No Birth Control For You, part 1 | Buy Reprint Rights | License Candorville | Get Candorville In Your Paper | Buy Candorville BOOKS
March 19th, 2012
No Birth Control For You, part 1
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The Pill is used for many very nasty ailments, such as endometriosis and poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. In fact, if a woman doesn't receive treatment for poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (the only treatment which allows her to keep her bits and pieces intact is the Pill), she is likely to develop diabetes or ovarian cancer.
I think it might be cheaper for the employer to allow his female employees to use the Pill: 1) diabetes treatment is expensive and time-consuming; 2) unplanned babies are an employee time-suck; 3) cancer's an even bigger time-suck; 4) ovarian cancer is a death sentence, so he'll eventually have to train another employee to do the dead woman's job.
JUST LET US TAKE THE DAMNED PILL, ALREADY. THIS IS 2012, FOR PETES SAKE.
@Macushla That was the whole point of my comment. Until someone was completely honest with me, I didn't even realise my judgementalism.
The pill is a medication, so logically it should have a co-pay the same as any other medication, and be in the same category without moral implications at all, either for or against. The same with the "morning after" pill. If it is a prescribed medication, it should have no moral meaning to anyone, for or against. Can you imagine if there was a moral stand against viagra for men?
Um, Bathbomber, EVEN women who use the pill for contraception aren't sluts! 98% of fertile, women, including Catholics AND including married women, have used contraception. And where do the men who are their partners figure into this judgmentalism?
In my opinion, 'the pill', if being used for anything other than birth control, should follow the same guidelines as any other medication a doctor might prescribe a patient. I do not get free diabetes medicine nor does my wife get free medicine for her multiple sclerosis. We pay the co-pay that my insurance has set for these medicines and some copays are higher than others. What makes any person think that they should receive free medicine just because they are a woman?
If they are using it for birth control then they should pay the normal cost of the drug.
Jeff, BC does follow the same guidelines and procedures that other forms of medication use. The whole "women want to have sex for free" BS is a smokescreen to blind people to the fact that there's no good reason not to cover BC as it is just another form of medication.
I have no problem with your last sentence if you can list any other prescription medications that should also be in the same class. Make sure you include Viagra et. al., since that is only needed for any reason except to have sex.
Hey Jeff, I have to pay the co-pay for my birth control the same as I do my allergy medication. Both of them cost me $15/month (plus the $140/month I pay for insurance to begin with, but I digress.) We're not trying to get free medicine "just because we're women"… we're trying to be allowed to pay for it at co-pay. And employers are starting to make it be something that's not covered by the insurance they offer, the same way my insurance doesn't cover out-of-network doctors, chiropractic care period, or ambulance rides.
It shouldn't matter what reason I use the drug, either. Whose business but mine and my doctors is it whether my pills are being used to treat debilitating cramps, prevent pregnancy, or both? There are pills out there designed for schitzophrenia that are used for anxiety, for example.
If the reason we supposedly should have to pay full price instead of normal co-pay levels is because it's an elective medication, not necessary for us to function in our every day lives, unlike your insulin… we go right back to the viagra argument. What isn't elective about viagra? Honestly, what isn't elective about my allergy medication? I can function just fine despite sneezing every 20 minutes or so.
But it makes my life a lot more comfortable knowing my eyes won't be itchy and I don't have to worry about pollon. It also makes my life a lot more comfortable knowing my fiance and I won't have a baby before he finishes his masters degree. Both of those things are worth $15 a month to me – which, for the record, is about two hours' pay, after taxes.
Also for the record, I was on the pill for nearly 6 years before I had sex for the first time, and back then took it primarily so I wouldn't have to miss school two-three days a month. It didn't matter, nor should it have, to my doctor or to my father's employer (since they provided the insurance at the time) whether I was also actually using it as birth control.
The comment that is really galling by some staunch Republicans running for office is, "Let them use the old fashioned method of birth control. Hold a quarter between your legs."
A Catholic friend of mine was on pills for years because she had endometriosis. And every year, she had to go through the same rigmarole because she had no 'off' weeks and thus she needed extra refills. (This was before they started marketing 'no rest' pill formulations.)
I used to have this idea that "the pill" = "slutiness".
Until I found out that it is also used for many other health benefits, such as combating acne. I wish this information was more readily available, or that the girls I know were more open about it earlier.