Should Obamacare Dictate Birth Control?

[Jason Townsend]

Defraying or paying for drug costs are a big part of "what health insurance is for." If health insurance were like liability coverage for totalling your car it'd be cheaper. Also your cost ranges being equal... ok I'm with Aaron.

As for "pissing people off to not much gain," hast anyone said this is a vote winner? To the contrary, horseshit culture-war wedge crap like this usually redounds to the benefit of the crazier, more cynlcal party with the excitable constituencies. The point is to not sandbag 98-99% of women working for Catholic employers in order to assuage the delicate consciences of a the world's most ridiculous sex authority.

[Jason McCullough]

This discussion is ridiculous.

Two new polls today shed some light on this question. The first one, from the Public Religion Research Institute, asked if all employers should be required to offer healthcare plans that cover contraception:

All Americans: broad agreement, 55%-40%
Catholics: broad agreement, 58%-37%

But maybe respondents weren't specifically primed to think that some employers are churches that have theological objections to birth control. So the second survey asked the general question first (getting similar results to the PRRI survey) and then asked specifically if Catholic hospitals and universities should be included:

All Americans: broad agreement, 57%-39%
Catholics: broad agreement, 53%-45%

In both cases, the numbers are much higher for Democrats and Independents. It's really only Republicans who object much, which strongly suggests that most of the objection is rooted in ideology, not religious conscience.

[Strollen]

Defraying or paying for drug costs are a big part of "what health insurance is for." If health insurance were like liability coverage for totalling your car it'd be cheaper. Also your cost ranges being equal... ok I'm with Aaron.

Ok for the sake of argument lets say I agree that paying for drugs is one of the reasons we have health insurance.

My "silver" Kaiser program has no prescription drug benefit, but for an extra $150/month I can upgrade to Gold, which the most common program used by in employers. I then would have access to 30 day supply of contraceptives for a $30 copay. The platinum plan would cut the price to $15 copay but very few have such a plan.

Now lets say that I am girl and worked for a Catholic charity and had the same plan but no contraception benefit. How would including contraceptives as benefit make health care more affordable? When I can pick a generic birth control pill like Microgestin for <$20 at Costco or Walmart?

It seems to me that Catholic worker is better off just having my doctor write me a prescription and ignore the hassles of dealing with the insurance company.


But forget my plan, look at your health insurance plan and tell me why it would help a women with your insurance.

I've been doing this internet thing long enough that if I want to Troll and I certainly can, but this isn't an instance.

[Mark Asher]

Are there generic birth control pills?

As to the cost of the doctor's visit, if you have health insurance that doesn't cover birth control I would still think the doctor's visit should be covered. Is there health insurance that doesn't cover routine checkups?

We're not talking about uninsured people here, but insured people whose insurance doesn't cover the cost of birth control. Since birth control is usually pills and I'd think there are generics now, is it really a big expense to pay for the prescription out of pocket?

I've actually had times where my health insurance had a copay that was more expensive than the cost of a generic drug, so I paid out of pocket instead.

[Nezz]

This discussion is ridiculous.

The way I understand religious freedom, it includes the freedom to choose a method for reaching a moral judgment as an organization. Presuming that a democratically formed consensus by a majority of its members must necessarily have an impact on how the religious organization exercises its judgments already encroaches upon this freedom.

Put another way: Suppose the Catholic Bishops in the US formed a religious organization all by themselves. Would this organization not be free to dissent from the consensus of everyone surrounding them, just because it's very small?

[Two Sheds]

We're not talking about uninsured people here, but insured people whose insurance doesn't cover the cost of birth control. Since birth control is usually pills and I'd think there are generics now, is it really a big expense to pay for the prescription out of pocket?

Planned Parenthood says $15-50/month, other sources say $10-100/month. So somewhere in there. Also, different birth control pills have varied side-effects on different women. You might be able to afford the $20/month generic at CVS, but what you really need is the $80 name-brand. If that's not covered by your insurance, shit adds up.

[Scuzz]

Are there generic birth control pills?

As to the cost of the doctor's visit, if you have health insurance that doesn't cover birth control I would still think the doctor's visit should be covered. Is there health insurance that doesn't cover routine checkups?

We're not talking about uninsured people here, but insured people whose insurance doesn't cover the cost of birth control. Since birth control is usually pills and I'd think there are generics now, is it really a big expense to pay for the prescription out of pocket?

I've actually had times where my health insurance had a copay that was more expensive than the cost of a generic drug, so I paid out of pocket instead.

Birth control pills are still expensive, my daughter takes them for menstrual problems. And the co-pay is $50 a month.

[ReptileHouse]

Why is the cost relevant? The question is whether a religious organization can pick and choose what to cover based on doctrine.

[Jason McCullough]

The way I understand religious freedom, it includes the freedom to choose a method for reaching a moral judgment as an organization. Presuming that a democratically formed consensus by a majority of its members must necessarily have an impact on how the religious organization exercises its judgments already encroaches upon this freedom.

Put another way: Suppose the Catholic Bishops in the US formed a religious organization all by themselves. Would this organization not be free to dissent from the consensus of everyone surrounding them, just because it's very small?

The popular discussion is not occuring on the organizational level; it's going on as "goddamn government making me sin." Which it isn't, judging by those numbers; "Catholicism" in the popular media is dominated by a bunch of crank groups and the Catholic heirarchy, who Catholics don't agree with.

[Scuzz]

Why is the cost relevant? The question is whether a religious organization can pick and choose what to cover based on doctrine.

Damn it man, are you forcing us back on topic?

[Jason Townsend]

The girl at Georgetown who eventually got ovarian cysts was paying "about 100 a month" out of pocket till she gave up.

[Jason McCullough]

Hey, I wonder.

What I want to know is where are all the concern trolls on this bus issue? If waving the Bible around is reason enough for a public instititution, even those that take federal dollars like universities and hospitals do, to discriminate against women, then I want to see some consistency here. I want E.J. Dionne to claim that New York's Jewish population is going to rise up en masse in protest because a very small minority of religious fanatics want the right to treat women like shit. I want all the liberal dudes hand-wringing right now about how Obama went a step too far to expand that argument, and talk about why certain buses that serve the public should be able to force women to sit in the back to appease the fanatics' religious sensibilities. Riddle me this: if giving Catholic-owned businesses the right to discriminate against women is freedom of religion, then why isn't it okay when bus companies have signs requiring women to sit in the back to appease a small segment of the Jewish population?

[Jason Townsend]

What bothers me is how defensive and hand-wringy the tone is on the part of the White House, in a conversation that seems mostly to take place among

1. Totally insane right wingers
2. The Whitehouse
3. Pop-corn-eating media organs going, hmmm, culture war's really heating up.

Who cites numbers like McCullough's, which should end this insanity like cold water? No one that I'm seeing.

[Strollen]

Planned Parenthood says $15-50/month, other sources say $10-100/month. So somewhere in there. Also, different birth control pills have varied side-effects on different women. You might be able to afford the $20/month generic at CVS, but what you really need is the $80 name-brand. If that's not covered by your insurance, shit adds up.

This internist has has a website which helps people find lower cost medicine in there area Leslie List, it is only operating in two areas Chicago and Dallas right now. She posted here on the wide range of birth control pills in Chicago $9 to $84 a month for newer drug that is still under patent.

I have searched in vain to find the actual regulations HHS is adopting is it a cap on the co-pays of birth control pills, or are all birth control device available free of charge? In either case the real winners of this mandate are going to be the drug companies especially if the pills are free.

If all birth control pills are free there is no incentive for the average woman not get the newest and best patented drug at $80-100/month. Of course as Dr. Leslie Ramirez points out in almost all cases the generic drug works just fine. This will drive up the total cost of birth control in the country.

There is no free lunch so the cost of this "free benefit" will be passed on the public in the form of having to pay more for insurance either directly or in via lower salaries.

You've got to hand it to the drug companies lobbyist when they get a bunch of liberals pushing to make them more money.

[Jason Townsend]

Co-pays are still going to make more expensive drugs more expensive, even waiving objections to the incredibly dubious idea that all the little cash-value-maximizing homo-economicus women are going around picking the most expensive free estrogen they can under the All Drugs Are Totally Free Plan of Catholic Institution X.

Consider, momentarily, that liberals are angry about what we say we're angry about. And if it's a machiavellian drug company conspiracy at least invent some supporting fiction about how that happened. Unless that is what it looks like when you troll.

[Strollen]

Co-pays are still going to make more expensive drugs more expensive, even waiving objections to the incredibly dubious idea that all the little cash-value-maximizing homo-economicus women are going around picking the most expensive free estrogen they can under the All Drugs Are Totally Free Plan of Catholic Institution X.

Consider, momentarily, that liberals are angry about what we say we're angry about. And if it's a machiavellian drug company conspiracy at least invent some supporting fiction about how that happened. Unless that is what it looks like when you troll.

It does appear that mandate is that all form of birth control are free.

Anyway I am pretty sure that Catholics are pissed about having to provide a service that goes against a core believe that "Every Sperm is Sacred" Liberal are pissed that Catholics have such an idiotic and dangerous belief and are using some bogus religious freedom argument to keep contraceptives from their workers.

I am pissed that rather than attempting to control health care costs were making the problem worse by creating yet another entitlement, free birth control pills.

I feel better after listening to my favorite Monty Python song so I am done with this.

[MatthewF]

Wait, so if birth control pills costs are nothing or near-nothing, that somehow doesn't lower the cost of health care? It's been said several times in this thread that birth control pills aren't just used for birth control. Hell, just read the article Jason linked in post #131.

[Lorini]

They are still cheaper than unplanned children but apparently that's not the point.

[Jason Townsend]

As a (formally speaking) Catholic I've watched the church hurtle into very conservative politics. My baseline - admittedly a fairly recent thing - was the post-Vatican II period where traditional liberal Catholic selectiveness about doctrine and values coincided with a comparatively liberal period in terms of what the church actually pushed, not much different from mainline Protestantism. So on various issues I've seen the church get more and more conservative and more and more serious about making people actually agree to things, and get more and more tied up in partisan politics.

So the Church's views on contraception aren't new. The church going to war with the President's "religious oppression" hand in glove with the GOP is. Also the type of regulation which wound up triggering the fight. Uncontrolled health care costs are indeed a problem, but uncontrolled contraception costs? Are they cheap or expensive on average or just kind of in between? I suspect the latter, but the cases in which it's expensive make the "let sky-wizard-based sex discrimination slide" repugnant in a concrete way. Doesn't mean it's the only reason to oppose it.

[Jason McCullough]

Who cites numbers like McCullough's, which should end this insanity like cold water? No one that I'm seeing.

For no apparent reason the cable networks - who absolutely no one watches, their viewer numbers are unbelievably low - drive the day to day political conversation. And they're entirely about conflict narrative.

[Strollen]

For no apparent reason the cable networks - who absolutely no one watches, their viewer numbers are unbelievably low - drive the day to day political conversation. And they're entirely about conflict narrative.

You're right cable news networks have a very low viewership, although probably include most folks on P&R. The reality is that all traditional news outlets have fallen dramatically. The combine night viewership of the network news show is ~20 million. The circulation of WSJ, USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post is ~5 million. The Daily Show gets about 2 million. From I what I can tell most American's are blissfully ignorant of 90% what is discussed on P&R including this issue.

[jeffd]

I definitely do not watch cable news.

[Jason McCullough]

You're right cable news networks have a very low viewership, although probably include most folks on P&R. The reality is that all traditional news outlets have fallen dramatically. The combine night viewership of the network news show is ~20 million. The circulation of WSJ, USA Today, NY Times, Washington Post is ~5 million. The Daily Show gets about 2 million. From I what I can tell most American's are blissfully ignorant of 90% what is discussed on P&R including this issue.

CNN's primetime viewers are 640k, daytime 400k. Fox is around 2 million; the entire cable news audience is maybe 4 million. Daytime is half that.

[Jason Townsend]

I'll watch CBC newsworld over lunch or something, but I don't even like CTV's cable news, much less CNN or something of that nature. It's interesting to ponder where the heck "folks generally" get their political news, such as it is. GOP primary ads?

[Scuzz]

I definitely do not watch cable news.

Ditto. :)





And no one is saying (or are they) that birth control should be provided "free" by the Catholic Hospitals, only that it should be included in the insurance offered their employees. Based on the co-pays employees would most likely still be paying something for the pills no matter what the reason is that they use them.

[Strollen]

Ditto. :)





And no one is saying (or are they) that birth control should be provided "free" by the Catholic Hospitals, only that it should be included in the insurance offered their employees. Based on the co-pays employees would most likely still be paying something for the pills no matter what the reason is that they use them.

My understanding (and I have yet to find to link to the details) is that if you provide insurance for your employees (and doesn't Obamacare require all medium employeers to provide insurance?), than you have to provide all contraceptive options free of charge.

This is certainly the impression I get from this Op Ed in today's WSJ written by Democratic Senator Boxer, Murray, and Shaheen.

It was a historic victory for women's health when the Obama administration changed the law to require private health plans to provide preventive services including breast exams, HIV screening and contraception for free. This new policy will help millions of women get the affordable care they need.

On a side note I am surprised that nobody watches Cable News. I am news junkie and religiously (hehe) watch the PBS Newshour. But when I am surfing the net and generally playing game, I typically have CNBC, CNN, Fox or MSNBC (in that order) on for background noise/news. Along with reading the WSJ, Washington Post and typically checking out Realclear Politics, The Atlantic, and NRO. So where do P&R readers get their news.

[charmtrap]

On a side note I am surprised that nobody watches Cable News. I am news junkie and religiously (hehe) watch the PBS Newshour. But when I am surfing the net and generally playing game, I typically have CNBC, CNN, Fox or MSNBC (in that order) on for background noise/news. Along with reading the WSJ, Washington Post and typically checking out Realclear Politics, The Atlantic, and NRO. So where do P&R readers get their news.

I basically never watch television news, unless a blog that I read links to something online. I get most of my news from blogs & Google News. I read a dozen or so blogs and most anything worth reading gets linked at some point somewhere.

On the days of the week when I commute, I listen to Morning Edition or All Things Considered or Marketplace...whatever's on NPR when I'm on the road.

EDIT: Also, don't discount QT3 as a news source...there's a lot of linking to interesting stories around here and at that other forum as well...

[Jason Townsend]

I'd say there are fair number of "gold standard" media pillars like NYT/BBC/NPR/PBS who are paying old-fashioned news-gatherers with a measure of journalistic principle, and lots of more interest-focused news sources like bloggers/columnists/etc. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s there's really no upside to TV as a medium.

[Scuzz]

My understanding (and I have yet to find to link to the details) is that if you provide insurance for your employees (and doesn't Obamacare require all medium employeers to provide insurance?), than you have to provide all contraceptive options free of charge.

This is certainly the impression I get from this Op Ed in today's WSJ written by Democratic Senator Boxer, Murray, and Shaheen.

Quote:
It was a historic victory for women's health when the Obama administration changed the law to require private health plans to provide preventive services including breast exams, HIV screening and contraception for free. This new policy will help millions of women get the affordable care they need.

How do insurance companies provide all that "for free"? Although I think some of that may be covered by most companies now "Preventive Care Benefits". I think our Blue Shield covers the first two items along with free physicals once a year.

But it does seem like the cost of handing the pill out for free (while sweet for us) would be very expensive to an insurance company.

[Scuzz]

I'd say there are fair number of "gold standard" media pillars like NYT/BBC/NPR/PBS who are paying old-fashioned news-gatherers with a measure of journalistic principle, and lots of more interest-focused news sources like bloggers/columnists/etc. Compared to the 1980s and 1990s there's really no upside to TV as a medium.

The internet (and the people on it) have convinced me that all media sources are biased and that none should be trusted.