Well some of us Men pay for Condoms, other of us Males have paid for a vasectomy. Neither of which the woman’s insurance pays for.
And if either fail, we get to pay for Child Support.
I’ll also point out that in the “traditional family” the man works and the wife stays home with the kids, and thus the man pays for all the Insurances and cost.
Where do you get the idea it all goes down on the female? I have never been asked to help pay for “the Pill” (although I certainly would chip in if asked) but I have bought Contraceptive Foam, and I did pay for an abortion once (even though she admitted it might have been another guy’s also).
Well I do believe that oral contraceptives are the most popular form of birth control, so it would seem that women get stuck footing the contraceptive bill most of the time.
As for child support, the man is not completely responsible for the child’s needs- the woman is also financially responsible. So child support does not make up for men who don’t pay for birth control.
I did exclude the “traditional family” from my example.
My idea that it “all goes down all the female” comes completely from my personal experience- I have been on birth control since the age of 16, and I had to go to the Health Department to do it because my parents could no longer afford health insurance. So, a lot of my anger is directed at insurance companies generally, who like to fuck people over in the name of money. And, women IMO are getting pretty royally fucked in this case. If I’m not on the pill, and/or don’t have latex-free condoms that I can use, I’m SOL. Only once, ever, did a guy go out of his way to buy the latex-free condoms for me, and that was a guy I was very casually involved with for a few months. My last boyfriend (of 2 years!) would have balked if I asked him to fork over half the money for the pill. That is one of the many reasons we’re not together anymore.
I’m not saying that men never pay any sort of contraceptive/pregnancy-related costs. It’s just that, the attitude of most of the men I’ve met has been that it’s completely the woman’s problem and they don’t have to take responsibility for it. Now, male Dopers may, by and large, find such a statement ludicrous, but then, Dopers in general seem to be more thoughtful/educated than the random schmucks you run into IRL. Is a single woman, who isn’t in a serious relationship but is dating casually, going to ask a casual, non-committed partner to cough up his half of the birth control $ that month? I doubt it. Now, obviously, as the woman bears the brunt of the consequences of pregnancy, she should make sure that she has an effective method of birth control handy. But should her casual partner get a pass? No. That’s why I was suggesting that perhaps men should pay slightly more than they currently do for health insurance, to make up for all the partners they’ve had that they never paid a dime of contraception/pregnancy costs.
You’ve already said that, if asked, you’d gladly fork over half of the money for the pill or, presumably, whatever type of contraceptives used. And you’ve said that you have paid for contraception, and an abortion. But have you split the cost of contraception with every partner you’ve ever had? I doubt it. So you have, in effect, gotten a “free ride” with every partner you’ve ever had when you didn’t split the cost of birth control. Now, I’d say you probably made up for it by paying for an abortion that was probably not your problem, but I’d guess that most men don’t fit into that category.
So, all I’m saying is that sharing the cost of health insurance more equally between men and women does not strike me as discrimination against men, considering a lot of the extra medical expenditures women have are due to contraception and pregnancy, which men are 50% responsible for. And charging women more for health insurance, and not covering services that most women need, is discriminatory IMO, since it sorta leaves out that whole penis bit. We’re not talking about virgin births here.
As for longer life expectancies, because someone asked whether women getting more of a payout from Medicare when they put in just as much money from men wasn’t discriminatory- somewhere back in one of my dozen posts, I have a figure that stated that Medicare pays out 12% more each year to men. So women may live longer, but they’re getting less from Medicare each year than men. I don’t know if it equals out in the end, but it certainly seems possible.
That’s all well and good. I’ll admit that I’m no great shakes at math, but I do understand what actuaries do for a living, even if I may not understand the calculations that lead them to certain conclusions. I suppose my main point of contention is this: Most people will agree that chemotherapy or heart disease medication are necessary parts of health insurance. I mean, health insurance does shit for you if it doesn’t pay to treat the 2 most common causes of death. So, obviously, insurance companies have to cover them, because otherwise no one wants to buy it, right? I mean, I’m sure there’d be outrage if health insurers refused to cover heart disease and cancer.
But I feel, considering that I’m the one (90% of the time) who’s going to be stuck with 1) paying for prenatal care 2) taking care of the kids and 3) putting my life on hold if I get pregnant, that birth control is a medical necessity. No question. I have made my arguments already about why I feel that way, and do not wish to reiterate them here. So, the fact that health insurance companies choose not to cover contraception, when coupled with decisions in the past regarding services necessary to a woman’s health (not covering pregnancy? what the fuck is wrong with you?!) that smacks of, at the very least, ignorance and short-sightedness, if not downright discrimination. As some insurance companies DO cover contraception, it is obviously not the huge money drain that you may think. And the other ones should find ways to make it profitable, because 50 effing % of the population needs it! It boils down to insurance companies fucking people over for a profit, it’s just in this case they’re singling out those with vaginas. Because the big wigs don’t have vaginas.
Obviously it’s going to take another federal law (like the 1978 Pregnancy Non-Discrimination Act) to force the 40% of insurance companies who don’t cover the pill, and the much larger % who don’t cover diaphragms etc, to cover prescription contraception. And the fact that it’s going to take a federal law to do that, just like with pregnancy and Pap smears and mammograms, is outrageous. I hope that all the men responsible for this decision lose all the women in their lives in childbirth or to cervical and breast cancer. Assholes.
Sorry, I tried to keep the vitriol out of my previous posts, but it came out a bit here. None of it is directed at anyone here personally.
Bottom line is, health insurance companies better serve men’s needs. Be that because of outright discrimination (or the evil male insurance cabal if you like ) or just short-sightedness and idiocy on the part of the penis-possessors, it sucks either way, and pisses me off.
AFAIK, both men and women pay the same for insurance? True, far too many insurance companies do not cover “the Pill” (which I think they should).
I guess you can say I got a free ride. But I didn’t ask for them to pay for dinner or gas, they didn’t ask me to pay for their pill. Certainly I would have been amenable to a fair split.
Again, aren’t the rates the same for men and women?
I’m sure there are some companies that don’t take gender into consideration. I mean, look at Medicare/aid. AFAIK, they take the same FICA tax out of everyone’s paycheck.
But that’s not private insurance companies. There was the one poster upthread who was going to be charged $92 versus the $35 they charged men. Of course, you’ve got HMOs and PPOs or whatever other acronym. You can’t generalize across the board. But it depends on what type of insurance you have. My previous health insurance company charged a flat rate, regardless of age, sex, medical history ($300 a month!). But the one before that had a detailed questionnaire that asked for things like age, sex, smoking, family medical history, etc. And obviously those companies wouldn’t bother with that paperwork unless they were going to use it to calculate the “risk” of insuring you. I can’t remember if they paid for contraception, at the time I was just 18 and a student and so still eligible for free contraception through the Health Department.
Whatever cite I had back there said that women pay 68% more for health care, with out-of-pocket costs for contraception accounting for a lot of it. And there was that other study that said women’s health care costs were 34% more than men’s- 40% of that extra 34% due to reproductive health services and 60% due to longer life spans. Like I said, I’m not great at math, but I can’t figure out why the one number is double the other.
Somebody used the example of deductibles- a man and woman with a $1000 deductible, and the man’s annual health care costs around $1100, the woman’s about $1400. So they both pay that first $1000, and the insurance company pays out $100 for the man and $400 for the woman, thus justifying charging women 4x as much.
But that doesn’t make any sense to me. My previous experience with health insurance (and believe me, I don’t have a lot- most places haven’t offered it) was that general health care, e.g. doctor’s visits and prescriptions, have a co-pay- $15 or $20 or whatever. The deductible only comes into play when you’ve got major hospital bills or bloodwork or whatever. So I still don’t see how you could justify charging a woman so much more, particularly if they don’t cover contraception. Say I went to my GP and GYN once a year- on my old insurance plan that would cost me $55. Say the full price for that was 3x as much- the doctors charged my insurance company $165, less the $55 I paid in copays- so $110. Shit, make it $120 to make the math easier. If the man doesn’t go to the doctor at all, I’ve cost the insurance company $120 more than the man- so I could see them charging me $10 extra dollars a month. Maybe $20, if they actually covered contraception. But to charge almost triple- that is insane to me. To charge that much, because of the risk of pregnancy, but then not to cover birth control- there’s something fundamentally wrong there.
That’s my only issue. I know the situation is complex, and I don’t have the time, ability, or desire to crunch the numbers. Some insurers cover contraception, so it seems to me that it is financially possible for them to do that and still make money. My problem is with the ones that still don’t cover it, because they might not be able to make as much money. For women, being able to decide when and if they want to have children is a Big Fucking Deal[sup]TM[/sup], and for the guys who control the purse strings to tell us, basically, to quit fucking whining and pay for it ourselves, angers me beyond belief.
Family law courts are notoriously biased against men. All other things being equal, the woman almost always gets custody and the man almost always pays child support.
Perhaps the problem is in the men you choose to date. In my experience, I have frequently taken the responsibility for birth control.
Funny, I’ve experienced that attitude from many women. Rather than blaming all men, maybe you should just accept that some people are more responsible than others, and that there’s no way you can make a blanket generalization about it.
Well I wouldn’t dream of getting in bed with a woman and asking her to pay for half the box of condoms I just bought. She’d think me rather a schmuck if I did that, don’t you think?
This is bullshit. The man is every bit as legally responsible for a child he conceives as the woman is.
This is really just starting to sound like you hate men. You’re going out of your way to characterize all men as irresponsible louts. I’m getting a tinge of martyr complex from you.
Do you honestly think that the amount a man pays in child support is sufficient to cover ALL of the costs of raising a child- food, shelter, clothing, school, medical care, etc? It’s not, unless you’re a millionaire and the court orders you to pay $5,000 a month or something. For the average Joe and Jane, the costs are shared. As to the bias about women usually getting primary custody, I don’t think the court should default to the attitude that woman = good parent. But that is not really what we’re talking about.
Legally/financially responsible for the child the woman gives birth to, yes. I’m talking about things like, “I can’t take classes this semester because I very well might go into labor during my final exam” or “I can’t switch jobs because my insurance won’t cover the pregnancy (pre-existing condition, you know).” Or things like gestational diabetes, or being put on bed rest because it’s a high risk pregnancy. Not to mention things like morning sickness and swollen ankles and back pain and sore boobs. So, yes, a man will have to own up to his responsibility, but to suggest that the pregnancy is not going to have a much larger impact on the life of the woman is laughable.
I don’t hate men, nor do I have a martyr complex. I’m also not saying that all men are irresponsible louts because I’ve had some string of horrible relationships with abusive assholes or something. All I came into this thread to say was that insurance companies who want to charge women more because of the possibility that they might get pregnant, but don’t want to cover contraception, are fucking ridiculous. You have said before that you think insurance companies should cover contraception, so we at least agree on that point. But you want to argue minor details about whether it really constitutes “discrimination” or not, instead of just agreeing that it’s a stupid policy. So maybe it isn’t some malicious male plot to fuck women over, but in my mind at least it’s indicative of the prevailing attitudes in this country- namely, that men, like the head honchos at insurance companies, don’t take into account how women are affected by their decisions, because they don’t have to live with those decisions. You might call the whole Viagra thing a red herring, but once again I think it shows where insurance companies’ priorities lie- men getting off is more important than women having some control over their reproductive systems.
As someone already pointed out, gender discrimination, (or if you object to the connotations of discrimination, idiotic decisions made by men that don’t have women’s best interests at heart, sometimes unintentionally) is more prevalent in this country than most people think, because they don’t even notice it anymore. It’s easy to overlook. Now, this is not the place to debate that (it’s the Pit, not fucking GD, I didn’t come in here to get sucked into some huge debate). What pisses me off, though, is men who insist that it doesn’t exist or it’s not as bad as you think or there are a few isolated incidents but it’s not really a big deal. It’s the same way I feel about white people who insist that racism doesn’t really exist anymore and that there are only a few racist nutjobs out there but, by and large, minorities have the same opportunities that white people do. Once again, if you feel like debating that point go start a thread in GD.
I’m not some man-hating bulldyke, nor do I call myself a feminist. I don’t like playing the martyr or bashing men. I’m just calling them like I see them. It may be hard for you, who’s never spent a single minute as a woman, to understand a woman’s point of view. Just because you’re an upstanding guy doesn’t mean all men are, just like just because I’ve met an asshole or two doesn’t mean that all men are assholes. But I do think you seriously underestimate the number of assholes in the male population. I also think you have overlooked the many patriarchal views and attitudes in our society.
We at least agree on the fact that insurance companies should pay for contraception. If you want to debate what constitutes gender discrimination or whether or not we live in a patriarchal society go start a new thread. I came in here to pit idiotic insurance companies that won’t pay for contraception.
Particularly if you are looking for an individually purchased policy, but there have been times in my life when my employer offered health insurance but women were charged significantly more than men.
Some states may mandate equal rates for health insurance, just as some state mandate equal auto insurance rates for men and women, but they are a minority.
I will also observe that most Americans with private health insurance purchase the same through their employers. Most employers charge the same rate to male and female employees, even though female employees cost significantly more to insure.
Why aren’t you screaming about this blatant unfairness? Again, it’s obviously because you don’t care about unfairness when it benefits you or your group.
Looks to me like you are nothing more than a greedy, hypocritical bitch who waves the banner of fairness when its suits her selfish purpose of making other people pay for her choices.
Here’s a thought: Stop using birth control pills and demand that your male partners use (and pay for) condoms. I’m very confident that they will not object, and if you are having casual sex, you should probably be using condoms anyway.
If you are in a committed relationship with a boyfriend/husband, you can and should demand that he share in financial and other responsibility for reproduction. If he won’t agree to that, then you should dump him.
Amen. If you’re gonna rely on The Pill, better get a copy of your partner’s recent blood test, and then you’re still taking a chance. I would anyway, but especially if you’re only using The Pill.
I seem to be noticing some confusion between medical neccessity and moral judgement. Sure there is some crossing of that line in plastic surgery, but the arguments here aren’t along those lines.
One of the goals of medical insurance is to assist in keeping a person healthy, as in their body functions as it should. When you break a leg, they help get it fixed. You get cancer, they help pay for diagnosis and treatment. If a man’s penis isn’t working, many companies(not all) see this as the body not functioning properly and cover expenses to alleviate that problem. Some folks may not agree with that, but the decisions are made by the folks upstream, feel free to find other providers that agree with you. Similarly some may not feel that plastic surgery of a burn victim is a neccessity, but the folks who decided on the plan most likely thought it was worth some coverage.
Birth control pills (for the most part) are not prescribed because the body is not working as it should, but rather to keep it from working as it should for personal reasons. Therein lies a different set of judgements from the procedural side of things. Not every company decides that it’s a medical neccessity to avoid the normal course of things. Heck, AFAIK the employer could choose to have it covered, they just don’t feel like paying the higher premium. One issue that prevents insurers from covering the pill when prescribed for primary reasons other than birth control is that many physicians will skirt the edge and provide some other reason for why they are prescribing them to get around the ‘evil insurance companies’ trying to keep Suzie from getting knocked up.
Why should it be? As far as I know, the woman has to be in the room when she’s having sex - why do you think she should bear no financial responsibility whatsover for her child? You think the woman should get custody and the man should pay 100% of the cost of raising the child? Yeah, that’s fair. :rolleyes:
Oh, right. We’re talking about how the world is so unfair to women. Sorry, I forgot…
I don’t understand what your point is here. If I had a way to keep you from getting sore boobs when you’re pregnant, I’d do it. Did you just want to complain, or were you going somewhere with this?
First of all, I question this notion that they are charging women more for their premiums “because they might get pregnant”. I’d like to see a cite on that, because in my experience they don’t. It appears to have happened to one person, but if so, that was a fluke, and I don’t think it’s the norm at all. Even if it is true, someone else pointed out that he was charged more than women for auto insurance, so it seems like these things cancel each other out.
What I challenged was the assertion made by the OP that because women go to the doctor more, that therefore it’s discriminatory to charge them the same premium as men. THAT’S what I disagree with. If we’re going to discuss the issue of charging women higher premiums, I want to see a cite on that so we know what we’re discussing. You can’t just keep subtly injecting it into the discussion as though that were the issue from the start, because it wasn’t.
If it’s such a minor point, why are you unwilling to concede it?
You’re basing this on your faulty assumption that women are solely responsible for birth-control, which we keep telling you isn’t true. Come on down off your cross, now.
Tell ya’ what - if they decide that men can fuck anyone they want and never face a paternity suit, THEN I’ll concede that birth control is entirely up to women.
Actually, though - I don’t think that gender discrimination doesn’t exist. I absolutely think it does. I just don’t think THIS is a case of it.
Just because gender discrimination exists doesn’t mean EVERYTHING is discriminatory.
Strawman.
Well “should” and “should be forced to” are two different things.
The problem is that there isn’t a female analogue for Viagra, as far as I know. And I absolutely believe that if there were, women wouldn’t be shouting this bullshit about “you don’t need to have a hard-on”. If there were a pill that would allow women to have orgasms who for medical reasons were unable to without that pill, they’d be screaming to high heaven that their insurance should cover it. Bet on it.
Cite? How many purchase it through their employer, and how many of those charge the same rates for men and women?
And when they charge identical rates for all, the insurance companies use “risk sharing” to calculate individual prices- i.e. a person with a family or personal history of both heart disease and cancer pays the same as a person with no history of either. So that means all of the insured share the risk that that hard drinking, chain smoking, Bic Mac grubbing asshole who never exercises might suddenly need a liver transplant, heart disease medication, and treatment for lung cancer. Do you think that’s unfair? Because that’s exactly how insurance works. It’s just that some insurers spread the risk over a much larger group.
I don’t think it’s blatant unfairness. I understand the way insurance works- most people pay more into the system than they ever get out of it, to make up for unhealthy assholes and/or unlucky bastards who use most of the services. If you don’t like that, if you think that everyone should only be personally responsible for exactly the amount of money it costs you for health care, then I’d reccommend not getting health insurance. I’m just saying that singling women out to pay more particularly with inadequate contraceptive coverage, is unfair if not outright discrimination.
I would say the same thing if they singled out left-handed people (I’m a righty lest you think it’s me showing favoratism to my group again) because of the higher percentage of them in mental hospitals relative to their prevalence in the regular population, but then not covering psychiatric medication. Do you get the comparison?
And it looks to me like you’re nothing more than an ignorant bastard who refuses to acknowledge that discrimination exists because it benefits your group. White men have a really hard time admitting that the playing field is not very level because it makes their lives so much better.
I have already mentioned that I am allergic to latex. When I do use condoms (I appreciate your snide remarks insinuating that I don’t practice safe sex), I buy them, because it’s hard enough for me to find polyurethane condoms, and I know what I’m looking for!
But let’s address the “casual sex” issue. I don’t personally have a lot of casual sex, at least the one-night stand type. I’ve actually only ever done that once. So let’s talk about the couple partners I’ve had where, we weren’t serious, we hadn’t had “the talk” defining our relationship, we just wanted to see where it went. Those only lasted a couple of months before we realized it wouldn’t work out. lowbrass and I at least agree that you’d look like a schmuck asking the guy in that situation to shell out his $20 for the pill that month. So I don’t. But I’m not going to stop using the pill in that situation. I’m going to double up and use a condom too. But even if the guy buys the condoms, he’ll spend maybe $10 to my $40. So I’m paying a lot more than the guy in that situation to cover the contraception. And if you want to tell me that I’m stupid and if I don’t want to pay that much I should just use condoms, then you’re a fucking idiot, because condoms have twice the failure rate of pills and I’m not going to take the risk of getting pregnant just so I can save some money. I’m more willing to risk that in a committed relationship, because I do want kids someday, so if I’m with a guy I would like to breed with at some point in the future I’m not as terrified that I might get pregnant. (Either way, the pill is twice as effective at preventing pregnancy than condoms, so if you keep insisting that I just use condoms you’re a fucking idiot, because they are not at all comparable in terms of effectiveness)
We have once again come to the risk sharing portion of the argument. Why shouldn’t men help to defray women’s costs of contraception? It’s just like the healthy guy paying the same as an unhealthy guy for health insurance. Yeah, it kinda sucks that the super-healthy guy is helping share the risk and split the cost when he might never need any of the more expensive services, but that’s how insurance works. So it would suck for a guy who’s always paid for contraception to have to pay a little more for health insurance to share the cost of contraception, but it makes up for all the guys that never pay for contraception. Even if the actuaries used a 10 page questionnaire covering everything from family history to exercise to whether you wash your hands when you leave the bathroom, they’re still just making an educated guess. You could get royally fucked if you’re the healthiest person around who never has to go to the doctor and never has cancer or heart disease and just quietly passes away in your sleep at the age of 95. You could get a really good deal if you’re a fucking unhealthy slob who constantly need medical care and spends the better part of your last 3 years in out and of the hospital for bypass surgery before dying hooked up to a thousand machines.
All I’m saying is that people accept the risk sharing idea, otherwise insurance companies would go out of business. But to single out a specific gender for higher payments and less coverage, that’s discrimination. To balk at possibly having to pay a little more to share the risk, when it comes to gender-specific treatments, but to accept risk sharing for services that affect more men (e.g. heart disease and cancer) well, that seems like you’re trying to get more benefits for your group at the exclusion of others.
In addition, birth control pills are beneficial in areas that have nothing to do with sex! I’m on birth control, when I haven’t had sex in months. Why? Because my periods are shorter, more predictable, and LESS PAINFUL. If you’re going to start bitching about how that’s fucked up that I’m using the pill for things other than contraception, go back and reread my posts regarding psychiatric medication, specifically for depression.
IT’S A QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUE. People with health insurance are paying more than they would be because anti-depressants are covered. And anti-depressants, using the logic of other posters in the thread, are not medically necessary. Things like exercise, support groups, and individual psychotherapy can be effective in treating depression. Shit, a lot of people, like my father, can function without any treatment, he’s just a miserable bastard all the time. So insurance companies cover anti-depressants because it improves the quality of life of the people suffering from depression. But depression is not gender-specific. It affects both men and women. So if you’re ok with covering a prescription medication that improves the quality of life of both genders, explain to me why you’re not ok with covering a medication that improves the quality of life of a single gender. Is it because you’re not of that particular gender?
See, I’m not like that at all. I say, cover Viagra, if you also cover the pill, because, hey, I’d imagine that it would suck if I couldn’t get it up. See how that works? That’s called looking at it from another’s point of view.
You also haven’t addressed companies that don’t cover the pill, even when it’s medically necessary. See the post where the woman was prescribed the pill when it was completely unnecessary for contraception, as her husband had already had a vasectomy. Do you not agree that that is unfair? Why aren’t you complaining about that? Is it because it’s not your problem, because you have penis so you will obviously never be in a situation when the pill is necessary?
I’d have to say that your accusations of hypocrisy and greed sound a lot like the pot calling the kettle black.
I thought you were insinuating that men cover all of the costs of raising the child through their child support payments. Men and women, from what I see, split the cost. I apologize if I misunderstood you, since it appears I was refuting a point you had not made.
No, it seemed to me that you were insinuating that responsibility issues were exactly equal between women and men, which I don’t think is true. I was only pointing out the well-known fact that the courts are biased against men when it comes to custody and support issues.
Uh no. I wouldn’t. Orgasm is fun. I love sex, really, I do, hence me attempting to get onto birth control, so I can enjoy it with my husband worry-free (even with a condom, there’s that risk of breakage, leaking, etc.). But I can live without it, and have, surprisingly, for long stretches of time. Same with my husband.
Orgasm is not a requirement to living. You will not die if you do not have an orgasm. You can, however, die if you get pregnant and miscarry, or have an abortion that doesn’t sit well, or even in childbirth. To some people it is worth the risk, and others not. At the very least, you’re going to have a very uncomfortable 9 months.
To the best of my knowledge (and I’ll readily admit that I’m not a doctor, but while my father was undergoing treatment for a prostate problem they gave him all of this information on Viagra and I read it, so I’m going off what I read), Viagra does not treat the cause of erectile dysfunction, it simply goes around it and allows you to get an erection anyway. So if you have bad circulation or a prostate problem, that isn’t getting treated. You’re just having sex anyway and you can ignore the problem. That’s not good medicine.
I think that’s very easy for you to say because you are capable of having one. What I’m saying is that if you’re a woman, and you couldn’t have one, and there were a pill that you knew would allow you to have one, and that pill were only for women, and your insurance didn’t cover it, you’d be complaining about that. I guarantee it.
Lots of medications don’t treat the cause of the problem. Some problems are incurable. SSRIs do not cure depression, but they have made life livable for many people, and have no doubt saved countless lives. Blood pressure medication doesn’t cure high blood pressure, but it lowers the risk of stroke or other problems. Neither does cholesterol medicine cure the underlying cause. All those things are covered by most insurance plans.
It’s patently absurd to suggest that any medication that doesn’t “cure” the problem is “bad medicine”.
Hmmm…I’m thinking about this now, and I think I’m going to have to change my position. I believe I AM in favor of Viagra being covered by insurance. I think a good insurance plan would cover birth-control AND Viagra. It’s not discrimination if they don’t, but it is reasonable that they should.
Well, that is what the OP was talking about… like to keep it topical, you know. But I agree that it’s fucked up when men get screwed over by family court. Incredibly fucked up. I’ve got a friend who got fucked over not only in terms of child support payments (he was paying 60% of his income in child support, forcing him to live in some halfway house because he couldn’t afford an apartment) AND can’t get to see his daughter because his ex-wife ran off to California. If you do want to start a new thread discussing this topic, be my guest, because I agree that it’s wrong.
You disagreed with my statement that pregnancy has a much more dramatic impact on the life of the woman. That’s all I was saying. A man will be completely responsible for the child she gives birth to, but even if he’s a loving husband/boyfriend and gives her foot massages and back rubs and cooks her dinner, it doesn’t change things like the fact that she might not be able to work or go to school, or have complications that require extensive hospitalization, or get stuck on complete bed rest for 6 months. So, of course you’ll be responsible for your child, but it doesn’t change the fact that a complicated (or even somewhat normal) pregnancy can really screw up a woman’s life in ways that won’t affect the man.
I didn’t come in here to get into a debate. I’ve provided cites for previous arguments but I’m no longer in the mood. If someone else would like to look that up, be my guest.
As for the men paying more for auto insurance: actuaries calculate risk, just like with health insurance, and see that men are more likely to be in an accident, so they get charged more. I think that sucks for the men with good driving records. But men don’t get into more accidents simply because they’re men. They have specific behaviors (as a group) that make them riskier drivers- speed, aggression, etc. If men are pissed off because they have to pay more, maybe they should be pissed off at the men who are crazy speeders and road raging bastards.
Women don’t have the option of changing behaviors that make them higher risk. It’s physiological, there’s no “choosing not to have a uterus” or “deciding to die earlier.”
I’ll have to reread the OP, because I don’t recall that particular assertion. Later, if I’m in the mood, I’ll go search for a cite about the higher premiums. I’ve only had insurance coverage twice ever, one was a flat rate regardless of gender, the other required a detailed family/medical history that calculated individual risk. Obviously that’s way too small a sample to extrapolate from, but I would not agree that it is a fluke- some companies do charge women more. And this issue may not have been there from the OP, but I recall that it was thrown out rather early in the conversation, so it’s not like I just pulled it out of my ass a minute ago.
I believe I already did concede it. I said maybe it’s not the evil male insurance cabal it seems like we’re talking about. It could just be that the men in charge are making stupid decisions regarding gynecological and obstetric services because they don’t ever use those services. Ignorant and short-sighted, I believe were the terms I used. This is a Pit thread, though, so the use of over-the-top language to express anger and incredulity is warranted. This is not Great Debates. If it were, I wouldn’thave phrased a lot of my statements the way that I did.
yourself. I know that women aren’t solely responsible for birth control, and you know it too. But does that mean that everyone does?
You’re basing your ideas about the male gender on you and your friends. Well, I bet you and your friends are probably not assholes. But I’m basing my ideas about men on some of the men I’ve encountered. Case in point:
Hot guy I met at a party. He seemed cool, we had fun talking, time came for him to go home and I drove him. Go upstairs and start fooling around, and he comes out with “I don’t have any condoms. I’m not going to fuck you without a condom. So why don’t you just suck my dick?”
:eek: Not, let’s run up to the store, or let me go ask my roommate, or, sorry we can’t have sex, maybe we can get together tomorrow night. No, just suck my dick.
Needless to say, he did not get his dick sucked. He’s lucky he still has a dick, actually, after talking to me like that.
I’m not saying that all guys are like that. It’d be just as unfair as you saying all guys are respectful and responsible because I am. I’m just saying that they’re out there, maybe more than you know, and a lot of women get fucked over by them.
I don’t think it’s discrimination either, at least in terms of malicious intent. I struggled to find a better word to describe it, and couldn’t come up with one. I settled on “Idiotic decisions made by men that don’t have women’s best interests at heart, sometimes unintentionally.” I think we CAN agree that this a perfect example of that, right? By “this” I mean insurance companies refusing to pay for contraception. Right? I think we see eye to eye on more than you know, I just got unwillingly and unexpectedly sucked into a debate and felt the need to stand up for women everywhere. Perhaps that’s where the whole “martyr complex” came in.
Do you not think that insurance companies should cover pregnancy and mammograms and Pap smears? Because it took federal laws to force them to do that.
Like I’ve said before, I think it’s a case of the decision makers at insurance companies not having vaginas most of the time, and so not considering the consequences of refusing to cover things like that. It may not be malicious, hell, it’s probably just ignorance and greed.
If health insurance was not so expensive and hard to come by, we wouldn’t be havig this debate. Some people really have no choice and must take whatever their employer gives them. And yeah, employers that get insurance through a company that WILL cover contraception, but choose not to offer that to their employees because they don’t want to pay more, are a bunch of jackasses.
I’ve already said that a lot of my issue with this has to do with the health insurance/health care system in this country. But I’m not getting into that here.
Why couldn’t you just let me rant about having to pay hundreds of dollars a year for a drug we both agree should be covered by insurance?
:smack:
Now if you don’t mind I’m going to go search the local pawn shops and bike stores hoping to find my bike that was recently stolen. Hopefully I’ll find it, and get a chance to prosecute the penis-possessing bastard that stole it. And I know it must have been a man, because their whole point in life is to fuck women over as much as possible.
Do you seriously doubt that most Americans with health insurance get it through their jobs?
Except when it happens not to subsidize your choices. Then it’s discrimination. :rolleyes:
I’ve never said what “group” I’m in. But I will say this: I share economically with males and females so it doesn’t affect me one whit if insurance favors one group over the other.
You sure don’t mind looking like a schmuck on an internet message board.
I haven’t been posting in this thread to complain. I’ve been posting mainly to point out that you are a hypocritical idiot.
) or just short-sightedness and idiocy on the part of the penis-possessors, it sucks either way, and pisses me off.
