You’re right. My mistake. The topic was women not having children and my brain skipped a rail.
It sounds like you’re saying “Why don’t conservatives let their racism or classism overcome their philosophical objections to government handouts?”
Because conservatives do not believe non-essential stuff should be provided for “free.”
Want contraceptives? Go to the store and buy them.
Don’t have the money? I think you’re lying.
There’s a segment of religious conservatism that doesn’t want sex to be consequence free. The sluts need to pay for undoing the social order. See also the resistance to the HPV vaccine, sex education, and generally anything that makes a mother’s life easier, especially a young or poor one.
Conservatives don’t believe anything should be provided for free.
You might as well ask why liberals believe female cancer patients shouldn’t get free chemotherapy.
There are two problems with a contraception mandate:
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It raises the cost of insurance unnecessarily. It would be like adding light bulb changes and vacuuming to your homeowners’ insurance. Putting routine expenses on an insurance plan benefits no one.
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It makes people who have religious objections pay for it. Although not for long, given the attitude SCOTUS seems to have towards the issue. That pesky 1st amendment.
As broad brush statements go, that’s not so bad. At least close to the truth if not literally true. But I think the missing element is that conservatives don’t think products and services can ever by “free”. Someone pays for them.
They would probably answer that, if a woman is not in a position to have children, she shouldn’t be having sex in the first place. Not very realistic, but there it is. Personal responsibility is a key conservative value. Let’s not forget that although Bush signed the TARP plan, some of the loudest critics were conservatives.
I think you’re being a bit myopic. While what you say is true, in the current situation in the US, if we had UHC via single payer, many conservatives would still object to having BC be part of what the government provides. That is to say, even if we extricated ourselves from this “insurance” model of providing HC, conservatives still would not BC to be a government provided benefit.
In this context, “free” means the end user receives something they did not have to pay for. Conservatives are inconsistent in their objection to free stuff, designating some things as “essential”, but that is really just a sop to justify their own selfish desires.
What makes contraception so essential it must be free, whereas chemo and blood transfusions and getting your broken bones set requires you to meet your deductible first?
I’m sure part of the anger is that the administration made a decision based on politics, not medicine.
It’s also a routine cost that a lot of people won’t use. 50-year old cancer patients had to lose access to their oncologists so that birth control could be free, yet insurance plans still affordable.
You can, of course, substantiate that. Precisely which 50 year old cancer patients have lost access to their oncologists because of mandatory birth control provisions?
The tradeoff for meeting all of those new mandates on what must be covered was to reduce the size of the networks. So many people who had their old plans cancelled lost access to their doctors with the new plans.
The benefit is funded by some people and if everyone receives the benefit, then those paying for it do not get it “free”.
But I don’t think it’s just conservatives who are “inconsistent” with what are essentials that need to be provided by the government. That’s pretty common across the political spectrum.
Because it reduces risk for pregnancy-related costs later. It is about keeping costs down and premiums low.
Contraception doesn’t reduce pregnancy costs. Women still get pregnant, they just choose when. That’s a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t reduce costs. Most women use contraception AND require maternity services. If an insurance company isn’t paying for one, it’s paying for the other.
If covering contraception saved money, insurance companies would already have thought of that. You think the government likes insurance companies to make money more than the insurance companies do? Do you think the government knows how to assess and price risk better than the professionals?
The biggest reason it doesn’t reduce costs though is that the vast majority of money spent on contraception is paid for with cash. What the mandate does is simply transfer those costs to insurance plans. So it’s very much like making your homeowners’ insurance pay for light bulbs.
The contraception mandate was a classic solution in search of a problem.
Problem: Some small percentage of women cannot afford birth control.
Solution: Have the government pay for everyone’s birth control.
I can sympathize with those who think that is not the way the problem should be addressed. Where conservatives fail, ISTM, is not proposing this:
Solution: Provide birth control to women who cannot afford it.
For example, consider this:
Problem: Some small percentage of people cannot afford food.
Solution: Have the government provide everyone with food.
Is there anyone here who would argue for that? (I’ll probably be sorry I asked…)
Utter nonsense. Women who use birth control have fewer children over a lifetime. Full stop.
I’m actually somewhat surprised the conservative argument isn’t, well, the people who can’t afford or can’t be arsed to save up for birth control are therefore going to go out and have more kids and then be an even bigger drag on society economically (assuming that these tend to be folk that draw more from social services) vs. just providing everyone with birth control and hoping that keeps the birth rate down.
That’s because they choose to use it. Full stop. There is no access problem to birth control.
There is however an access problem for cancer patients, which ACA makes worse, and all due to politics.
Conservatives can dress this up as a monetary measure, or reach of government issue all they want. But you know what? They have not chosen to make their stand against tetanus shots or or even pap smears.
It’s sex.
Of course it’s sex! There are some conservatives who just can’t stand the idea of people having sex the WRONG WAY. In my view, it’s largely based in religion. And you know what? Fuck. Them.
Seriously. Fuck 'em. Get over it. People have sex. Expecting them not to, shaming them into abstaining doesn’t work, and why should it? This is the main issue for me. The fact that easily available contraception would likely lower the number of abortions is beside the point, although their unwillingness to see the logic of that underscores their brainless intransigence.
I’m a man. I will not be having kids. This is a non-issue for me personally. Yet, I fully support publicly funded contraception. I’m happy to contribute. It would be a net positive for us all. And if it causes some icked out conservatives to get the vapors, even better. They are irrational, unrealistic and wrong on this issue.