Put aside your opinion of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision for a moment. Even if you accept that the rather inefficient system of employer-provided medical insurance is the way to go, why was contraception singled out by the government for special consideration anyway? There are any number of other medications/treatments that provide even more bigger public health benefits, immunizations being one of the biggest. Why choose birth control as the one employers are required to provide?
It’s more about employers not being allowed to dictate what medications, procedures, etc. the employees are allowed to get.
Sorry, IMO, there’s only one right answer: Because it is a political pet cause that the base loves and that adds fuels to the “war on women” nonsense for anyone who opposes it. This was a solution in search of a problem. All this gnashing of teeth over the dire implications for women’s health resulting from the decision is laughable. If there is a tiny percentage of women who can’t afford the birth control they need, the solution this called for was NOT, “Let’s make birth control free for all women everywhere, and this must be covered by their health insurer.”
It wasn’t singled out. It was a small part of overall requirements.
I thought the OP meant why out of most other coverage, this was singled out as being covered to the extent it is, and without co-pays. Under ACA you have to pay a co-pay for most things. Not contraception, because “war on women.”
Sure it was. That list it’s part of only requires 10 things be covered out of the thousands that could be.
Right. I think it’s crazy to have an employer-based health insurance system. If we have one, however, I don’t see anything Wong with minimum requirements and contraception being part of the base level coverage.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. I don’t know of any instance where an employer tries to dictate what an employee is allowed to get.
My question is simple: What’s so special about contraception that employers MUST provide it at no cost to employees to the exclusion of all other medications/treatments? I realize contraception saves billions. But, I’m sure immunizations save MUCH more and I still have to pay for those.
If it’s one out of a list of ten, it wasn’t “singled out.” And I’d say constituting a tenth of the requirements counts as “a small part.”
That doesn’t answer the question of why. Whether on a list of 10 or 100, why should it be free in the first place?
Because it takes a doctor visit to get them, in some cases.
Insurance companies, employee provided or not, are not expected to pay for OTC birth control, which is to say, condoms, any more then they are expected to buy you OTC cold medicine or Tylenol. However, if you want the pill or a diaphragm, you need a prescription, and an exam by a doctor or NP prior to the prescription, in the case of the pill, to make sure it isn’t contraindicated, and in the case of the diaphragm, to fit it correctly, and teach you to use it (the gel you use with it is OTC, and people will pay for that out of their own pockets).
Honestly, I don’t know how much the pill costs. I was on it for three months in the late 80s and hated it, but I got it from PP, so it was “free” (I donated what I could, but I was a college student). A diaphragm, without insurance picking up any of the cost, is about $75. With insurance, it can be anywhere for $10-30. The doctor’s visit to fit it will cost around $100, and insurance companies can be sneaky. Even if you have a general exam, if you are also fitted for a diaphragm at the exam, a “no birth control” policy may deny coverage for the whole visit.
It’s just about as penny-wise and pound-foolish as you can get. I had US military Tri-Care when I had my son. I had a long labor followed by a c-section, and he was in an isolette for 12 hours for observation, because he was born blue, there was meconium in his amniotic fluid. He was ultimately fine, and that was apparent by the end of his first day, but they still gave him a prophylactic antibiotic, and put him on a monitor. I was there for five days, because my labor + c-section took more than a day, and my doctor got me an extra day’s stay over the normal 3 that follow a c-section, if you want to know why, PM me.
We didn’t pay for a cent of it.
But eight weeks later, I had to pay the full $150 to be fit for a new diaphragm, and for the diaphragm itself. The government insurance wouldn’t pick up any of it.
I mean, I’d rather have it that way than the reverse, but for lack of $150 on my part, the government could have been paying for that who prenatal car/complicated delivery package again.
Could this have been put there by the Democrats because they knew the Republicans and conservative Christians would jump all over it? If so, that seems to have been a good calculation, they are getting plenty of mileage out of it and the GOP comes off looking worse.
It’s clever enough that I didn’t think of it but it seems obvious now; Put that in there and soon enough, GOP politicians will feel like they have to oppose it while scumbags like Limbaugh will say something vile against an innocent woman and then a lot of Republicans look bad.
(Just in case it needs to be said, so you don’t think I’m anti-Democrat and am attacking them; I much prefer Obama to Bush and wish the US had universal health insurance, I am curious about the political strategy)
Well, I don’t know how calculated it was for sure, but I suspect very much so. There’s no downside for the Dems. The base loves it, very few people who were going to vote for them anyway object, and you can almost be certain that several dipshits in the GOP (my party, BTW) will object to it in a manner that makes it seem as if they’d prefer women just STFU till we asked for their opinion. I think it’s brilliant.
Because there’s certainly no compelling health reason why it should be covered in the manner it is, the extent of coverage, and nosiree, you may not charge a co-pay.
My question isn’t about a “no birth control” policy. It’s about a “birth control must be free of charge” policy. I would generally need a doctor’s visit to get penicillin, and I can assure you that would probably be of more imminent need than the pill, but there’s no requirement I get it for free.
It’s preventative care, so it was included with the items required to be paid for as…preventative care. What else would you have included?
Here’s a link to the healthcare.gov site with the list of covered items - Preventive health services
Unless I’ve forgotten something, employers didn’t have to pay for contraception coverage. If they objected on religious grounds, they didn’t have to pay at all. Their insurance would just cover it anyway and the federal government would repay them in the form of subsidies. However even that was insufficient for some people who just don’t want women to get birth control.
The words “IMO” and “there’s only one right answer” make absolutely zero sense together. Part of the answer - and somehow you seem unaware of this - is that birth control is both a very important health benefit for a lot of women and a very controversial subject.
This isn’t quite right. It has nothing to do with what ‘employees are allowed to get’ - it’s about what employers must pay for. Employees are free to acquire whatever they want on their own dime.
All other preventive care is for the prevention of disease. There are certainly enormous costs associated with childbirth, but are we really equating them with the cost of disease-prevention? If public health is our primary concern, wouldn’t covering antibiotics be more prudent?
Contraception saves money. Sure, you’re paying for a lot of women to get birth control. You’re also paying for a lot less women to have abortions or pregnancies. Pregnancies are astronomically more expensive than contraception Paying all costs for preventive care such as this makes sound financial sense.
Last I checked most insurance plans do cover antiboitics.
And I certainly do not consider antibiotics to be preventative medicine. If you think they are you are part of a lot of problems.