Contraception and Religious Freedom (and related issues)

[Holbytla]

This may or may not be parallel to this discussion, but many health care providers will not pay for Cialis, Viagra etc.

Isn't that the same argument in reverse?

[Inanna]

Oh, I don't think the current compromise has any issues at all. I was really commenting more on the original approach.

[SirDennis]

This may or may not be parallel to this discussion, but many health care providers will not pay for Cialis, Viagra etc.

Isn't that the same argument in reverse?

And yet, as with the pill, those medicines have more than recreational value. I think Viagra is used to lower blood pressure rapidly (in children) and Cialis is used to treat depression (though it may have something to do with its chief side effect).

[Lalaith]

However, I have said before and I will say it again - abortion is a situation where you honestly DO NOT know how you will feel and what you will do until and unless you (or someone you are responsible for) is in a position to need one.

Here is my own link to share. It's worth a read.
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/7/23/9838/02697

I think abortion is a horrible choice to have to make. I think forcing a woman (or girl) to carry a pregnancy to term - especially in cases of rape - is worse. FAR worse.

I read the article. I just wanted you to know that I did.

(I really won't comment further because I don't think it would be productive or relevant to this thread.)

[anthriel]

Lali:

The people objecting to the rule in the case we're discussing are not objecting because religious institutions are being asked to pay for the contraceptive portion of their employees' health plans. The institutions are not being asked to pay for this.

But in the original rule, which is what Frelga was describing, her analogy works, right?

Or, to stick to my own religion, the original rule is like a synagogue being required to provide ham at its soup kitchen. OK, I can see a problem

I can see a problem with that, too. Heck (don't throw things!), I can see a problem with forcing a Catholic employer to provide birth control to their employees, yes, through health insurance, or paying for abortions or whatever. I really do see that.

I think that is a problem with the government subverting religious freedom. Not that I can't be convinced that basic health care trumps religious rights (the Jehovah's witness/blood transfusion example was a good one), but I cannot see where others cannot see that this is a problem.

Which is why resistance to the compromise, as I understand it, has me scratching my head. These institutions don't have to pay for birth control. They can continue with the integrity of their beliefs, as (Catholic) faith-based institutions.

The people objecting simply don't want the employees of religious institutions to have access to contraceptives.

But... but... they have had access. Maybe there is an issue here of who pays for what, and maybe lack of health insurance can function as a block to the more expensive contraceptives, but how expensive are condoms? (I truly don't know, not having had to buy them for a while.. )There is access to birth control, just not capitated access by these institutions, right?

So it's all just a control method by these institutions? Or the GOP? By hampering (through not financing insurance breaks) access, they feel that people who are also employed by these institutions will not use birth control? Ever? At all? Really?

Have these institutions been offering covered birth control, and now it is being taken away? I don't think so (not being totally versed on any of this). So any employee of one of these institutions, up until now, has been funding their own birth control, right? If they choose to use it, which I suspect lots of them do?

Do employees of these institutions have a higher than average birth rate? I wonder...

So those people choosing to use birth control, and many of them have been using it for a while (are condoms covered by any health insurance, btw? Surely they should be, as a barrier to many things far nastier than the typical pregnancy?) are now going to be able to have financial help doing that. Just not through the religious institution, which, as I have said, I can understand the issues with.

So what's the problem with the compromise, again?






Edited twice because I seem to be a bit off this morning on the whole accurate English composition thing...

Edited three times now because I initially forgot the "l" in "whole" in my first edit comment... oy...

[anthriel]

Okay, I just read an article on CNN, which makes me lean towards ax's take on this:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/17/politics/ ... index.html

Republicans are seizing on the issue as an opportunity to push back on the Affordable Care Act.

So, after reading this article, I don't think it's as much "the people objecting simply don't want the employees of religious institutions to have access to contraceptives", although I'm sure those people exist. I think most of this noise (especially that coming from the GOP) is just a way to score points, politically.

Oy.

[Frelga]

Anthy, I am not aware of any insurance plan covering condoms, although you do make a good point about their preventive value. And yes, they are easily available. But, condoms put the responsibility on a man, while the pill gives the power to the woman. She doesn't have to have the man's consent to whether or not she should have a baby at this point of her life. And, in a marriage, abstinence is not necessarily a viable birth control option. It did not work out for Scarlett.

And I just have to get this out - I don't think that the higher-ups of the Carholic Church right now exactly have the moral authority to regulate anyone else's sex life.

[Primula Baggins]

It's hard to discuss a changing situation, especially when most of my posts have to be drive-bys, and I apologize for having been unclear.

The "people objecting" to the rule as tweaked are still objecting, from what I can tell, because they object to contraception itself. They didn't want religious institutions to be required to pay for it, and that wish was accommodated in the federal rule as tweaked (even though many of those institutions are in states that require every employer who provides health insurance to provide birth control within the plan, with no exemption for religious employers, so they have been doing so for years).

I'm talking, for example, about the (all male) witnesses at Rep. Issa's hearing on Thursday. Rep. Issa justified the all-male panel by saying the hearing was about religious freedom, even though the main topic was access to birth control. What I don't see is how it could be about religious freedom, since the new federal requirement does not infringe on that.

I think what's really going on here, at the level of Republican political strategy, is that they're trying to shift the national discussion from the economy, which isn't moving in a direction that helps them, to social issues, which have often helped them in the past.

I don't think it's going to work as well as they hope. This isn't 1994. The world has moved on.

[yovargas]

If that really is "their" strategy, it's a spectacularly dumb one in a society where damn near every adult uses birth control of some form or another. This is just not one of the hot button topics that conservatives can press and expect to get their base fired up about. But they might be able to get their opposition fired up about it. Dumb.

[Primula Baggins]

It does work with their base, though, and enthusiasm helps turnout (remember 2010).

I agree that the problem with some of the social issues, especially birth control, is that it fires up the opposition, too. Threatening something so central to most women's lives will stir a lot of them to fight, or at least to vote, against the people making the threats.

It really looks to me as if, in some cases, the politicians seizing on this issue truly do not get how important it is. They think it's an issue that affects only a 1960s cliché: young urban single women who want frivolous sex without consequences and should be restrained for their own good. When in fact it affects everyone who depends on birth control, which is just about everyone—even if not in our own lives, in the lives of people we love.

[vison]

Yeah, I was one of those young, single, urban women and boy, did I ever like that there frivolous sex!!! (With the fellow I later married, I add, just so's you don't get the wrong idea about me. ) And before the Pill, too . . . .

However, now I'm an old woman for whom that era is very distant in the rear view mirror. Distant for me, but not for every young woman I know, and I'm not one of those persons who gets old and thinks no young person should have fun if I can't.

Seriously? Yes, this is absolutely not a religious freedom issue any more. It is about power and control over women and there really is no equivalent issue for men.

The whole entire weight of it comes down onto women. These sorts of men do not need to have sex except for the one sacred purpose they say they believe in. They could limit their sexual activity - and so could all men - to the times when pregnancy was the desired outcome. There would be no need for any sort of birth control device or method.

However, having said that, the original issue troubles me: should the government "force" any employer to ensure the employer-paid-for-health insurance plan pays for contraceptives? I say no. But then, that's easy for me to say. And if I have the central question wrong, I apologize. I believe it's all moved on from there?

I think American health insurance plans are quite odd and like Lord_M I don't see why they should pay for any prescriptions at all.

[Primula Baggins]

Chemo?

I think there are two reasons prescription coverage is helpful: it encourages people to keep taking necessary medications that protect their health (blood pressure meds, for example); and it covers at least some of the cost of outrageously expensive but completely necessary medicines. The anticancer drug I take used to cost $550 per month, of which I paid $50. $550 would have been financially devastating. (Now it's a generic and you can find it for $15, entire cost, per month.) But that $500 my insurance company paid was preventive: it helped keep my cancer from coming back. That saved them a boatload of money.

[vison]

Chemo drugs are part of the treatment, they're dispensed at the time of treatment. And, although I was not prescribed them, I think some anti-cancer drugs are paid for under our public plan.

But birth control pills and other common items, medications for high blood pressure, etc., are not. Not in BC, anyway. AFAIK. I admit I don't know for sure, since I don't take any prescription drugs on a daily basis.

Mind you, some people have "extended medical" which is often part of their employment compensation, or that they buy on their own. My Mum has it, it is part of my father's pension package.

However, having said all that, the cost of the insurance itself is so low that buying prescriptions is not that great a hardship. For my family of 3 the premium is $128 a month. The prescriptions for Oz this past week were about $250 all told. That's a lot, but it's not every week.

[Holbytla]

You can insure yourself against alien abduction, death, auto accidents, savings deposit, floods, earthquakes, unemployment, war, wages, weather and zombies. Why are prescriptions seemingly odd to place under health care insurance? Which btw, comes as a subsequent rider to many plans.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I must say, I find that odd as well. It seems to me that prescriptions would be among the most important things to cover.

[yovargas]

It's odd because the whole concept of insurance is generally protection against unforeseen emergencies, such as Holby's list, not everyday necessities such as birth control. That doesn't mean I think it's bad that they would cover that, just that it is a bit odd.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's a good point, yov, but my response to that is that it is a product of the false coupling of health care with insurance. Insurance should be about protecting from emergencies: a fire burning down your house, a car accident, earthquakes, etc. It is not only to the benefit of individuals but to society as a whole for health care to be treated as a basic right provided automatically to everyone.

But, of course (here comes the broken record again; sorry folks) so long as our society is tied to the antiquated and downright destructive concept of "money" the best interests of society as a whole, and the vast majority of the individuals within it will ALWAYS be subjugated to the the interests of those predatory few who are best situated to dominate the vicious struggle for the almighty buck.

[JewelSong]

It's odd because the whole concept of insurance is generally protection against unforeseen emergencies, such as Holby's list, not everyday necessities such as birth control. That doesn't mean I think it's bad that they would cover that, just that it is a bit odd.

Health insurance usually covers preventive care - annual physicals, mammograms and etc. I think contraception comes under that category.

[Holbytla]

My insurance company will reimburse me for fitness memberships, running in marathons, smoking cessation and a long list of "preventative" measures.
I am fairly certain that an insurance company stands to benefit by having one less person to insure, so birth control coverage seems a no-brainer to me.

[JewelSong]

This is a interesting and thought-provoking article about why there may be so much bro-ha-ha about contraception. I agree with most of it.

Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About it 100 Years From Now