, Beverly wouldn’t have posted on the injustice of libertarian objections to such mandated coverage.
I’ll second coberly’s objections to coverage of Viagra, but again, it’s the difference between government mandate of such, and health insurers deciding to cover it because that’s in the best interest of the owners of such health insurers.
The reason Viagra is not mandated is because it doesn’t have to be. It’s a male drug. Every heath care plan approves Viagra as a prescription medication. There has never been any question that it should be. It is only women’s prescriptions that are ever up for debate. Funny how that works.
This idea is that you only object to the “mandate” is the same as an objection to the Civil Rights Act because it is a mandate. It’s just the mandate part of it that is the problem. Yeah, right.
The reason Viagra is not mandated is because it doesn’t have to be. It’s a male drug. Every heath care plan approves Viagra as a prescription medication. There has never been any question that it should be. It is only women’s prescriptions that are ever up for debate. Funny how that works.
This idea is that you only object to the “mandate” is the same as an objection to the Civil Rights Act because it is a mandate. It’s just the mandate part of it that is the problem. Yeah, right.
The reason Viagra is not mandated is because it doesn’t have to be. It’s a male drug. Every heath care plan approves Viagra as a prescription medication. There has never been any question that it should be. It is only women’s prescriptions that are ever up for debate. Funny how that works.
This idea is that you only object to the “mandate” is the same as an objection to the Civil Rights Act because it is a mandate. It’s just the mandate part of it that is the problem. Yeah, right.
Coberly the “unexpected” argument is frankly dumb. Historically group insurance was directed against the most predictable and expected event ever. People dying. And in most societies past and present, and particularly past, death meant funeral expenses. And in faith traditions that held beliefs in some form of afterlife, in my reading most of them, it was important to the dead person and or the family and community to get the funeral rite right. Because between piety and self-interest nobody wanted unhappy dead people hanging around. Ghosties and ghoulies and all that.
Certainly in the West the clear origins of mutual insurance are found in funeral societies and all based on the commonplace understanding that not everyone gets their three score and ten, war and disease or simple maladventure would usher some of us off this mortal coil. And maybe before we or our family had accumulated the minimum needed to give us a “proper” burial.
What funeral societies of all sorts offered was an economic time smoothing function, instead of every household being prepared at every moment in time for an event that was both inevitable and yet in large part unpredictable, a joint purse gave reasonable assurance that if and when your Brothers could give you a proper send off. Emphasis on ‘send off’, because as much as they might like you in life they didn’t really need you hanging out after.
Health insurance just extends this smoothing function and compensates for different incidences of medical conditions as against simple mortality. That is where under early modern and pre-modern conditions mortality was fairly unpredictable. Which doesn’t mean that the causes of incidence were equally distributed, 80 year old men didn’t die in childbirth by definition, just that the more modern model that most people can or should plan for the various incidences depending on actual age just ignores the larger smoothing function.
At that level the argument for including coverage for b.c. Is the same as for covering disability via Social Security, that is we know there will be enough incidence to make smoothing out costs across the whole population making economic sense. The alternative being everyone laying away enough savings to anticipate every possible instance of financial demand. Singling out women because the incidence of the particular consequence (I.e. pregnancy) is to some degree more time delineated than say cancer doesn’t make sense to me. If we are going to insure against illnesses that mostly fall on people 55+, and we do, I fail to see the logic of NOT providing similar coverage for conditions that overwhelmingly manifest between the ages of 13 and 50 and among a particular sex.
In the end it is all smoothing, or in other words socializing BOTH risk and reward.
ED is mostly already covered and so does not need to be “mandated”.
Under your logic libertarians would be equally outraged in the government mandated coverage for broken bones, or spinal injuries incurred during voluntary activities like riding motorcycles. Even Paulites and Randoids don’t go there. Or rarely anyway. Otherwise we would just ban all mutual insurance on Constitutional Freedom grounds.
When we have real world evidence of major medical insurance refusing to cover Viagra and Cialis you can get back to us. Until then this is just a strawman
http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/insurance-coverage-for-contraception-state-laws.aspx
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/03/03// Tim’s piece in Forbes on the issue
“If boys just kept a Bayer Aspirin clenched between their knees we wouldn’t have people dying on Roadsters or Crotch Rockets”
Why should I pay my hard earned money for boy-slut adrenalin addicts and their multi-thousand dollar toys? Just because they didn’t PLAN on running off the road and into that tree?
BillB
if it is “mandated” that troubles you, here is a non sexist diatribe on mandated insurance.
car insurance is mandated. as such it should be strictly “no fault”, 500 dollar deductible, and no coverage at all for sheet metal or paint. and the state should provide the coverage, say at the gas pump.
Bruce
you shouldn’t begin your argument with “just dumb.” it sets the wrong tone.
life insurance is not health insurance. i am reasonably sure i could buy a life insurance policy that would pay my heirs to pay for my funeral if that’s what they were stupid enough to do with the money. or pay for their needs, perhaps including education, if i died before they were able to care for themselves. that is, as you said, fairly predictable… except for the timing. generally if you can predict the date of your death, you won’t get the best rates.
so i think i’ll stick with my just dumb idea of paying for “unexpectd” and “high” medical costs. i am not such a troglodyte that i would rule out prior conditions.
but it’s obvious a private insurer cannot insure for prior conditions. though he can, if mandated, pay for prior conditions if the government forces him to charge his other customers enough to cover the cost.
a better plan, in my opinion, is to have the government offer, require, health insurance for all, on the idea that we all have a prior condition, just one we may not know about yet. this could be done by private insurance bidding to carry the policies of a random selection of the population under a government contract if that would solve the “big gummint” fears, while still providing for the general welfare.
meanwhile birth control is not an illness. i’ll stand by the toothpaste argument until i hear something better from the other side.
and if that is too sexist, i’ll stand by the “husband is too dumb to know where babies come from” argument, until i hear something better.
you may note i am standing by both sides of the argument.
Bruce
i don’t know about your logic, or Bill’s, but in my logic even boys who ride motorcycles aren’t planning on getting hurt. and some of them actually don’t.
though i think all of them pay higher premiums.
your “logic” would suggest that if we pay for broken bones for boys, we need to pay for babies for girls. i’m fine with that. but if we pay for b.c. pills… for boys or girls… should we pay for tires for boys who ride motorcycles?
i’m sure you can see the logic of that.
i hate to say this, but
back in the day when i rode a motorcycle i had no problem finding a girl who wanted to ride behind me.
we probably should have exchanged insurance cards before… before… you know.
Whole life insurance is not term life insurance. Car insurance is not renters insurance. But there is a commonality in the overarching concept of mutual or group insurance.
My point is that you tried to draw too narrow a line between ‘expected’ and ‘unexpected’. Historically and practically that is not how insurance worked or works. Instead you seem over invested in the concept of ‘causality insurance’ while neglectful of the social, smoothing component.
As to “dumb” I doubt either you or me will ever get induction in the “Civility Hall of Fame”. Stupid is as stupid does. And even friends put foots wrong and need to be pulled up short. Often not appreciating the grab at their collar.
“higher premiums”
If you have employer paid health insurance there mostly are not individual risk variations. If you have major medical you have major medical whether your hobby is perusing antique catalogs or ski-ing out of bounds. Sports stars and major executives might have contractual exceptions, but for your average Boeing Machinist your company paid premium doesn’t vary depending on whether you spend your off time trolling for salmon on the Sound OE hang gliding off some mountain. Now overall claim history will have an effect over time. On the employer. The employee? Not so much. And in some cases, including dependent health status pre-screening for risk on group plans is actually illegal.
Coberly, it took me a long time to figure out that the Very Serious People think the way we in the lower orders get health care is through insurance. That’s it–the only way. So, whatever comes or goes whether it’s tooth decay, orthodontia, or bc you get it throught the masters of medical care, health insurance companies. True, some people can get single payer insurance like Medicaid, Medicare, or VA medical benefits. But, they’re the minority. So, the idea that routine stuff like reproductive functions can’t be paid for through insurance doesn’t apply. That’s all.NancyO
Sorry Tim:
When ever I come out here and advocate direct labor cost in manaufacturing and yes even in services; I run up against the wall of such benefits are a part of labor cost and should be included when comparing against LCC. Why is it different now?
If the cost of keeping your daughter, your wife, and your sister sexually free and unimpregnanted a part of Labor Cost as in healthcare insurance or an add on to wages paid to the employee; why does any make believe religion or ramshackle church have an issue with it when the employee actually pays for it. Why does the argument on labor costs change when it involves a woman having sex with some over anxious male who can’t keep his zipper zipped? The businesses and churches do not pay if this is still the argument for healthcare and what it encompasses as much as Labor in the overall cost of it which makes Labor more expensive in the US than everywhere and negates the productivity of the US in comparison. But then we can always ramp down to such places as Africa where having numerous children insures your genes are carried beyond the parents.
I find the duplicity of the limbaughs and the Republicans to be silly when they choose such an argument in denying women birth control. Lets be clear, the government already subsiizes healthcare as a deduction on corporate taxes, on flex plans, and also on your itemized income returns if beyond a certain limit and self employed. Employees pay for 100% of healthcare beyond such deductions as businesses take into account the overall cost of Labor when they hire employees or furlough them or fire them. If that total cost of Labor is too high then the employee disappears. So lets call it what it is in this scenario . . . gross wages.
Each of us pays for healthcare in our overall wages and in the taxbreaks to corporations (gov subsidies). The argument is still about overall labor costs and direct labor costs Tim, somthing you and Jed seem to miss.
You’ve hit upon a really important point, run: that employee healthcare coverage benefits are part of the employee’s compensation, and so the employee, not the Catholic university, hospital or charity, is paying for the benefit, even when the healthcare benefit is covered completely by the employer and the employee does not have to kick in for part of the premium—and that the government, too, pays part, via the tax credit. So, basically, employee healthcare benefits are paid entirely by the employee and the government.
I’ve been dismayed for a very long time that during the healthcare debates dating back to the ‘90s and going forward, and during all the discussion about manufacturing moving overseas, it’s almost never mentioned that manufacturers in places like Germany, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Canada, healthcare is not a cost of labor. It’s provided through the government, via a progressive taxation system.
“meanwhile birth control is not an illness”
In many cases it actually is prescribed to treat an illness. This fact seems remains frequently unaddressed by the opposing side in all this manufactured controversy.
Why exchange insurance cards when you could just exchange aspirin packets, one each for each set of knees? But not Baby Aspirin, at that point the irony would kill even St. Joseph.
Mrs. R summed this up in her own blunt manner.
“If the man is too cheap to provide contraception, don’t have sex with him.”
Much of this discussion has gotten off the real points, namely:
Is there a “right” to paid contraception?
Can the federal government force employers to pay for a specific menu of services?
By the way, I’m in favor of policies including contraception, but that is not the real isse.
Great point, Bruce. Guess “we” are paying skiers to ski, mountain climbers to mountain climb, high school football players to play football, etc.
Is there a “right” to paid contraception? Yes, if the government creates that right in a statute like the ACA, and the statute is not stricken down as unconstitutional.
Can the federal government force employers to pay for a specific menu of services? The Supreme Court will answer that question by July 1.
Is there a “right” to paid contraception? Yes, if the government creates that right in a statute like the ACA and the statute is not ruled unconstitutional.
Can the federal government force employers to pay for a specific menu of services? The Supreme Court will answer that question by July 1.
STR–Mrs. R has a good point. But, the kind of contraception a man can provide outside of some kind of longterm relationship is unreliable and likely to fail altogether. Most men take the view that contraception is the woman’s responsibility. One way or another, protracted conversation on the subject of who’s providing what is not the usual course of events in such situations, IIRC. It’s better for women to provide their own protection.
Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical company, the provider and the insurance company are between the woman and her medication/device. Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to have single payer or socialized medicine? What’s that? We already decided that was too sensible for the USA? Ok. Never mind. NancyO
If a state can require a driver to have collision and uninsured driver automobile insurance, why can’t the federal govt require specific coverages? By what theory does a state have more power to regulate its citizens’s personal behavior than the federal government? Where is that in the 10th amendment? NancyO
Bruce
i was writing a comment on a blog, not a ph.d. dissertation on the philosophy of insurance.
in my 50’s era mind you buy insurance to cover the big expenses you hope you never have.
i am aware that this is not quite the way things are done nowadays. but it’s murky. i think the line you drew about burial insurance was incorrect… you are not paying the npv for your burial on the installment plan, you are buying insurance against the possibility of needing a funeral before you have save up for one.
some folks have told me that Social Security is NOT insurance because the event is very predictable and the premium way too high compared to the pay off. i told them they failed to understand either insurance or the “risk” that SS covers. but as I think you know very well, trapping yourself i the “word” while failing utterly to understand the “world” is a mark of stupidity, sometimes at a very high level of education.
please feel free to call me dumb any time you wish. among friends it does not hurt.
oh, if i was drawing too narrow a line, it’s because i was trying to make a point.
bruce
very funny, all three.
Beverly and Bruce
it seems to me you still overlook the fact that mt climbers don’t fall down every month. it is still a difference between paying for “unexpected” and for “expected.”
i can be persuaded. but not by arm waving.
Nancy
i think you are right. i think. but there is still an issue about whether paying for tooth paste is something we want to do. and it comes down to the costs and risks of not paying for it, given the way people actually behave. not the way Rush, or Worstall, or even coberly, think they ought to behave.
rusty
mrs R has a point, but it is dangerously close to Rush’s point.
Nancy
men really do not know where babies come from. it just isn’t in their genes. i assume women are smarter. though as you point out, under the influence of Darwin’s ol’ love potion number nine, it just isn’t something anybody is thinking about at the time.
well, nancy
paying for contraception is not “regulating personal behavior.”
but beverly is right that the government (that’s us) can create such a right,
and i would hope even the government is smart enough to write a “menu of services” that does not poke a stick in the eye of the religious right.
after all, what a woman and her doctor decide is between them. is there no right to privacy?
so if the insurance is req’d to pay for “all prescriptions” wouldn’t that solve the dilemma?
but note, friends, that once the insurance is “required,” you have Government Medical Care.
which you may want. or need whether you want it or not.
and yes,
my dear friends on the right:
if there is no right to privacy, where the hell is your “small government” and “freedom”?
Tim, I agree with you. This is about “free stuff”, not contraception or abortion. People who compare free contraception with pooled insurance premiums covering heart surgery are simply illogical. Those who claim that an employee is really paying the cost that the employer is paying are just silly. The truly cynical will view it as a means for the government to reduce children born into poverty. Of course, that is entirely discriminatory and manipulative at its root. It is also likely to be about as successful at reducing heath costs as free school lunches have been at improving academic performance. At its heart, this is a campaign driven non-issue raised by the Dems to bait to Repubs into a pretend women’s rights debate, but it is working. How easily we are manipulated…
Another totally illogical question. The state requires insurance to protect the potential victims in an auto accident. Are you saying that the government can require contraceptive coverage to protect the populace from pregnant people? Are you saying that the government must require free contraceptive coverage because condoms are too expensive or inaccessible? Or are you really saying that some people want the more expensive prescription contraceptives for free? That would be my guess…
Nancy,
Too bad aout the men you seem to have been involved with.
STR:
Employers do not pay, employees pay
FJM:
Tell me how? When infrastructural costs rise in the US, the jobs move to a LCC which denies the most basic of servises such as clean water. The issue id preventitive as opposed to accidental. If you prevent you lower the overall cost. So explain sillly if you can FJM. I am all ears.
FJM:
Tell me how? When infrastructural costs rise in the US, the jobs move to a LCC which denies the most basic of servises such as clean water. The issue is preventitive as opposed to accidental. If you prevent you lower the overall cost. The reduction in healthcare costs starts with the healthcare industry which has had a free lunch to date. So explain sillly if you can FJM. I am all ears.
FJM:
Sexist?
Actually, FJM, no one in the controversy, least of all Sandra Fluke, is asking that the government provide contraceptives for free, or that the government provide anything other than the requirement that oral contraception be included in medical insurance coverage plans provided by employers to their employees. (Fluke also was asking that it be required in college-student medical coverage plans.) Which is the point of my posts—this one and a follow-up one I posted this morning.
But maybe you can answer this question: Why do conservatives like Limbaugh and you keep saying that the issue is whether the government should provide contraceptives at all, much less provide it for free? Do conservatives like Limbaugh and you think Catholic universities and hospitals are government-owned or that the medical insurance they provide to their employees and, in the case of universities, students are paid for the government? If not, why do you folks keep saying tax money would pay for this? And is it only contraceptives that you think tax money would pay for as welfare entitlements for these employees and students, or, say, orthopedic surgery and treatment for stroke?
And how do you think this would this work? Would the government give these organizations the money to pay the insurance premiums, or would the government instead just pay, say, Blue Cross the premium money directly?
FJM you are not Spock, maybe you could back off the ‘illogical’. At least until you show you are actually engaging with the arguments.
There are kinds of life and lifestyle choices that change your likelihood of needing major medical intervention for such things as heart attacks and severed spines. And a lot of those choices are associated with recreational activities of all sorts from skiing to mountain climbing to driving your Crotch Rocket at 130 or for that matter gorging on ribs, wings, and micros at your local sports bar. Or to bring it closer to the current case buying and drinking round after round of shots in hopes of getting the pants off that girl down the bar by getting her drunk, er I meant ‘relaxed’ and ‘receptive’. But if we use the pure opposition of voluntary vs external causality to determine what should be covered by insurance we would deny it to the drunken frat guy that fell through a plate glass window while going to the head between shots while allowing it to the guy that got thrown through that window because the girl he was hitting on didn’t alert him to the existence of her violent jealous boyfriend.
But most people, and certain nearly all (male) libertarians would reject the concept of a universal nanny state needed to distinguish between worthy sufferers of ‘accidents’ from unworthy people who chose to put themselves in harms way. Even if you could draw the line.
No what we have here is the claim that “Good girls don’t (or shouldn’t) while boys will be boys” hiding under some attempted logic and language chopping cover. And throwing in “silly” and totaled unsourced talking points about school lunches isn’t helping here. Instead you are just projecting the faults you want to see in others Beam, Mote, Eye style.
I think you need to elevate your game here, certainly you are not remotely in Worstalls ‘Worthy Opponent’ status.
I second Bruce’s comment on FJM.
rdan – still waiting for those backtracked figures to which you alluded.
I just received them from an expert souce. This evening…sorry for the delay but finding them on my own was too time involved.
“Tim, I agree with you,” you say? “This is about ‘free stuff’, not contraception or abortion,” you say? I’ll happily let Tim speak for himself, if he wishes, but his article and comments here sure seem pretty clear that he’s not claiming that Fluke is asking for free contraceptives; that he recognizes that, to the contrary, she’s asking that the law require that contraceptives be covered in college students’ and employees’ health insurance plans irrespective of any religious affiliation; that he also recognizes that the premiums for these health insurance plans are not paid by the government but instead by the student or the employer or employee; and that he most definitely thinks the issue is whether contraception should be covered under private medical insurance plans.
Actually, FJM, as I said above, no one in the controversy, least of all Sandra Fluke, is asking that the government provide contraceptives for free, or that the government provide anything other than the requirement that oral contraception be included in medical insurance coverage plans provided by employers to their employees. (Fluke also was asking that it be required in college-student medical coverage plans.) Which is the point of my posts—this one and a follow-up one I posted this morning.
But you’re the one claiming to be logical here, so please answer the question I posed to you in that post above: Why do conservatives like Limbaugh and you keep saying that the issue is whether the government should provide contraceptives at all, much less provide it for free? Do conservatives like Limbaugh and you think Catholic universities and hospitals are government-owned or that the medical insurance they provide to their employees and, in the case of universities, students are paid for the government? If not, why do you folks keep saying tax money would pay for this? And is it only contraceptives that you think tax money would pay for as welfare entitlements for these employees and students, or, say, orthopedic surgery and treatment for stroke?
And how, exactly, do you think this would this work? Would the government give these organizations the money to pay the insurance premiums, or would the government instead just pay, say, Blue Cross the premium money directly?
Do answer logically.
The problem is that people are assuming and forming their opinion on to why women are taking birth control pill. Whether it is for extreme pms, an ovarian cyst, or not to get pregnant, it is simply no one’s business and should not be up for discussion. It is degrading to all women when people suggest they just get condoms. It is a smug argument from people who have no say. The government’s mandate is pathetic because it should have been covered for those who chose to take it without the government having to step in and help them.
According to fellow class mates at her law school, Sandra has slept with every single professor she could. She is the typical woman who will spread her legs for “anything” that can stick it to her. “Anything” human or otherwise.
According to fellow class mates at her law school, Sandra has slept with every single professor she could. She is the typical woman who will spread her legs for “anything” that can stick it to her. “Anything” human or otherwise.