The "WAr On Women??"

[Punish_her]

no, because insurance by its definition is defined as "a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent, uncertain loss."
it's not insurance if there's a 100 percent chance there's going to be a problem, it's just passing the costs onto someone else.
in the US every 2 years you must have your car inspected. this costs money and it is related to automobiles. however, car insurance does not cover this because it is a guaranteed cost.
insurance, by definition must hedge against possible adverse effects, so if a man pays into insurance from age 25 and then gets prostate cancer at age 45, he should be treated because he's been hedging against possible adverse effects for 20 years. If a woman pays into insurance from age 25 and gets breast cancer at age 45, she shouldabsolutely be covered because she's been playing the insurance game for 20 years. The premiums people pay are a statistical probability of how much overage they want and the odds of them incurring medical costs. With women wanting birth control, it's a guarantee that every woman will be able to get it,so either the insurance premiums for women must increase by the exact cost of buying it themselves, or it gets passed onto me

[Thorne]

With women wanting birth control, it's a guarantee that every woman will be able to get it,so either the insurance premiums for women must increase by the exact cost of buying it themselves, or it gets passed onto me

You're assuming that the ONLY reason women want it is to avoid pregnancy. But even if that is so, aren't the low costs of birth control far more tolerable than the high costs of getting pregnant? Prenatal care, labor and delivery, post natal care, child care, etc., are all much higher costs to the insurance company, as well as the patients and society in general, than birth control.

But in the now-infamous Sandra Fluke case, immortalized by Rush Limbaugh, she was only talking about women who need those pills for medical reasons, not specifically as birth control pills. And that should be covered by insurance even by your standards.

[denuseri]

You're assuming that the ONLY reason women want it is to avoid pregnancy. But even if that is so, aren't the low costs of birth control far more tolerable than the high costs of getting pregnant? Prenatal care, labor and delivery, post natal care, child care, etc., are all much higher costs to the insurance company, as well as the patients and society in general, than birth control.

But in the now-infamous Sandra Fluke case, immortalized by Rush Limbaugh, she was only talking about women who need those pills for medical reasons, not specifically as birth control pills. And that should be covered by insurance even by your standards.

If they need the pill for medical reasons other than to prevent pregnancy or to make life more fluffy for them IE for other than "elective" reasons then I am all for it being covered by their insurance.

[StrictMasterD]

If they need the pill for medical reasons other than to prevent pregnancy or to make life more fluffy for them IE for other than "elective" reasons then I am all for it being covered by their insurance.

That's the whole Point, most people do not Realize Or Accept that Birth Control is used by Women for more then just Presenting them from getting Pregnant, it is for a Myriad of other Allements, I know people who receive Anti Deressents and the Filler card says "This Medication is to Treat the Symptoms of Depression OR OTHER MEDICAL ISSUES AS DIRECTED BY THEIR DOCTOR" so you can be on an Anti Deprssent not be Bi Polar but stil beneift from the Chemical Makeup of the Medciation
Women do use birth control for reasons beyond just not getting pregnant

[leo9]

The premiums people pay are a statistical probability of how much overage they want and the odds of them incurring medical costs. With women wanting birth control, it's a guarantee that every woman will be able to get it,so either the insurance premiums for women must increase by the exact cost of buying it themselves, or it gets passed onto me

Just one of the insane consequences of treating healthcare as an insurance issue, rather than a public health issue. The health issues which people need most protection against are the ones that are certain to occur. So the interests of insurers are the exact opposite of healthcare needs.

There was a time when fire brigades were paid for by the insurance companies, so if you had a fire and didn't have a sign on your house showing it had coverage, the firefighters wouldn't help. (I'm not making this up, you can see the signs in museums.) Draw your own parallel.

[Punish_her]

Just one of the insane consequences of treating healthcare as an insurance issue, rather than a public health issue. The health issues which people need most protection against are the ones that are certain to occur. So the interests of insurers are the exact opposite of healthcare needs.

not at all the case, not everyone gets cancer, not everyone has a stroke, not everyone has a stroke. it's the same logic behind insurance companies not accepting people, or charging vastly higher premiums, with pre-existing conditions. it's not the way insurance is supposed to work. you don't total your car, then call an insurance company to get a quote, sign up, and then mention your car was smashed. the system works with people paying into it who are young, paying their whole lives, so that when they are elderly and do need treatment (or in the cases of catastrophic events) they are covered. it is completely unfair for people who are already sick to expect coverage from those who are playing by the rules.

There was a time when fire brigades were paid for by the insurance companies, so if you had a fire and didn't have a sign on your house showing it had coverage, the firefighters wouldn't help. (I'm not making this up, you can see the signs in museums.) Draw your own parallel.

this also is not unreasonable. the fire department has to be paid by someone, either you can buy fire insurance or you can have higher taxes on a state or city run department

[leo9]

not at all the case, not everyone gets cancer, not everyone has a stroke, not everyone has a stroke. it's the same logic behind insurance companies not accepting people, or charging vastly higher premiums, with pre-existing conditions. it's not the way insurance is supposed to work. you don't total your car, then call an insurance company to get a quote, sign up, and then mention your car was smashed. the system works with people paying into it who are young, paying their whole lives, so that when they are elderly and do need treatment (or in the cases of catastrophic events) they are covered. it is completely unfair for people who are already sick to expect coverage from those who are playing by the rules.

My point exactly: the insurance business model does not work for healthcare. It only works for cars because maintenance and breakdown repairs are done on a different system, and people aren't cars.

It works moderately well in this country because the National Health Service picks up all the conditions that don't fall within the insurance-based systems, as well as supporting those who can't afford or don't want the extra coverage. I don't have to imagine what it must be like without that backup, I read enough American novels to know.

this also is not unreasonable. the fire department has to be paid by someone, either you can buy fire insurance or you can have higher taxes on a state or city run department

I thought the point was too obvous to need explaining. If your neighbour doesn't have fire insurance, are you going to be happy that the fire brigade leaves his house to burn? And set the whole block afire? Firefighting is a communal interest. So is healthcare.

[Punish_her]

My point exactly: the insurance business model does not work for healthcare. It only works for cars because maintenance and breakdown repairs are done on a different system, and people aren't cars.

It works moderately well in this country because the National Health Service picks up all the conditions that don't fall within the insurance-based systems, as well as supporting those who can't afford or don't want the extra coverage. I don't have to imagine what it must be like without that backup, I read enough American novels to know.I thought the point was too obvous to need explaining. If your neighbour doesn't have fire insurance, are you going to be happy that the fire brigade leaves his house to burn? And set the whole block afire? Firefighting is a communal interest. So is healthcare.

the insurance business model works just fine for healthcare if people play by the rules, but they don't want to

I thought the point was too obvous to need explaining. If your neighbour doesn't have fire insurance, are you going to be happy that the fire brigade leaves his house to burn? And set the whole block afire? Firefighting is a communal interest. So is healthcare.

as long as the rest of the block has the insurance, it's not their problem, as firefighters would be obligated to keep the fire away from those who did pay

[leo9]

the insurance business model works just fine for healthcare if people play by the rules, but they don't want to

That's because health and disease don't work according to commercial rules. To take a current hot issue: as researchers discover genetic predispositions to disease, insurance companies want to screen for them and charge higher premiums. From a business point of view, this is only common sense. From a human point of view, it's cruel discrimination against the sick.

as long as the rest of the block has the insurance, it's not their problem, as firefighters would be obligated to keep the fire away from those who did pay

A lovely example of the consequences of clinging to an ideology in defiance of reality. I can just imagine a firefighter's response if you told him to leave a house burning in the middle of a block for commercial reasons. Leaving aside the very poor chance of containing a fire by such roundabout means, if yours were the next house, the inevitable consequence would be that instead of a brief alarm while your neighbour's fire was put out, your house would be saturated with water as well as (at the very least) suffering major structural damage to adjoining walls. In fact, if the whole block apart from the one house was insured, the logical commercial decision would be to dynamite your house to create a firebreak; your house would be ruined anyhow, so best to get rid of it to save the rest.

In fact, it doesn't even make sense commercially: by leaving the uninsured house to burn, the insurers get at the very least the cost of two insured houses wrecked, plus just as much firefighting costs as if they'd tackled the original blaze. (Maybe more, the firefighters would be working for many hours to contain the fire that they might have put out much faster at source.) See what happens when you follow a theory ad absurdum?

[Punish_her]

That's because health and disease don't work according to commercial rules. To take a current hot issue: as researchers discover genetic predispositions to disease, insurance companies want to screen for them and charge higher premiums. From a business point of view, this is only common sense. From a human point of view, it's cruel discrimination against the sick.

and if they can't charge higher premiums for the sick, they must charge higher premiums for all, which means me, which means they're discriminating against the healthy because i almost never use medical services