U. of Connecticut Student: Birth control should be left to the free market
University of Connecticut student Devin Keehner has a “pro-choice” approach to birth control.
However, not in the PC way progressive campus activists hold dear.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is heading to the Supreme Court for the second, but probably not the last, time. That battle is now raging over the controversial contraception mandate that requires employer sponsored insurance to cover the birth control pill. Some employers believe that this mandate infringes on religious liberty by forcing them to pay for something deemed immoral, and that is certainly an argument I am sympathetic to. However, I oppose this mandate for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, because it defies the definition of the word insurance, and represents a back door tax and spend policy.
I want to start by saying I don’t have any objection to the birth control pill when used for pregnancy prevention or medical uses totally unrelated to reproduction. I prefer it to some of the alternatives, such as abortion or teen pregnancy.
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So now that I have established my lack of moral objection to birth control, I want to talk about what the word insurance means. It’s really a concept, but in practice it means to hedge against risk. More importantly, in the financial sense it means to offset one’s risk onto another entity. Normally, this means paying a premium to a company, and in return that company is contractually obligated to cover certain unexpected expenses. How does this apply to birth control? It doesn’t, and that’s the point.Birth control is a choice, sex should be a choice and being a women of childbearing age is not an unexpected event in one’s life. Imagine if someone wanted to insure their car against needing an oil change. Who in their right mind would provide the service, when we all know that cars need oil? Even if a company did offer insurance for oil change the premiums charged would be higher than the actual cost of getting an oil change. The same is true for birth control.
So if you can’t insure against a known variable than how does the Affordable Care Act do it? Well, this is one of my biggest problems with the contraception mandate. It takes a run of the mill tax and spend approach, and hides it inside of a community rated healthcare plan. ..
Finally, how ridiculous is it to create a government program for birth control when according to Time magazine, “A one-month generic supply from Costco costs $25.” Is this what feminism has come to? I’m sorry, but replacing that idea the women need a big strong man in their life, with the idea that they need a big strong government is hardly less insulting.
Birth control should be left to the free market (The Daily Campus (University of Connecticut))
Comments
But –
War on Women!!
Sexist!!
Unfettered right for women to kill their baby if they don’t get contraceptives!!
Or something.
Excellent points! This logic should apply to the whole insurance scheme, where events that are not “losses” are not insured.
Routine physical exams, an eye exam, even a mammogram are much cheaper when paid for in cash, considering the fact that underwriters price a ‘benefit’ in terms of what it costs the entire population.
When a person pays cash for a service he tends to seek value, wanting the highest quality for the best price. This comparison shopping drives business to the best provider and ensures that lousy ones wither away and die. People who need the service but can’t afford it could be given a voucher or cash, when you control the money you control the system. Right now the system controls us, and it is on the way to getting worse. People who see the silliness of birth control as an insurance benefit need to start screaming (and voting) to get us back the power to control our own health.