I would think that if a woman gets health care, she gets women’s health care.
If we were talking about a medical office advertising that they perform a service, then that would be correct. However, we are not, so it isn’t.
This is getting beyond silly. What we are clearly talking about is the fact that women go to Planned Parenthood and as a direct consequence they get mammograms and other screening that they otherwise would not get. Note the following (from your own link, bolding mine):
Planned Parenthood contends that many women wouldn’t receive mammogram recommendations without the group.
“Like the vast majority of primary care physicians and ob-gyns, Planned Parenthood doctors and nurses refer patients to other facilities for mammograms based on breast exams, age or family history,” said Deborah Nucatola, the senior director of medical services for the organization. “For many women, Planned Parenthood is the only health-care provider they will see all year, and thus the only way they will get a referral for a mammogram.”
In terms of connecting women with financial resources, Planned Parenthood helps women find grants to pay for mammograms and hosts visits from mobile mammography vans.
The factual take-away from this is that without PP, many women wouldn’t get the mammograms that they need and wouldn’t even know they need them. Some of them might die. What annoys me about this kind of argument that is so typical of what we see from the right on matters from health care to climate change, is that it turns serious issues into a kind of semantic shell game. And the only purpose of the semantic shell game is partisan political gain. It comes down to arguing whether “provides” means the same thing as “performs” or whether it can mean “provides access”. You know what? I don’t give a shit about semantic shell games. What I care about is that Planned Parenthood allows women to have access to reproductive health care that they otherwise would not have.
So if I get health care, I get “bearded athletic handsome charming man health care?” Is that how this works now?
This seems like duplicative government waste. Those who cannot afford birth control are given it free of charge. Those in the middle class are given a subsidy to pay for insurance which pay for birth control free of charge. Those who are upper middle class have and are required by law to pay for insurance which provides birth control free of charge.
Every doctor in the country will prescribe it and every pharmacy (save for the handful out of millions) will fill the prescription.
Why do we need to subsidize a separate business to “assist” women in getting birth control?
You need a prescription for most forms of birth control. There are a lot of types with a lot of different side effects, and it’s best to work through it with a doctor.
It’s not a “separate business”. It’s a clinic staffed by doctors and nurses that do the same thing any other doctor does. They perform annual exams and other relevant tests, prescribe medicine (including birth control), provide outpatient services like inserting an IUD, and recommend specialists if needed. Birth control is a big part of it, but reproductive health involves a lot more than just that.
Oral contraceptives are not the only prescription contraception out there, and they are not medically advisable for everyone for a wide variety of reasons. Example: after my second round of blood clots, my doctor and I decided I should probably stick to nonhormonal contraception. The most effective form of nonhormonal contraception is a Paragard IUD. Cost for the device, preinsertion counseling, and post-insertion followup visit? Rack rate, well over $1500. (Good for 10 years, though, so much more cost-effective than BC pills over time. Bonus: less likely to kill me. Also, pregnancy at age 47 would be…not fun.)
How many people have a spare 1500 bucks lying around?
Even after clarification you couldn’t grasp that it was your opinion that was of interest? 
Do I need to bold-face or italicise the key words in my sentences?
I’m trying to place OP in context.
Millions of Americans have health insurance who didn’t before?
– Meh.
Almost every Republican leader from Rush Limbaugh to the Top-polling Eleven all the way down to Joe the Plumber promulgate a horrid lie about baby parts?
– Meh, that’s politics. 
Harry Reid misstates a statistic?
– Outrageous behavior.
Some medicines have a different co-pay schedule than others?
– The horror. … The horror.
My question with this is why is providing a referral to an organization which performs mammograms not providing mammograms, yet paying an insurance company which pays a doctor who writes a prescription to take to a pharmacist who hands out birth control pills is providing birth control? To me, the link seems a lot more tenuous in the second case than the first.
If you think Planned Parenthood doesn’t provide mammograms, logically you’ve got to say Hobby Lobby’s insurance should pay for birth control.
Yes, the unspoken part of Anaamika’s post was that reliable, legal, convenient-to-use, cheap and readily available birth control—which really became possible in the hormonal pill era—allows a woman to make choices about her life and her future while also enjoying a satisfying sex life.
That part is important, because very generally speaking sexual relationships are a critical component of emotional health and well being. Both women and men have the urge to seek satisfying sexual relationships regardless of the other circumstances in life.
Any formula for success that includes as a key component “if you don’t want to have a baby, then just don’t have sex” is going to fail because people want to have sex. All the evidence of the past few decades demonstrates that counseling abstinence is a bullshit strategy for improving the lives of women and, consequently, for improving society.
I understand, and I’m really not trying to be obtuse here, but that is exactly what other health care providers do that operate without government funding. For women unable to afford such services, then medicaid and insurance subsidies are in place for that.
What niche does Planned Parenthood fill that a family physician and/or an OBGYN doesn’t?
Exactly. In fact, here are some pertinent quotes:
From the Wikipedia summary of the Hobby Lobby ruling (emphasis mine):
Four justices (Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas) joined [Alito] to strike down the HHS mandate … to prevent the plaintiffs from being compelled to provide contraception under their healthcare plans.
From Hobby Lobby’s own advocacy site (emphasis mine):
At issue in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (previously Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores), is the Health and Human Service (HHS) Mandate which would have required David and Barbara Green and their family business Hobby Lobby to provide and facilitate four potentially life-terminating drugs and devices in their health insurance plan, against their religious convictions …
From ITR champion:
Some are recycling the old claim that Planned Parenthood provides mammograms to those who couldn’t otherwise afford them–which is not true. (OP)
I said that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. The article that I linked to says that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. (Link)
This despite the fact that Planned Parenthood acts as a primary care physician for women’s reproductive health, assesses the need for mammograms and provides referrals, helps women in need cover the costs, provides follow-up care, and sometimes brings in mobile mammography clinics – thereby resulting in women getting critical mammograms who would not otherwise receive them and potentially saving their lives.
Amazing disconnect there, ain’t it?
That’s similar to the simplistic, ridiculously rosy view of health care in America that you were touting over in the other thread. It’s not realistic. Lots of people fall through the cracks in between Medicaid and insurance subsidies, all the more so in states that rejected Medicaid expansion, not to mention the inadequacies of both. That’s why some 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of insurance.
The niche of providing essential reproductive health services for women who may not have either a family physician or OBgyn, who may not be able to afford one, or who are otherwise victims of the dysfunctional abomination that passes for health care in America.
What niche does Minute Clinic provide that family physicians don’t?
They provide easily accessible, affordable, reliable healthcare for people with specific needs.
If I need someone to follow my medical history over years and manage a wide range of conditions, I’ll go to a family physician. But if I’m a healthy 23 year old whose new in town and needs a Pap smear and an STD panel, I go to Planned Parenthood.
Planned Parenthood also provides a certain type of customer service- I know I won’t be lectured or judged. I know I will have confidentiality, I think I even had the option to stay anonymous. I know they will have information on social services I am eligible for. I know I can receive services in Spanish. I know I will be informed of what things cost and want the options are financially. Family physicians are great, but Planned Parenthood provides service in a way that is often more relevant to the poor.
13% of the population is still uninsured, and Medicaid generally doesn’t cover young single people.
The anti-abortion crowd does not want IUD’s and birth control pills on the market, or any other form of contraception that prevents implantation because “life begins at conception.” They have told me that any woman who has sex is agreeing to a pregnancy" but that “abortion after rape is wrong.”
Thank you for actually addressing the question I asked. I don’t agree with everything you wrote; the cost of the pill at Wal-Mart or Target was $10 per month when I last checked. But you made a serious argument.
My point, I guess, is that birth control was already available to everyone, readily and easily, before the government started the legal battles about forcing every last insurance plan to cover every last birth control method.
Do you know just how poor you have to bein order to be eligible for Medicaid? $29,700 for a family of four. That’s not a lot of money, especially in a major metro area. $1500 for an IUD and related services is quite a chunk of that. Heck, $20/month for generic BC pills is a chunk at that income level. And then you still have the issue of people not wanting other household members to know what services they are receiving (teenagers, women whose spouses have issues with them using contraception, etc.)
What do you think about my assertion that birth control, in general, has huge societal impact that few, if any, other medications provide?
Thank you Eva Luna for returning the thread to sanity.
I wish I had your eloquence and temperament. (Frankly, American partisan sniping and Gotchaism just infuriates me, and I should confine my commentary to the Pit.)
Brought this response:
Hi. I’m Fair Rarity. I’m that woman.
I had a nice job in my 20s. Had good insurance and used my primary care physician for my pap smears and manual breast exams and birth control prescription. A prescription that I needed not just to have the dirty, dirty premarital sex, but because it was medically necessary for a condition I had.
Then directly due to some conservative shenanigans (company owner a well-known right wing nutter, so I’m not being hyperbolic), in my 30s I was laid off and lost my nice insurance. I did not have to return to PP through some “luck” (I use that word loosely in my crisis), but had I not had “luck”, I would have been back at PP as the only place for me to access REASONABLE healthcare.
When I was in my early 20s at my crappy job, my “Christian values” company did not provide birth control coverage. Period. (no pun intended). PP was my only reasonable option, what with my “Christian values” company wages.
I highly doubt that I have had my last visit to PP. It’s invaluable to the vulnerable.
Did you try one of the FQHCs? There are twenty times as many of those than there are PP clinics.