I'm not sure how that affects the autonomy of the person receiving the $100 million, unless it was stolen from me, in which case it's an even trade, although depending on the time difference I lost some autonomy over when to spend it. But I guess the 'how much of what's paid to you is yours in the first place' issue does reveal a discrepancy in the analogy, as maybe rates would increase in response to this new initiative, but really, how much? How much of the rate increase that might happen is due to the birth control? So the person able to use the birth control loses autonomy over that tiny bit of money, but gains it with the ability to use birth control whenever they want.

Of course, this is also ignoring even less obvious and harder to measure types of autonomy, such as, in the great aunt example, autonomy over how much love to give the great aunt, how much gratitude, etc. It of course never changes it through force, but through family/peer pressure, through individual guilt, etc. And I'm sure we could think of a million different other ways it affects and pressures the person receiving the money. And similar situations could probably be thought of in relation to the government example. But taking all those into account fails a cost benefit, in my book, unless someone else wants to take up the challenge.

I forgot we were talking about birth control sorry.

There is no magic system. I just find it laughable that people want a free system. They bitch about spending $50 a month on their healthcare. They want a healthcare system to pay for lifestyle choices and call it personal responsibility. It's like they want to turn healtchcare providers (insurance companies, doctors, hospitals) into indentured servants of the government but not call it a form a form of slavery but a human right. They're full of great ideas for others to do. They don't want to go to school for 7+ years, rack up 6 figure student loads and then be told how much to charge for a service, but they're more than happy telling others to do this.

Seriously, acting as if $50 a month is an obstacle to personal health and an attack on women. Give me a break. The whole absurdity of independance through reliance on government. The whole demand for new/more services while also demanding not to pay another cent for it. Like there's a magic wand that can waved. When is it enough handouts to make them happy? Or is it ever growing in perpetuity?

$50 for healthcare? I love this idea. Please notify my employer about this existence of this healthcare plan.

Mother fucker, you just broke the needle off of my drama meter!

Please show me one place in this thread where someone has volunteered to pay more for healthcare in order to get additional services and/or coverage. Instead it's chock full of people who complain about a 6% profit margin, having a co-pay and wanting the government ot provide services for free. They think that private companies have no interest in keeping costs down but governments do. I may be dramatic but at least I'm realistic.

Every single year, I pay more for less coverage and higher deductibles. On top of the $4500 a year I pay for a family plan (which is less than half the actual premium), I have co-pays and a $2000 a year deductible. And these numbers go up every single year. Every year there are more and more services subject to the deductible.

And it isn't just a 6% margin. The industry consists of more than just the health insurance companies. Other areas of the industry (like big Pharma) make much more and help drive up costs. And still, the insurance companies count their profits in billions while healthcare costs bankrupt America.

Some of us just think birth control would be a worthwhile expense in order to prevent higher costs associated with unwanted children.

You do bring up a good point though regarding choice of benefits.
Most of us would love to have more choice over not only what our plan covers but also what it doesn't cover. Not all of us need eyeglass coverage, mental health coverage etc., but we may have other needs that are less common amongst our co-workers like birth control. The way the system is set up we all get put into groups to keep costs down and many of us don't get covered what we need covered. The bulk of my health care visits are at my Chiro's office. I have a great health plan but I only get 5 Chiro visits a year, which is fine, I'm more than OK with paying for it. It would be nice though, to be able to cut something else out of my plan and add addt'l chiro visits since I'm paying a hefty monthly premium basically for annual checkups and the occasional visit to my primary and 5 Chiro visits. This is the plan my wife's job offers so it's what we have. (My job offers a plan which is more expensive and actually covers less and my wife's is covering our pre-natal in full)

What it sounds like you really want is choice in how to spend the health care resources allocated to you and find your insurer's allocation inadequate for your basic medical needs. Many women have the same issue with birth control. It makes sense to me that the cost of birth control more than offsets the medical costs of abortion or raising a child who cannot be properly provided for, but I tend to agree with Tyler that this should not be a government mandate. I would rather see the government allow the cost of birth control to be treated as a federal tax credit, so that they eat those dollars, rather than forcing the already morally-questionable insurance companies into increasing their costs and thus encouraging them to find some consumer-screwing way of offsetting the increase.

Yes, that choice is exactly what I want and I would agree with a tax credit for birth control.

Man, thodoks FTW

I still think it's the richest country. It's just that a lot of the wealth is untouchable. The government might be broke and in debt right now, but there's a ton of wealth in the private sector.

Go on . . .

Good for Mississippi...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/0 ... 82546.html

Bad for Mississippi...

http://themoralperspective.tumblr.com/p ... ississippi

I'm sure this is like the English Government. Labour gives, and we keep taking and taking, but at some point the money runs out!

Uh oh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... tid=pm_pop

Obama administration refuses to relax Plan B restrictions

Spoiler: show

Election Year.

I don't see how that helps him in an election.

Because Hard Core Pro Choice folks aren't voting for a republican no matter what- so he isn't loosing their vote over this. But maybe some moderate Pro-Life people may feel this is a strong enough step to support/continue to support him.

It's really incredible how Republicans have ignored a lot of talk about the economy and focused so much on restricting access to reproductive health care.