If you were thinking about buying some birth control pills or even getting an IUD inserted today, it might be the wise choice to wait until tomorrow, when the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act starts its big rollout. Starting tomorrow, any new insurance policies sold to individuals or employers must cover contraception without a co-pay as part of a larger package of mandatory co-pay-free women's preventive care benefits. After tomorrow, insurance plans that have already been purchased will have to start offering no-co-pay contraception when they renew. Since Aug. 1 is a favorite day for many employers to renew their insurance plans, that means the free contraception we've been hearing so much about is finally coming into fruition for a huge chunk of American women.
Actually all of us, men and women, lost on this one; our individual liberty that is. We are now living in an era where the general government gets to make you pay for the individual choices of one segment of the population. Collectivists are so happy at the moment, but one can't help but wonder how long it will be before their cheers of joy turn into howls of outrage when the same mechanism is used to compel them to pay for something they don't support.
If a woman wishes to use contraception, that is certainly a choice she has the freedom to make - and now she gets to make it with the added bonus of having everyone else pitch in to subsidize that choice.
On wonders how much longer it will be until the government decides that unless you are intending to have a child you have to be on the co-pay-free contraception that everyone else is paying for in order to lower health care costs and the incidences of unwanted pregnancies - for the betterment of society, of course.
Can I get "free" gasoline next? Gasoline is a much higher expense for the poor than birth control.
How about free utilities?
Sorry Fred. There's a reason it's called HEALTH CARE REFORM. And it's not free. It's no co-pay. That's why I titled the post "Co-Pay-Free Contraception..."
But it isn't free! The person with health insurance is paying for their birth control and others with higher rates. We just had our company health insurance rates increased, another $1000 a year.
More delusional?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
FredHayek wrote: But it isn't free! The person with health insurance is paying for their birth control and others with higher rates.
Right. It's not free. We both agree.
And "the person with health insurance" will be everyone under Health Reform. Health insurance has been going up as far as I can remember. I've never seen it go down.