Contraceptive Recommendation Creates New Controversy for Health Care Law

Harry Guerrilla said:

Based on the assumption that women with insurance, cannot afford birth control.

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Based on the assumption that if it's free, more people will use it, which has been demonstrated in the past to be true. :shrug:

Temporal said:

Based on the assumption that if it's free, more people will use it, which has been demonstrated in the past to be true. :shrug:

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The only evidence I've seen thus far is that longer prescriptions for birth control reduce unplanned pregnancies.

Remember, this policy is for women with insurance.

I've done a good bit of digging to show the point I'm trying to make.
Will include all links at the end.

Remember now, this policy is directed towards women, who already have insurance.
If the statistical representation of Hawaiian unplanned pregnancies is similar to the rest of the nation, women with insurance are the least likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, out of all groups of women.

The most likely were women on Medicaid/state insurance program, with uninsured being the next likely.
Also included, that of all pregnancies, both intended and unintended, only 14% were unwanted.
So the majority of the pregnancies cost, will be incurred anyway, at some time.

Next up is cost being a factor for not using birth control.
The Guttmacher institute highlighted that cost and access was only a problem for 12% of all women surveyed, that includes women who were insured and not insured.
The majority of unintended pregnancies, were women who were already using birth control and used it incorrectly (including men who improperly used condoms.)

Basically the only thing that I'm seeing that could have any real cost reduction for unintended pregnancies, is if women start to switch to longer term birth control methods, like the IUD, Depo Provara, etc.
The cost of those, is greater than your standard birth control pill or box of condoms.

If you include the now subsidized cost of women who use birth control correctly with this, most of those savings could evaporate and potentially increase total costs.
Especially if you include the fact that OBG's, drug makers, etc can now increase billing charges to insurance companies because they would have to cover it.

http://www.hi5deposit.com/health/family-child-health/mchb/prams-doc/unintendedpregnancy

Contraceptive Use Among U.S. Women Having Abortions in 2000-2001

I agree that long term birth control is the best option. As I said earlier, perhaps monetary incentives could be offered to woman who agree to get a tubal. A tubal is very expensive, and is already covered 100% by medicaid, but women who have insurance will still have a deductible and a co pay which adds up fast. I expect to pay a couple of hundred after my insurance kicks in.
Just like everything else in life, people need incentives to act. Providing incentives such as free birth control or even offering money for permanent sterilization could save money in the future. The up front costs would be high, but the future benefits of not having as many children on welfare would likely outweigh those costs.

Objective Voice said:

The whole issue here is "abortion, abortion, abortion". Nevermind that the intension behind the Institute's recommendation is to provide birth control to women who want it but can't afford it. If it were just a matter of distributing condoms, spermasidal gels (too messy), diaphrams (who uses those anymore?) or the pill, most people wouldn't have a problem with this. But because of the prospect of some female being issued the morning after pill - instant abortion - this is what has folks so up in arms about. Keep in mind that the woman may not even know if she's pregnant at all; she's merely taking the MAP as a precaution against unwanted pregnancy.

To me, it's not a moral question, but a matter of personal responsibility. Which would you rather have: Women going around aborting fetises whether at a legitimate clinic or at some illegal back alley office space by some pretend "wanna-be OB/GYN"? - Or - women being responsible using birth control responsibily?

You choose!

You can't defund the single, most commonly used resource many women use to obtain their contraceptives then go around claiming, "the government's paying for abortions! the government's paying for abortions," when a leading institution suggests that private insurance companies should provide same to women for free. It's a recommendation, not an amendment to the law nor an executive order.

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Well, looks like the Obama Administration has acted on the Institute's recommendation. And as I figured, the opposition to this measure was the morning after pill.

Harry Guerrilla said:

The only evidence I've seen thus far is that longer prescriptions for birth control reduce unplanned pregnancies.

Remember, this policy is for women with insurance.

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Remember that the health care law provides assistance to people who cannot afford insurance on their own.