BREAKING-WH Amends Birth Control Mandate-Contraceptive Coverage to be Offered Directly from Insurers

[kpete]

BREAKING: White House Amends Birth Control Mandate: Contraceptive Coverage to be Offered Directly from Insurers

by Jodi Jacobson, Editor in Chief, RH Reality Check
February 10, 2012 - 10:38am



Today, the White House did the right thing for women, public health and human rights. Despite deep concerns, including my own, based on what transpired in the past under health reform, the White House has decided on a plan to address the birth control mandate that will enable women to get contraceptive coverage directly through their insurance plans without having to buy a rider or a second plan, and without having to negotiate with or through religious entities or administrations that are hostile to primary reproductive health care, including but not limited to contraception.

Under this plan, every insurance company will be obligated to provide contraceptive coverage. Administration officials stated that a woman's insurance company "will be required to reach out directly and offer her contraceptive care free of charge. The religious institutions will not have to pay for it."

Moreover, women will not have to opt in or out; contraceptive care will be part of the basic package of benefits offered to everyone. Contraceptive care will simply be "part of the bundle of services that all insurance companies are required to offer," said a White House official.

"We are actually more comfortable having the insurance industry offer and market this to women than religious institutions," said the White House official because they "understand how contraception works" to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce health care costs. "This makes sense financially."

more:
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/02/10/white-house-amends-birth-control-mandate-contraceptive-coverage-to-be-offered-dir

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Planned Parenthood touts the decision as a key policy decision aligning with one of their own tenets:

"As a trusted health care provider to one in five women, Planned Parenthood's priority is increasing access to preventive health care. This birth control coverage benefit does just that."


http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/statement-cecile-richards-president-planned-parenthood-federation-america-obama-administration-38755.htm

[Deep13]

1. "The religious institutions will not have to pay for it."

So ignorance and ecclesiastical control wins and women lose.

Why should the beliefs of the employer have any bearing on the employees heath insurance?

[kestrel91316]

2. How do women lose with this approach?? Just curious.

And yes, I know. In a perfect world we would have single payer and all women's health issues would be a private manner between women and their physicians.

[titaniumsalute]

3. Did you read the article?

This is a "win" for women. Insurers will offer the coverage regardless of religious institutions paying for it. Second, women can opt in or opt out per their choice. How do they lose?

[customerserviceguy]

4. This is not going to work

I mean, when insurers go to bid to provide health insurance services to Catholic institutions, aren't they simply going to factor in the expected costs of contraceptive services to the proposed insureds? Just because you decree that something is free doesn't make it so.

Here's an analogy: We all know that men pay more for auto insurance than women (driving records being the same) because of statistics regarding men. (It makes as much sense as basing them on race, but that's another rant.) If a state were to require that men and women of the same age, with the same driving records, and the same experience levels pay exactly the same rates, we all know that women's rates would rise and men's would fall to make this happen.

Surely the Catholic organizations will eventually figure that out. If the President can mollify them with today's announcement, then so much the better, but my bet is that they will dope this out soon enough, and it will not be sufficient to placate them.

[ingac70]

7. Birth control is cheaper than pregnancy...

It is preventative health, and I imagine the premiums are cheaper on a childless woman than they are one who pops out a kid every couple of years.

[customerserviceguy]

9. In many cases

there are women who use BC, yet do pop out a couple of kids, that eventually cost the insurance companies money.

If it were truly the case that providing free BC always saved money for the insurance companies, they would fall all over themselves to provide the service. I have never seen that happen.

[ingac70]

10. That is because it is mostly run by men....

they had no problem covering Viagra and Cialis.

[24601]

11. Very false analogy - one is to treat a medical condition when the body is

not working properly. The other has nothing to do with remedying a medical deficiency - in fact, technically it stops the body from working as designed. It doesn't mean that it's good or bad, but it is the truth.

If you want to make comparisons that make sense, advocate funding anti-cancer research, diagnosis & treatment based on actuarial-based liklihood and mortality rates.

[GobBluth]

13. Your wrong. I am on hormonal therapy (Birth control), because of a medical condition

one of the great side effects is that it helps prevent pregnancy.

[SmokeFan14]

14. ED drugs don't treat the causes of ED

ED is usually a symptom of some other problem - diabetes, hypertension, depression (or a side effect of depression medication), or just plain aging. Viagra, etc. don't treat the underlying problem. They don't "remedy a medical deficiency," they just temporarily counteract one of the symptoms.

Hormonal contraceptives, on the other hand, very often are prescribed to treat medical problems in women. They're not just prescribed to prevent pregnancy.

If anything, there are better medical indications for hormonal contraceptives than for ED drugs.

[24601]

16. I've never advocated treating only the cause of something that needs

medical attention. Don't pretend I said that or put thos words in my mouth.

When my wife & I were hiking with the scouts years ago, and she slipped requiring a trip to the ER to patch up her knee. If the Doctor had said, "Yes I know it hurts, but the stiches & percocet will only treat the symptom - I need to instead discuss the cause with you. Lets look at why you were out in the woods, the apparent lack if coordination you showed, and perhaps a good lawyer to address those shoes. And why didn't you think of knee pads - I'm going for a Psyc consult." He probably wouldn't be practicing medicine anymore.

But I do expect doctors to treat the medical condition - that includes the symptom and the cause. To suggest otherwise it to raise another false anology and to therefore validate the point I originally made.

[Skittles]

17. LOLOL

if you think boner pills are only prescribed for "medical conditions", you have your head up your ass! Your head is also there if you believe The Pill is prescribed only to prevent pregancies!!!

[Lionessa]

5. Okay, this is the type of fine slicing he should have been doing all along. Bravo!

[s-cubed]

6. Obama completely outsmarted the bishops.

ALL insurance plans, even those offered by churches, will offer contraceptives. It's cheaper than pregnancy so they're rather do this.

[Ian David]

8. One degree of separation between women and their Catholic employer. Works for me.

Plausible Deniablity as compromise.

They should STFU now.

[Islandlife]

12. The WH should be more be deliberate in policy making

Seems as though policy is proposed then recalled due to public pressure as if the administration is by the seat of its pants.

Points to a disconnect between congress and constituents.

[UCmeNdc]

15. Women need to press this issue.

Women should make the GOP pay a political price for this.