Rush Limbaugh Apologizes For His "Slut" Remarks.

What I can't figure out is why Georgetown allows birth control on its medical insurance for employees but not for students.

JSG wrote: What I can't figure out is why Georgetown allows birth control on its medical insurance for employees but not for students.

Wouldn't it be funny if it was a cost issue? Jesuit colleges tend to be much more liberal than Catholic parishes.

I want to know if JMC is going to apologize for calling me a slut. LOL. You don't see me crying. tongue:

JSG wrote: What I can't figure out is why Georgetown allows birth control on its medical insurance for employees but not for students.

Show us something that establishes Georgetown U health insurance covers contraception for its employees as opposed to Georgetown U employees being able to purchase contraception coverage at additional expense. Ms Fluke's issue is that the standard insurance policy for students doesn't come with contraception coverage. She has always had the option of purchasing an individual policy instead of the student policy to get her voluntary sterilization covered, and it would be surprising to me if she was unable to add a rider, at her expense, which expanded the standard student policy to add contraceptives coverage. That, however, is not what this activist wants. She wants a private Catholic university to cover her voluntary sterilization of herself and to be able to compel it to violate its own religious laws to accommodate her individual wishes.

It’s also nothing new. Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception and since 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control, many Catholic institutions offer the benefit to their employees. For instance, a Georgetown University spokesperson told ThinkProgress yesterday that employees “have access to health insurance plans offered and designed by national providers to a national pool. These plans include coverage for birth control.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/07/420114/many-catholic-universities-hospitals-already-offer-contraception-as-part-of-their-health-insurance-plans/?mobile=nc

Here is the student insurance handbook. Go to exclusions and limitations:

#19b
#21 on p. 29 for information on birth control.

http://studentaffairs.georgetown.edu/insurance/premierplanbooklet.pdf

Having "access to" purchase something and being "mandated to" purchase something are two different things. This whole problem wouldn't be a problem if free citizens could purchase what they want. I don't want to buy pre-paid coverage for prescriptions of any kind, but that's just me.

It is interesting that single payer is a perfect solution for this particular problem. I think Rush is making a good argument for single payer.

towermonkey wrote: It is interesting that single payer is a perfect solution for this particular problem. I think Rush is making a good argument for single payer.

I agree... it worked for Britain...

NHS bill: goodbye comprehensive healthcare, hello private insurance - Services are already being pulled in an unannounced, piecemeal way. If the bill passes, the health secretary won't be accountable.

Andrew Lansley and his colleagues assure us that under their plans to privatise the NHS, "services will still be free at the point of use". But they fail to add a key proviso: provided the services are still available. In reality, a growing list of services won't be available, and so won't be free.

Of course, some services that the NHS originally provided, such as long-term care for frail older people, have long been officially withdrawn; and others, like prescriptions and dentistry, are still provided but subject to charges. Under the health and social care bill there will be further contraction of what is provided free on the NHS. Local clinical commissioning groups, not the secretary of state, will decide what services it is "reasonable" to provide out of the budgets they are given, and the package will gradually contract.

This process has already begun under the pressure of the so-called productivity savings recommended by McKinsey. NHS services are being withdrawn in an unannounced, piecemeal and unaccountable way.

On top of this, GPs are being prevented from referring patients to specialists. In some areas indebted primary care trusts have simply limited each GP to a maximum of four referrals a week, regardless of how many patients need specialist attention.[/i]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... -insurance

Required reading for all those still unsure what to think.

The comparison to the NHS in the UK is valid. When you give control to the government, they can giveth and then later they can taketh away. Be warned!

2wlady wrote:

It’s also nothing new. Twenty-eight states already require organizations that offer prescription insurance to cover contraception and since 98 percent of Catholic women use birth control, many Catholic institutions offer the benefit to their employees. For instance, a Georgetown University spokesperson told ThinkProgress yesterday that employees “have access to health insurance plans offered and designed by national providers to a national pool. These plans include coverage for birth control.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/02/07/420114/many-catholic-universities-hospitals-already-offer-contraception-as-part-of-their-health-insurance-plans/?mobile=nc

Wonderful - now show me that the policies that their employees "have access to" are not individual policies that these employees may choose instead of the Georgetown U employee group plan.

2wlady wrote: Here is the student insurance handbook. Go to exclusions and limitations:

#19b
#21 on p. 29 for information on birth control.

http://studentaffairs.georgetown.edu/insurance/premierplanbooklet.pdf

What I see under exclusions is pretty much what I would expect to see from a Catholic organization whose religious laws prohibit both contraception and fertilization treatments. Interesting to note that under #19 there is some wording there that indicates that the policy may be expanded to include what would normally be excluded according to the terms of that particular students policy (the purchasing of a rider which expanded the policy for instance) or under certain circumstances when used to treat a medical problem being experienced. Vision services are excluded unless part of treating an injury or illness, same for cosmetic surgery. The wording for #19 includes the caveat "except as specifically provided in the policy" - an indication the policy can be modified by the individual if they wish, at their cost, to cover what is excluded. Under #12 preventive medicines or vaccines are excluded unless required for treatment of a covered injury. Under any possible definition, broad or narrow, contraceptive medicine purely for contraceptive purposes would be classified as preventative in nature, would it not? Under #7 elective surgery and treatment is excluded - which also covers the elective decision to make yourself sterile through either surgical or prescriptive avenues. You don't need to do so, it is purely an elective choice to do so.

If you wish to be sexually active with a partner, and you wish to make yourself sterile to avoid becoming pregnant that is certainly something which you may choose to do. Why others should be required to bear that cost of that decision, however, remains a mystery to me. You are not suffering any dysfunction within your body that requires medical attention to correct, you are seeking to create dysfunction within it purely for elective reasons - you want to have sex and you don't want to get pregnant as a result of indulging your desire to have sex. Both of those are elective decisions that you alone get to make for yourself and for which you alone should be responsible.