I continue to be amazed that, in a year when everything was supposed to be about the economy, we are seriously debating whether health insurance should cover contraception for consenting – and, yes, married – adults. Unbelievable. Thanks, GOP, for doing your best to marginalize your own party.
Anyway, on that general topic, you should check out three pieces in today’s Globe. The first two, authored by Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown, set out diametrically opposed positions on the crazy Blunt Amendment that would, if passed (which of course it won’t be), allow any employer to deny coverage to his employers for anything, as long as he has a “moral conviction” against it. I stand by that interpretation, and I haven’t seen anything from those who claim it’s wrong that is the least bit persuasive. If you’re HIV-positive and your employer has a “moral conviction” against AIDS treatment, well, tough luck for you.
Among the most dishonest parts of Brown’s position is that it’s indistinguishable from Ted Kennedy’s. Unfortunately, Ted Kennedy isn’t here to rebut him, but I’m 100% confident that Brown is wrong. I discussed this in detail a couple of days ago, and I also discussed why the Catholic Bishops’ “kosher deli” parable actually emphasizes that, on this issue, Ted Kennedy≠Scott Brown.
I’m disappointed that, as of yet, nobody in the mainstream media has pressed Scott Brown on his dramatic flip-flop on this very issue. As explained here, Brown voted in favor of a Massachusetts law whose mandate is actually more onerous (if that’s the right word) with respect to Catholic-affiliated institutions like universities and hospitals – and he did so over the strenuous objection of the Boston Archdiocese, who fought the mandate tooth and nail. Maybe they’re holding it in reserve for the debates. We’ll keep putting it out there.
The third Globe piece worth reading is Scot Lehigh’s takedown of Rick Santorum’s candidacy. His bottom line:
the Republican primary campaign has revealed a candidate too governed by faith to lead a diverse country.
That’s not because he’s Catholic. Rather, it’s because his ultra-conservative religious beliefs so inform his life, his values, and his worldview that he couldn’t separate that perspective from public-policy questions, or decide an issue on the facts rather than faith, even if he wanted to. Not that he does, of course.
That’s only partially correct. Because, as Juan Cole has convincingly outlined, Santorum in fact routinely departs from explicit teachings of the Catholic Church when it suits his extreme political views. On the death penalty, on raising the minimum wage, on universal health care, on Iraq, on immigration, and on other topics, Santorum’s views are directly at odds with those of the church.
So Santorum is, in fact, the worst kind of hypocrite (if that’s the right word – maybe “narcissist” is better). Lehigh is certainly correct that Santorum shouldn’t be president – but it’s not because he is governed by his faith, but rather because he puts himself above it while claiming the opposite. Having a person like Santorum in the Senate was bad enough, and the people of Pennsylvania very sensibly put an end to that in convincing fashion a few years ago. Putting such a person in the White House would be an invitation to real disaster.
is that we rely on private health insurance to cover essential health care. Leaving some with good health care, others with inadequate health care and many with none. Another argument for single payer.
give you a 6!
if people didn’t insist on it covering all those controversial things like birth control and abortion and sex changes. It should only cover basic medicine that at least 90% want to be insured for, and if people want coverage for more modern radical stuff, they should purchase supplemental private insurance.
on board, we could NOT get single payer.
I think that birth control and abortion are entirely covered under the rubric of “basic medicine’. They are, to me, not controversial in the least; all the processes are well researched, tested and proven effective; Contraception and abortion are no less basic than ultra-sounds, fertility treatments, pre- neo- and post-natal care and any other procedure that can be filed under the category of obstetrics. I think that the entire field of professional medicine is in agreement with me. Who are you to say otherwise?
Sure they’re effective, but so is the electric chair, so is angel dust. They’re not medicine because medicine means health, and health only goes as far as it goes in nature, in the best circumstances of nature. Yes, through technology we can extend lifespan, increase our potential, and decrease our suffering, but not all uses of technology qualify as medicine, even if they reduce suffering, increase our potential, and extend lifespan. The television set, airplanes, and air conditioners are not medicine, even though they please people and could be said to reduce suffering, increase lifespans, etc. They are not medicine, or health care, because they don’t restore health of the body to optimal condition, like a human should expect to be if they were healthy. Perhaps its a circular definition, but otherwise it’s open-ended, and no one is healthy until we have invented immortal bodies that have limitless capabilities and pleasure.
The rest of obstetrics you mention qualifies as medicine by that definition. I’m sure the entire field of medicine is rather biased about the scope of their field. Sure, they’d like to advise people about taking LSD, aromatherapy and how to freeze their heads when they die, and have it all covered under health care. And to an extent, a doctor certainly is qualified to advise people about the effects of drugs, how to survive addictions and overdoses, but those drugs aren’t medicine unless they try to restore health.
You are unrelated to rationality…
to determine if something is medicine or not. If it is designed to help the body function as it should in the optimal conditions of nature it is medicine. If it is designed to overcome health or get around health, it is not medicine. Just because it alters the body in a way that people might desire does not make it medicine.
… you are an idiot.
argument and GOP supporters are looking for ad hoc reasons to say that not covering birth control makes sense.
there had never been healthy women before? They all had the disease of fertility? And now infertility is healthy? Are there any healthy people at all, considering that even today people don’t have access to the body and mind enhancements that people might use in the future?
Women DIED in childbirth for heaven’s sake. THEY STILL DO.
Shut up before you hurt yourself.
stop trying to play some trump card that just makes you look foolish.
OMG, you really did pick an ironic nickname.
were no more than 10 Senators who would vote for single payer? Every Senator asked by the left why they were not fighting for single payer answered with something that boiled down to the fact that that was no way to get the votes as too many Senators were ideologically against it. That had nothing to do with what was covered.
The GOP must be REALLY damned worried about motivating their church-right-wing base if Romney gets the nomination, to be going THIS route.
Similar to the anti-immigration talk, this just destroys their ability to speak to the problems facing large swaths of the American electorate (in this case, women).
Never MIND looking severely out of touch with the real concerns of the day, like, where’s the next paycheck going to come from?
There are more things in Earth and Heaven than are dreamt of by the _Globe_ of Gotham City.
For example,
Happy days.
are a remarkably small percentage of the electorate.
Data point here
Women:
25% GOP
41% Dem
26% Ind
While I don’t mean to suggest that women will *only* vote on issues directly effecting themselves, I have to believe that women who aren’t morally opposed to abortion and birth control in all/most cases will find Santorum’s positions on these issues to be deal breakers, not to mention his other assorted misogynistic statements as well as his nasty comments toward various forms of feminism, including the idea that it’s perfectly reasonable for women to have family and career.
Having written that, Santorum ain’t getting very many of the 41% of women who identify as Democrats. My question is: how many of the 26% of women who identify as independents do you think he will get? My hunch: not very many. In fact, very few.
If you’re only winning 30% of the women, then you need to be winning 70% of the men to be competitive, loosely speaking. You think Santorum can win 70% of men? I sure as heck don’t.
Santorum wrote in his book: ““Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root. The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.”
He did not say that it was unreasonable for women to have a family and a career. He was noting the nasty comments toward women who do not choose to have a career and instead raise a family while their husband works. That’s more accurately misogynistic, because it is literally antagonism toward what makes women women, insisting that there is nothing to it, no value in itself.
I think he can win half of the independent women, and 90% of men.
For someone with that particular nickname.
Cute as in, totally naive.
That is perhaps the most absurd prediction I’ve yet seen regarding this election cycle.
… of any that are more absurd. Even Newt’s ‘I will be the nominee’ had more of a chance of being true.
win half of the independent women in the Catholic church–thank God for nuns–and 90% of the male hierarchy.
…though I can’t explain why a woman was the one who introduced VA legislation requiring the transvaginal ultrasound.
For that matter, neither do a lot of people. As far as I can tell only those who are religiously conservative or are part of the 1% have any logical reason to vote GOP. Wish it were that easy for us; we’d win in a landslide.
…about women who like to have their hand up another woman’s uterus…
…that they’re gay.
He signed on to Blunt and co-sponsored a looney extreme right bill.
Did he think he was co-sponsoring something else?
Instead of taking his lumps and distancing himself from the bill, rekindling thoughts of “good looking, but stupid” remarks a la Osama’s death photos. He instead continues to defend “his” meaning of the bill, which is at odds with anyone who can read a sentence. After a while that brings us back to “good looking, but stupid”.
Or more significantly, slowly creeping towards a complete train wreck. Remember Jan Brewer’s remarks about headless bodies? That’s the closest thing I can think of, the charge was completely false, confirmed by police and anyone involved but Brewer continued sounding like an idiot, reporters finally had enough and finally peppered her with questions.
This is not Arizona, picture this video and it’s impact in Massachusetts with reporters questioning Brown about something that is so obviously false.
Eeeee-zactly!
Jan Brewer is a special kind of crazy. Allowing us to evoke the image of Brewer when speaking of Brown is REALLY not good for his reelection chances…
I have a serious bone to pick with Brown’s statement that “the late Senator Ted Kennedy, believed just as I do.”
He makes this claim by cherry picking a letter from Kennedy to Pope Benedict.
He bases it on this phrase: “I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field…”
The complete sentence: “I believe in a conscience protection for Catholics in the health field and I’ll continue to advocate for it as my colleagues in the Senate and I work to develop an overall national health policy that guarantees health care for everyone.”
This is where Kennedy and Brown part ways. Let’s not forget that Brown was elected on the threat that he would cast the deciding vote to kill the Affordable Health Care Act.”
No wonder he chooses to ignore the opening passage of Kennedy’s letter to the Pope:
“I asked President Obama to personally hand deliver this letter to you. As a man of deep faith himself, he understands how important my Roman Catholic faith is to me and I am so deeply grateful to him.”
Senator Brown is no Ted Kennedy.
I have been very sick and not on line much, so let me know if this was covered.
Mass. Democrats kept contraception illegal for unmarried women until the mid-70’s, and didn’t make employers cover contraception as a medication until 2002, so the whole conscience thing had been covered by having employees pay a 100% co-pay, making contraception available to them and still not paid for by those with religious objections. What blew the lid off this was Obama’s insistence on free contraception for all. Why is that, btw? Why contraception? Why not insulin? Viagara? What is the health care rationale? Or is it just a massive political give-away?
My outrage stems over Obama decreeing that a private business (insurance company) should have to provide a product for free to the public because they say so. Will he also be mandating that GM give free cars to the ‘right’ people now that the government owns them?
Seriously – David – you are a lawyer. By what authority does the Executive dictate to private industry that it must provide products for free? Bonus question – if an insurance company decides it would rather not write the insurance of a faith-based business because it will have to provide free product to the clients, will it be penalized for civil rights based religious discrimination?
Providing necessary health care to young women outrages you? You are letting your worldview slip back to a very difficult time for half the population. No one is forcing any religious person to access these medications but apparently 98% or more of all religions do. Government has not dictated that insurers, pharmacists, or employers violate their beliefs. When health insurance is offered basic health must be covered or else it is not health insurance. What you are proposing is Worry Insurance where the individual, the worker, who has bought this(health insurance is part of one’s salary) now must pay additional. I thought raditionalist thinkers always rail against someone else taking away their hard earned dollars. However this is exactly what is being done with the false claim of preserving some moral code that has not only degraded over time, but shown to be false. What is being provided is health insurance and what health care is chosen from agreed upon legal basic care is none of the employers or for that matter the government’s business. In your world you would have monitors that would have surveillance of employee’s health expenditures to make sure they follow their boss’s so called moral code. If a young female applicant to a position was told they will not be getting contraceptive services they would probably seek a position that would. Oh, my bad. There are no other jobs available to make this choice. Solution: Universal coverage and perhaps more jobs. Reactionary, i.e. wishing for past times proven to decrease liberty, started this argument and quite frankly it is settled. So now let’s move on and figure out more important issues such as providing job opportunities and affordable health insurance with access to needed care. I do thank you however for expressing your side since it allows others to express theirs.
If you buy a car and they leave out the engine because of some prejudice or other reason of the seller, what is the more important policy here. Should there be a standard based on its definition or is it legitimate to have it excluded. Remember there are also anti-pollution laws and mileage regulations that have benefited consumers. I am using your car analogy to more accurately frame what the real argument is. Would you agree that there are some items in a service or product that must be included or the buyer is not getting what they are paying for. Again health insurance is part of an employee’s income. A special rule had to inserted that exempted it from taxation since it is recognized as a person’s earnings.
A key factor here is that the mandate requires GM to provide something that makes the car more, not less, profitable. To preserve the analogy, we have to stipulate a major religion that argues that this highly-profitable component is somehow immoral.
To preserve the analogy, GM benefits by providing the car or component.
a company had to be mandated to increase their profits. Why did they need a mandate to get them to offer it for free then?
I’m sorry to hear of your illness, I’ve missed your commentary. I hope you’re on the mend. Yes, we have been over this issue and the substance of your questions in some detail.
Let me try and summarize.
You asked “Why contraception? Why not insulin? Viagara? What is the health care rationale? Or is it just a massive political give-away?”
Contraception is at the top of the list of affordable coverages that provide needed health care that benefit only women. Unintended pregnancy is an enormous part of the costs of providing health insurance for women. Health insurers make money by providing contraception. That’s the reason why insulin and viagra are different.
You wrote “My outrage stems over Obama decreeing that a private business (insurance company) should have to provide a product for free to the public because they say so. Will he also be mandating that GM give free cars to the ‘right’ people now that the government owns them?”
If GM were to be accepting substantial federal funds, and if giving away cars were to significantly advance a necessary mission of GM, then the “giveaway” probably WOULD be mandated. To preserve the analogy, we have to also have to postulate a major religion who insists that it is immoral for anybody to drive a car — let’s remember that in this scenario, GM makes money by giving away the car, and the mandate primarily serves to provide cover to GM and protect them from the attacks from the religious organization.
In short, health care is not automobiles. I know this is difficult for our other-winged friends to comprehend, but health care is not automobiles.
Finally you asked two more questions:
1. The government has long and well-established role in regulating the definition of what constitutes various products of private industry. The government is not telling private industry to “provide products for free”. It is instead defining what “health coverage for women” must include. Most of us agree that the government can require that a product labeled as “100% orange juice” contain mostly orange juice. There is nothing “free” about it — the health insurance industry continues to be immensely profitable, and this mandate raises rather than lowers health insurance profitability (because dollar-for-dollar, contraception is far less expensive then unintended pregnancy).
2. Again, the insurance company is not being forced to provide “free product”. In this case, the health insurance company would actually charge higher premiums for a faith-based company that wanted contraception to NOT be covered, just as it charges higher premiums for groups that include smokers, race-car drivers, extreme sports enthusiasts, and other individuals who practice “high risk” behavior. Refusing to allow the insurer to cover contraception is tantamount to forcing the insurer to cover high-risk behavior (sex without contraception is high-risk behavior for women) without compensation.
In this case, the economic arguments work to support rather than oppose the mandate from the perspective of the health insurance provider.
Hmm, can they do this? Can they look at the individuals who work for a company and say “uh-oh, lots of thirty-something liberal women work there, very likely to require IVF treatment in a few years, so they will have a higher premium.” Or, “hmm, lots of married Catholics, they might have lots of kids, better charge them more.” (even though 98% of them use contraception even though it isn’t free apparently) Do they charge all employees the same premium, even the men who will never get pregnant, the people who never have sex, and the earnest young married men whose young healthy wives will have children without IVF? IVF is something like 1% of health care cost already and rising fast, and BC contributes to higher need for IVF by delaying children. It also results in unhealthier children, more twins, more low birth weight, more caesareans. IVF is also mandated coverage.
Sounds like the next logical step for you is to require that women pee in a cup to prove they are taking their pill, cause just offering it for free doesn’t mean they will take it. And, maybe the next step for you is requiring genetic screening, requiring genetic engineering, anything that you claim reduces costs (but which I’m rather dubious about, since costs have been going up and up even as more people take BC and do genetic screening).
Every employer who’s had to obtain small-group health insurance for his or her company has had to force them to pee in a cup.
Each of those covered employees must submit to an insurer-required medical exam with an examiner chosen by the insurer. Blood and urine samples are already taken in those exams, for the sole purpose of gathering information for the insurer. What do think those samples are for?
The women are peeing in a cup already, as are the men. Welcome to US health care.
Women will be mandated to pee in to a cup to prove they are taking their pill?
We’ve got to get rid of employer provided health care, it is a huge burden on business and employees. McCain’s plan would have done that, giving everyone a stipend to purchase a basic health care plan, and if they wanted more coverage, they could pay out of their own pocket.
I never had to have a physical when I got health insurance through work, and I didn’t have to when I got an individual plan through the mass connector. There were no questions at all, as I recall.
This is why they can specify the outline of what a qualifying insurance plan looks like. As to subsidized, I am not speaking just of the government paid (or partially paid) insurance. If your company buys a $15,000 healthcare policy for you, neither you or they are taxed on that money. That is a subsidy.
It is income, so why isn’t it taxed as income?
It is the reason that the US had a large percent – that has declined in the last few decades of people getting their healthcare from their employer. In addition, I would conjecture that the existence of employer paid (or partially paid insurance) is one of the biggest reasons that US has not been able to get a sufficient number of people behind single payer. Too many people were concerned with losing what they had.
Ending the tax loophole would immediately raise revenue and help convince people to move to single payer. But it was opposed by Obama and the Democrats, who said McCain wanted to “tax health care.” No, they wanted to close a loophole for the rich who have the most expensive health plans and pay no taxes on that income.
I hope you are feeling better. I was wondering where you were.
She was asking the same question I’ve had all along. Why, of all the things that arguably have merit for being free, did the administration chose THIS, something that is not absolutely necessary? Unless I’ve missed other changes that are not as well publicized, you have to pay copays for plenty of other medication, even ones that arguably keep you alive (eg heart medication). It’s fine to include contraception as part of standard coverage, but in terms of being absoutely free it’s very low on the priority totem pole.
We keep going around and around on this. You write “Porcupine wasn’t arguing morality. She was asking the same question I’ve had all along”. The point is that “morality” (actually, religious belief) is the only reason (other than pure sexism) to oppose this. So she is arguing morality, whether she admits it or not.
What other coverage is at or near the top of the list of for women?
Contraception is an essential component of good modern health care for women. Reducing unintended pregnancies dramatically lowers health care costs for women — insurers make money by offering it. Free access to contraception is far and away the most effective way to reduce the number of abortions, which some segments of the electorate claim to be concerned about (although their objection to contraception totally destroys that claim). This mandate is good economics, good health care, good for health insurers, and good politics (women vote, and the right-wing assault on women’s rights is a serious concern for many male voters).
Half of the population and more than half of the electorate are women. Why, other than latent sexism (in those who ask this question, not just you), is it so hard to understand the appeal and very real value of this mandate?
should not be asking the question “why is this important to women to provide for free?”
As a person with a uterus, there is NOTHING more important to my medical history than my access to birth control. And the less money you have, the MORE you need access to it, and the less you can afford it.
In my early adult years, I got it thanks to a sliding fee scale from NH’s Planned Parenthood clinic (the very program, in fact, that was CUT in NH recently). In my first years out of college I had temp jobs that paid crap and did not provide even rudimentary health care plans. No way I could have paid out of pocket for full price, and even a copay (especially at today’s copay rates) for any woman just under my means (I think I paid $20 on the sliding scale, and when you have to pay for 3-6 or 12 months at a time, that’s tough) would have been impossible.
I cannot stress enough how important that access was for me. I was in a relationship (and soon after, marriage) and without that stability of access to birth control, god knows what would have happened.
There were times in my life, uninsured, where I could not afford out of pocket to see a GP, but my GYN appointment was the only doctor I could afford to see. You have no idea the desperation that you go through without insurance. To this day I heft my ass into Boston to go to PP, as a show of support now that I am fully insured (and because their clinicians are just awesome). This is how grateful I am to them for giving me affordable access to birth control.
There, is that enough for you? Can we stop asking this question finally?
I think you intended to reply to Christopher.
I enthusiastically agree with you that this is an absurd question that we should stop asking.
President Obama did the right thing with this mandate. I fully support him and the mandate. I’m not surprised that the religious right-wing opposes it — I think that’s a good indication that it’s the right move at the right time.
I was expanding on your response to him, as some of the themes were the same…so I hit reply to yours…I guess it could have gone either way, the way the comment wound up kinda getting personal. 🙂
The point of the Health care reform act is to provide health insurance to all americans and to reorganize health services so as to shrink the health industry bubble.
The President said:
“As part of the health care reform law that I signed last year, all insurance plans are required to cover preventive care at no cost. That means free check-ups, free mammograms, immunizations and other basic services. We fought for this because it saves lives and it saves money –- for families, for businesses, for government, for everybody. That’s because it’s a lot cheaper to prevent an illness than to treat one.”
and,
“Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services -– no matter where they work. So that core principle remains. But if a woman’s employer is a charity or a hospital that has a religious objection to providing contraceptive services as part of their health plan, the insurance company -– not the hospital, not the charity -– will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge, without co-pays and without hassles.”
An unwanted pregnancy may not be considered an illness on religious and moral grounds, but prevention of unwanted pregnancy is certainly a decision women can make based on their individual right of conscience and the property of their own bodies.
So until someone can show me in the Constitution that ever-increasing co-pays are the law of the land and that health isurers must provide coverage without premiums – ever – I’m sticking with Hopey.
The exchange with Porcupine leads me to a different question.
Let’s stipulate that contraception is provided, free of charge, to every women under her employer-provided health insurance.
Can that insurance company penalize a woman for not using it? If a woman with this coverage fails to use contraception, and subsequently has an unintended pregnancy, can her insurance company charge her differently from her peer who did use the coverage? Can the insurance company refuse to cover the costs of an abortion, especially one that is not driven by medical necessity?
We have a relatively long history of allowing insurers to set rates based on risk factors like whether or not people smoke, drink, practice extreme sports, wear helmets, wear seatbelts, and so on. Having sex while not using a prescribed contraceptive strikes me as similarly high-risk behavior, especially when that prescribed contraceptive is available free of charge.
Is there some reason why this history should or should NOT apply to coverage for contraception and pregnancy?
I don’t know where I come down on the question, I just realize that I don’t think we’ve discussed this aspect of it.
…but Tom, stop assigning motives as neither religion nor sexism drives this one for me. There is the practical matter of what is necessary for survival. Here is a thought exercise – answer the following questions:
How long can a person go without food?
How long can a person go without water?
How long can a diabetic go without insulin treatment?
How long can a person with a heart condition go without appropriate medication?
How long can a person go without sex?
I don’t know the answers to the first four questions and I’m not expecting you to know either without looking them up. The point is the first four have answers; the last one does not. If insurers decide it’s better to offer it, great, but it’s not for the government to mandate this. If they want to mandate free coverage for something, it should be preventative such as vaccines, cancer screenings, or even annual physicals. If babies automatically generated in the womb just because the body decided it was time there would be a case, but that not being the case having a small copay like any other prescription is perfectly reasonable.
You asked a question and several of us have answered it. You don’t like the answer. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
…would you want someone like me, a woman married for a decade and a half (essentially) who chooses not to have children, in lieu of affordable/free access to the best birth control choices? And do not tell me that I could always depend on condoms. YOU try having a strong sexual relationship with your spouse using condoms all the time, and where condoms are also NOT the most effective birth control method (much more likely to fail than a pill/IUD).
Just asking. Because that would have likely happened several times in my long relationship to the Mr had I not had super affordable access to birth control.
Tom-
I think the intent of making preventive care free to the consumer is an attempt to mitigate risk. Sure some folks may act irresponsibly and find themselves in a place they did not want to be, but making prevention readily available will decrease the number, and therefore the costs, of abortions. Mammograms, colonoscopies – dozens of preventive care procedures can prevent more dangerous illnesses and more costly treatment later.
By the way, there is no ban on abstinence.
I just said low priority for it to be free, but I’ve also said that the President’s more recent proposal was the right way to accomplish the stated goal. From what I’ve heard and read it sounds like it makes economic sense for contraception to be as widely available as possible so therefore a win-win for insurers and consumers. For the record, I don’t have insurance (and make little enough to not even be penalized for it) so from that angle I can sympathize regarding health care decisions. Otherwise, I stand by my previous comments, especially since it would seem men also have an interest in not producing unwanted children.