BUTT OUT OF MY MEDICINE CABINET — It’s Not About Birth Control
BUTT OUT OF MY MEDICINE CABINET
It’s Not About Birth Control
The Supreme Court today sided with Hobby Lobby, and other similarly situated privately held companies, allowing them to choose not to offer specific types of birth control in their health benefits package.
The religious freedom argument is ubiquitous today, and I will not add to that. Instead, I will approach this topic from a different angle: Is it the government’s job to tell companies what must comprise their benefits package? Why must they continue to butt in to the medicine cabinets of private citizens?
Let’s take away the special category that birth control has been assigned in this health care debate. It is sometimes discussed as if birth control would not be available but for ObamaCare. That is just factually inaccurate. Birth control is widely available, and is in no danger of becoming unavailable.
I take a prescription thyroid medication. It is critical to my living a healthy life. My doctor and I talked about the options, agreed on a medication, and I filled the prescription. Why is no one up in arms over universal coverage for thyroid medication? Isn’t birth control just another medication —like cholesterol medication, blood pressure medication, or the thyroid medication I take? They are all lifesaving medications that many patients can’t do without. Birth control is not in some magical medicinal category of its own. But is it the government’s job to tell an employer that they must offer any of those medications in their benefits package? Why would that not be a voluntary agreement between the insurance company and the insured customer? Why should the government be involved at all?
If you say, “Yes, all of those medications must, by law, be covered.” To those who believe that should be the law, I ask, “Upon what principle is that based?” You must believe in a government so powerful that it can tell the employer all sorts of things about employee pay and benefits.
If you want the government to mandate birth control, then to be intellectually consistent, you must also be supportive of the government determining the pay, benefits, sick leave, vacation days, etc. for all jobs at all companies. Is that OK with you? It’s not OK with me. Pay, benefits, sick leave, and vacation days are all decisions that should be agreed upon by the employer and the prospective employee. If they can’t come to a voluntary agreement, it is not the government’s job to step in.
There are many conversations we should not be having with our government. We should not be compelled to discuss with them the contents of our medicine cabinet. That is between my doctor, my insurance company and me. I want the government to butt out of my medicine cabinet.
This Post Has 9 Comments
[…] Original post here. […]
Well said, Laura. This government seems to think it has a duty to wiggle it’s way into every aspect of our lives. Not so! It should in no way be involved in our healthcare or our benefit packages.
Right on Laura! There is a long list of other things the government should “butt out” of. Fodder enough for blogs from here to enternity. Keep up the good work! Greg
Thank you, Laura, for saying so eloquently how I feel. Emy
Yes, I have a question. How on earth is birth control a “life-saving” medicine as you state? Maybe I am unaware of something but I took birth control for many year’s. It was a CHOICE, nothing more or less. I also didn’t want or need my employer, nor the government, dictating or even knowing my business enough to expect them to pay for it! It was a choice I consciously made, to take or not to take, and if I didn’t take it the outcome could result in a pregnancy. When I was older I was told by my ob/gyn to cease taking it, as after so many year’s it becomes more harmful than good. So, it just never occurred to me to ask my boss to pay for it. People have free will and make choices everyday; the “religious” aspect aside I have never thought requiring your employer to pay for this was the right thing to do…..I mean where does it end? What else could they reasonably be expected to have to provide? Stay out of my medicine cabinet, and out of my bedroom. Plain and simple.
There are many women who take oral contraceptives to avoid debilitating pain. My point is that birth control is not in a magical medicinal category of its own. It is simply a medication.
Laura – I paid for my own birth control when I was young enough to need it and all women should do so now. IT is NOT critical to ones health to have it. Nor is Viagra which should also be paid for by those who use it – not the employer, the government or taxpayers. If a medication is needed for “health” reasons rather than “birth control” fine – but don’t make it more than it is. Birth control is a choice and it isn’t that expensive to obtain a good quality med at some place like Wal Mart each month as needed.
The left is making this an issue trying to say that the GOP is waging a war on women by denying them birth control in the policies that employers pay for….nonsense. It is the left who are waging a war on most stupid women if they allow themselves to be used for political purposes. Wake up women and pay for your own birth control.
The ENTIRE idea of Obamacare is a socialist dream. It’s NO excuse for anything but in a way it follows a pattern established when Obama was a child. He was brought up by communists who had NO respect for America and configured a totalitarian template that Obama has followed ever since. I think he REALLY BELIEVES that his ideas are perfectly workable and that if he can get them made into LAW, he has succeeded in his goal of one-world unification where the government runs everything and the individual no longer exists. Hence, his misbegotten and astounding chiding of Putin and the warring Iraqi and Afghani leaders for not understanding HIS concepts and that they are simply behaving badly like naughty children. His megalomania is massaged by those around him because he is president of the United States after all, and very powerful. Obama’s need for absolute control is also evidenced by the outrage expressed by his minions at SCOTUS’ ruling in favor of Hobby Lobby on religious grounds. All this over FOUR methods of birth control out of 20 for which Hobby Lobby refuses to pay because they could induce an abortion. This is just one example of what has happened to our country since Obama was elected in 2008 and again, under suspicious circumstances, in 2012. Everything that once was part and parcel of a constitutional republic is being eroded by his spiraling madness and determination to HAVE HIS WAY no matter the cost to us, the people of this once exemplary Republic. This hoopla isn’t about birth control or even Obamacare, really. It’s about someone who has no respect for the TRUTH and an insatiable appetite for power and control. The recent rulings against Obama by SCOTUS are encouraging and may signal the ultimate undoing of his diabolical reign. I certainly HOPE so!
Very well said. Ben Franklin said, when asked by the
citizens “what type government has been created here”,
to which he replied ” YOU HAVE A REPUBLIC, IF YOU CAN
KEEP IT”. The patriots of his time knew more about
history than some politicians of today, and how any
‘democratic society’ in history only lasted for 200
years before there were only ‘takers’ remaining in
their society; all the achievers had vanished…
“who is John Galt, and where has he gone from us”…