Something that has been overlooked in all the rhetoric about President Obama's Healthcare Mandate and the whole birth control debate is that it isn't just birth control that insurance plans will be required to cover beginning in 2014. It is also maternity coverage. I would bet that not too many people realize that most health insurance policies that the citizens of the US have now do not cover many or any of the costs associated with being pregnant and delivering a baby.
Never mind that they don't cover the medication necessary to prevent pregnancy if a woman and her partner choose to engage in normal sexual activity- they don't cover the results of that normal sexual activity if for some reason that couple's birth control (that they pay for themselves) fails either. Beginning in 2014, pretty much every new insurance policy issued will have to cover not only the birth control that everyone is screaming about, but also maternity costs. Also, insurance providers will no longer be able to refuse coverage for preexisting conditions (which many a woman has discovered pregnancy is, when she has to switch insurance in the middle of a pregnancy because of a job change or a marriage.)
All of a sudden, the volume of the attacks on this provision of "Obamacare" make a lot more sense. It was never about religious freedom, or anything at all other than insurance companies and the employers who pay the them looking out for their bottom line. It isn't just about the cost of covering birth control with these policies, it's about having the ability to dodge covering maternity costs.
The immorality of the idea of someone wishing to have sex for a reason other than procreation, and then asking their poor religiously objecting employer to pay for them to be able to do that, has all been nothing but a smokescreen. Many of these employers and insurance companies have already made their positions clear with the types of coverage they provide now- not only are they against people having sex "on their dime", they are also against people making babies. Since only women can have babies, I would say that lands this argument clearly right smack in the middle of the "Women's Rights" debate. Women have a right to have the health insurance that they choose (or that their employer chooses for them) cover the medical expenses that they can reasonably expect to incur.
What do you think the #1 most likely medical condition that women are most likely to face at some point in their lifetime is? It is pregnancy, hands down, way over and above any other diagnosis. Only 18% of women in the US will reach the end of her childbearing years without having given birth (source here),which means that the other 82% of us will spend at least part of one year of our lives gestating a little human. And this statistic does not factor in all of the women who become pregnant and do not carry their pregnancies to term, whether due to miscarriage or termination of a pregnancy. So why wouldn't it make sense to require that the number one medical condition that women are likely to be faced with be covered by their health insurance?
Obviously, there is much debate going on as to whether it is reasonable to require citizens in the US to purchase health insurance or not. That topic of discussion is irrelevant to this discussion, because whether or not insurance plans are required to cover women's health benefits or not only affects those who have health insurance, not what prompted them to get it. As it stands, we live in a society where (excepting those person's who are wealthy) the only way to safeguard against having all of your assets wiped out to pay for an unexpected diagnosis is to have some kind of health insurance to bear the brunt of those costs, or to rely on the charity of others to pay the medical bills that your own assets won't cover. Or you could just die. That is always an option...
In light of the fact that we are no longer just considering the costs of covering birth control for women, it makes a lot more sense that employers and conservatives are screaming their collective heads off about this mandate being too expensive. Of course it will be expensive, if plans that previously did not cover maternity costs will now be required to cover them. Of course it will be expensive if every insurance plan offered has to cover the maternity costs of those joining their plans, without being able to deny those costs as a preexisting condition. And of course it will cost more money to cover birth control medication to women covered by the plans. It's just not quite as expensive as it is being made out to be, as it turns out.
Knowing this, here is the deal. If the Affordable Care Act goes into effect as planned in 2014- which it will, unless the GOP sweeps the next election and gains control of Congress and the Presidency- then it is going to be a LOT more cost effective for insurance plans to cover the cost of birth control, as compared to covering the costs of the pregnancies that birth control prevents. Not to mention the costs of covering the children that would result from those pregnancies, and all their expensive little illnesses and boo-boos. Funny, that is exactly what President Obama and his supporters have been saying, and that is what his opponents have been arguing vehemently against, without giving the public enough information to really understand the math on it. Here is some of that math, really simplified because you all know that I'm a mathaphobe:
*The cost of birth control per woman, per year ranges between $168 and $1000 dollars.
*The cost of the prenatal care, normal vaginal delivery, and post partum care for a healthy mother runs about $10,000 on average. This is per pregnancy. (source here)
*The frequency at which a woman who has an average sex life and is reasonably fertile can become pregnant if she uses no birth control is once every 18 months or so.
*The number of years that the average woman is fertile and able to conceive a child is about 25 years. This works out to the potential for about 16 pregnancies per normally sexually active woman without birth control (interestingly, this is about the average number of children in families that I have known who had normal sex lives and did not have access to or who objected to the use of birth control)
*The amount a woman using generic birth control pills to avoid becoming pregnant, for the entire time that she is potentially fertile, would set her insurance provider back is about $5000
Now do you see why people are freaking out? Not because Georgetown University might have to pay a portion of the cost for an insurance plan that would offer female students coverage for birth control, but because all employers might have to pay into an insurance plan for their employees that would cover not only birth control, but also pregnancy and delivery.
This shows a lack of foresight that it laughable to anyone who has ever sat down and considered the costs of preventative maintenance like an oil change every 3000 miles in your car versus dealing with a blown engine because you drove it until there was no oil left in the sucker. What even these employers are missing is that if they pay for an insurance plan that covers birth control, even if that birth control is completely free to the patient, then they are not only avoiding the costs that would result from an unplanned pregnancy, but they are also avoiding the costs associated with covering the children that people have without meaning to. A lot more women will use birth control if it is easier and cheaper for them to get, and a lot fewer unwanted babies will be born as a result.
I just thought that I would take a moment to share the part of the debate that has been left out...
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