Can anyone answer a question about Birth Control and Payments and all the controversy

[truedelphi]

According to this very fine article written way back in 2010, the following is the case:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/12/the-coming-battle-over-the-cost-of-birth-control.html

There are many confusing details about this no co-pay birth control policy that's why there are many concerned citizens who are against it. But despite of that there are many US citizens especially women who are approve of this policy. Starting in 2013, no insurance company will be able to charge co-pay for birth control, with specific exceptions. Contraception drugs won't cost any woman with health insurance any cash. The proof is here: Insurance companies cannot demand co-pays for birth control. Not all are happy about this new policy and two of them are the conservative groups and insurance companies but they can do nothing about it.

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Note the section in Bold.

Does the recent brouhaha remove the 2013 provisions that state that there must not be any co-pays for contraception of any kind? Or not?

Any and all advice appreciated.

[elleng]

1. No

[customerserviceguy]

2. Here's why last week's announcement isn't going over

Simply declaring that insurance companies will pay the cost of contraception is nonsense. When an insurer is calculating how much to charge in negotiations with the Catholic institution, they're going to take into account the strong chance that many will indeed want birth control drugs and devices. They're going to factor that in.

Imagine if a government wanted to provide free bread to its citizens, and simply required all grocers to supply a free loaf of bread to every shopper once a week. You know those stores would figure out quickly how much bread they'd be giving away, and everything else in the store would rise by whatever it took to cover that cost. Of course, people who didn't want bread (celiac disease, or something like that) would be paying higher prices for bread that they weren't getting.

[truedelphi]

3. Thank you for the explanation.

Helps me figuring all this stuff out.

I keep hoping I will live long enough to see churches taxed the same way people are. If for no other reason than that ruling would cause all the RW religious fanatics to gag.

[gratuitous]

4. Except that health insurance isn't quite like groceries

Women who have access to birth control are on balance healthier than women who don't have that access. That is, over the course of her lifetime, a woman on birth control uses fewer resources. The cost to cover a woman is therefore lower because birth control is covered. Watch for the next big "religious freedom" stink to come when employers who don't offer insurance covering birth control find they have to pay a higher premium than employers who do offer insurance that covers birth control, because of the increased costs.

[customerserviceguy]

5. I know the analogy is not perfect

but groceries and medical care were as close an analogy as I could figure out. The point is, nothing's free, somebody pays for it.

There will be no employers not covering contraception, it has already been decided that a basic package of preventive services includes it by mandate. It's not a problem for practically anybody outside Catholic institutions, although I'd have trouble thinking that Brigham Young University is happy about it, either.

Besides, I have no doubt that the use of contraception reduces the resources a family draws on a health insurance plan, it's just a question of who pays for it. Leave it uncovered, and a rational couple will make a rational decision. I'd rather we find some other way to provide contraception for people willing to further the RCC's mission through their side businesses. Is it fair to make them jump through an extra hoop? Well, maybe that's the price of supporting the agenda of Pope Ratzo.