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Why do so many health insurance companies not cover birth control? |
I think it would make more economic sense to pay for birth control pills at $400 a year instead of a pregnancy at $5,000-$15,000 a year, depending on where you live and whether or not you have a C-section. That's assuming the pregnancy has no complications. Obvioulsy, constant pregnancies are more expensive than birth control. Wouldn't you want to do what's most profitable? I would think so. However, our entire society seems to seperate "having children" with the concept of "useful to society", which I think filters down into thinking of all reproductive health as a "side issue". Just think - how many men are *for* unemployment pay, but *against* welfare - the equivelent for any at-home mother suddenly abandoned by her husband? That's because there is this notion that healthy, well-rounded 18 year-olds pop up out of nowhere, ready to become the workforce of tomorrow. If only the working-for-pay man is valuable to society, only he needs social programs, and only he *deserves* them. For my part, DH and I looked into individual (not company) health care, only to find that we could pay $600 a month. Not covered: birth control, abortion, prenatal care, and many complications of delivery. You had to pay $300 a month extra, and for at least a year before conception, for them to cover *any* prenatal care, and then they only paid half of the cost. How that is not illegal is beyond me. Basically they covered anything that would happen to my husband, such as prostate cancer or heart attack (both of which he is far more likely to have to deal with than I am), but while I had to pay an equal cost for premiums, they didn't cover much of anything that was likely to happen to me (as a 25 year old married woman, pregnancy was just about it, dontcha think?) Oh, and they paid for *one* pelvic exam every *two* years - the AMA recommends one a year. The problem is that pregnancy and birth control have been swept away as a seperate issue. Women need to stop insisting that they are "exactly like" men. We're not; we get pregnant. As women, we need to band together and insist that we be treated not just equally, but with equal regard to our proper health services. This is a human rights issue, not just an issue that one or two odd ducks are going to be faced with. Hm, good point. That's the best way to get people to agree to anything: Outline the economic benefits. Excellent work. It's interesting that these insurance companies think all women are going to get pregnant. As if! An aside: Did you know that the only prescription drug still covered for employees of the federal government is Viagra? Seriously, it is. probably because it is considered elective medication despite the growing number of women who need it for proper reproductive health. I would like to know that too. The insurance I was on would NOT cover birth control but would cover pregnancy AND the medical costs for that child until he or she grew up!! So I can't figure it out either. How many are covering Viagra but still not covering birth control? I wonder. This is an excellent question. I have some articles on it that I'll post in a minute. Viagra was covered by insurance companies _long_ before the pill. Planned Parenthood and other organizations had to fight tooth and nail to win coverage for it. The whole thing is just totally anti-common sense and sexist. Women have been preventing pregnancy long before the advent of the birth control pill. So most of the insurance companies look at it this way - if she doesn't want to get pregnant, she'll find non-medical ways to do it, or she'll pay for the pills out of pocket. They don't view it as paying for the birth control will keep pregnancy numbers down. So, if you look at it from that point of view, that no matter what, pregnancy rates will stay pretty constant, then not paying for the birth control pill saves them money. This is an excellent question! From my experience one of the former companies I was employed by did not offer it in the health plan as the company was a catholic school sweater manufacturer and they did not condone birth control. As a young woman working for this company I was completely angered and did all kinds of research on the pros of birth control (though there are many cons to the pill I am well aware of). I wrote a proposal, provided selected information and got more than half the women in the office to sign a petition and it was changed. I think the employer was in accordance with your hypothesis that having protected workers would be more beneficial monetarily or whatever. But seriously if it is not covered by your employers insurance than it is probably in accordance with their politics but we have the right and the power to make changes |
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