CG, I don't understand why you keep harping on this "free stuff" thing. There ain't no "free stuff", nor does any thinking person expect there to be - from insurance premiums (where you still mostly have copays on top of the premiums) down to programs that work on a sliding scale, you end up paying for what you get. To make things available does not mean to make them available for free.
Obama is the most polar Democrat I have ever seen. He believes that government should be involved in our lives and is way too involved in guiding people to do things in a certain way to make life better. Generally, I don't believe in that much involvement.
It appears to me that you are seeing what you want to see here if you don't see that Republicans are at least as gung-ho about being involved in our private lives as Democrats are. The difference is in where they want to get involved, not the level of involvement.
We've covered this before, but I see we need to do so again. The difference between viagra and contraception is that corrects a disfunction and the other creates a disfunction. The disfunction in one case is involuntary, in the other it is elective and voluntary.
If one wishes to sterilize themselves to avoid the state of pregnancy as they pursue a freely made decision to be sexually active, all well and good. Both are elective decisions which they have made for themselves and they alone should bear any associated costs which accompany those decisions. I do think that an involuntary dysfunction, such as an excessively heavy menstruation, which can be treated with contraceptive drugs should be a covered prescription, just as the physical dysfunction addressed with viagra is. Voluntary and wholly elective use, however, is a completely different matter.
So then doesn't LJ make a good point about hearing aids? Why aren't they covered? Correcting an involuntary deficiency justifies coverage is your premise, right?