If we reword the thread title to the more accurate statement:
Why don’t conservatives want the government to provide free birth control to women, and with my note about “free” in my first post, then I think we can get around the difference between those two groups.
Many religious whack-jobs may indeed want to deny women “free” birth control from any source, but conservatives generally want to deny women “free” birth control provided at government expense.
Conservatives seem to want to deny women free birth control provided at health insurers’ expense too.
I think they don’t want the government to require insurers to do that, especially if the insurers or their proxies have religious objections to doing so, which is not the same thing.
Except it pays for itself. The government, and taxpayers more broadly, would save money by doing so. That’s a large source of the exasperation.
Most insurers want to, because they can do math. The problem is that we don’t have an economy where people can just summarily change jobs if theirs happens to be run by (or use an insurer with) quaint/backwards religious objections. What about the religious freedom of those employees?
I don’t mean to necessarily argue with you directly, just the sentiment you mention here.
Jumping in late, (but as a social liberal, fiscal conservative, atheist) is it really asking all that much for people to take the miniscule amount of personal responsibility by buying a 70 cent rubber for goodness sake? A three pack for the cost of a McDonalds burger?
To me this is the issue. Myopic perhaps, but if we can’t expect this basic level of responsibility, than we are screwed.
I can play that game too, watch…
*Is it really asking all that much that birth control be included in basic public health and provided as part of insurance, considering the many similar items we DO include?
Hobby Lobby, for example, is sure going to a lot of trouble opposing it. If we can’t expect this level of basic responsibility from employers as providers of health insurance, then we are screwed.*
I’m probably not coming across as such in this thread, but I’m listening. I’ve spent a lot of time the last few days considering the objections put forth here. But I can’t escape the evidence that without the religious influence of sex as sin, we don’t have a problem here. The limited government arguement falls flat to me because of all the other components of public health that are not so contentious.
Easy availability of contraception bestows a lot of good. All the downsides I’m hearing are either unfounded or based in religious prudery. We should get over this.
You can expect whatever you like, but people are people. How many times have you been stunned and amazed at what you see a solid responsible adult do for a bit of nookie?
I’m not trying to play a game, and I’m not religious, so you’re 0-2 here. It clearly would make it easier for you to believe it’s all about “religious nuts,” or perhaps you just have a hard on for religion, but that’s not the case here.
It’s isn’t free, it’s just free for the person you are giving it to and charging it to me. Is the cost that much? No, but it adds up and we have to draw the line somewhere.
As I noted, my main concern is the personal responsibility. If we had no social programs and 100% of the population had to rely on themselves 100% of the time, we’d have much greater responsibility but we’d have many people who just couldn’t survive. So at some point we created as safety net. That in theory stuck a balance of keeping people from being destitute but still hungry enough to want to fend for themselves.
But increasingly, government is doing it all, and there is no incentive for folks to successfully manage their own lives. Put another way, I believe people should have enough skin in the game to ensure they are invested. Anything that runs contrary to that I oppose, and this is one of those things.
Seriously, you want to lower the expectation so low that the government will provide birth control to everyone? Should we have health care providers standing by to put them on too? How low do you want to set the bar?
I might have been stunned and amazed the first time I saw my nephew drunk at 14, but I didn’t throw up my hand and say “oh well, if he gonna drink, let’s give him a case of quality chardonnay so he doesn’t have to drink mad dog 20/20.”
The Mad Dog wouldn’t have made a baby.
Why there? Why is it so critical, so important to draw the line at contraception, of all things?
All the verbiage in your post does is attempt to obscure the basic reality that easy access to birth control is an important matter of public health and we can do it fairly easily.
No, it only “pays for itself” if you assume that the rest of us are responsible for paying for the bad choices other people make. Liberals assume that, but conservatives don’t.
And all your verbiage does is obscure the basic reality that easy access, at a very cheap cost is available to all now. But you want government involved. And me to pay.
Buy a f’ing rubber at 7/11 for a buck and put the thing on. But you think that’s asking too much apparently.
Not being snarky - I’d genuinely like to hear an answer to my question. Why is it so important to take a stand on government involvement on contraception in particular? Why is the line in the sand drawn there?
They agree on some forms of it, such as putting criminals into taxpayer-funded prison systems. And higher rates of out-of-wedlock birth are correlated with higher crime rates. So, even if one opposes welfare and other forms of paying for others’ bad choices, limiting unwanted children could still pay for itself.
Of course, but you’ll never get them back.
Not trying to be snarky either.
I think we need to draw a line somewhere. As I mentioned up thread there was a time with virtually no government support. And we (in the US) added support for veterans and widows. Then to workers maimed, injured or killed. This was followed by new deal and depression era efforts. Johnson’s war on poverty followed a generation and a half later. And I think that was the first time in the US that those not hurt or elderly were eligible for federal entitlement just because they were poor. (My public Administration degree is getting older by the day so forgive me if I’m off a bit.) This continued unabated until Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility act in the 1990’s
And my own personal experience tells me that hungry (for lack of a better term) people work and just try harder. And people given something for nothing just expect more and more something that I buy for them. And I feel we are better off with a society that doesn’t look to government to solve their problems. Hell there was a thread here in the last year that said we should provide everyone with a free room, with food and a TV!
I think if we lose the belief in personal responsibility in our social fabric, then our entire society is less productive and our standard of living recedes. Even in high school I knew that getting someone pregnant wasn’t a good financial or personal decision. And that with the $2.40 an hour that I made from my minimum wage job, that buying condoms was a smart thing to do. I feel that we have been lowering the bar for personal responsibility for decades. And giving yet another signal that one isn’t 100% responsible for the children they bring into the world is the wrong one to send. That is why I pick this spot.
And where will it end if we give people free birth control? If they won’t buy a condom, will they go and pick up their free pack of pills? Will they take them? If not do we give free vasectomies? Tubal ligation? Will we stop at their house in the morning and put the pill in a cup and tell them to take it?
With no snark intended, condoms cost less than a buck and are available a millions of 7/11s and bathrooms throughout the country and that isn’t accessible or cheap enough for you? My question to you: The taxpayer provides free or subsidized food, health care, housing, heating, transportation. Why must it enter our sex lives as well? Why draw the line there? Why can’t you say we’ve done enough? Is there any line you will draw?
That’s actually a good question. What other services are required to be included (without copay, etc.) in health plans by the ACA?
“Essential health benefits”, or ambulatory patient services; emergency services; hospitalization; maternity and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
This was supposed to be in a different thread.