Non-Religious issues of Obama Care

[Old_alum]

Originally posted by SnakeTom:
Getting back to the original issue 2 points:

1. Contraceptive drugs are frequently prescribed for medical conditions unrelated to birth control such as ovarian cysts among others.

2. Since most prescription plans cover viagra why shouldn't they also cover contraceptive prescriptions. Is it not essentially the same thing. Once again a double standard in effect.

Tom K

IMHO the overwhelmingly primary issue of Obama Care and its regs are the trashing of the Bill of Rights ‘freedom of religion’ guarantee. But that is in another thread.

The second issue is economics, and that was dealt with last year. (My thoughts have been two: (1) that the government has always been less efficient as well as less effective than the private sector, so it will cost everyone a lot more money. (2) It could very well kill health research and doom us to fewer health breakthroughs. But those are old hat.)

With the new regs come a new issue: under the guise of ‘health care’, should the Federal Government be paying for non-health issues like contraception, sex changes, Viagra, and even contact lenses, to name a few?

I see absolutely no justification of any of this. Each is elective if not cosmetic. The only time insurance should pay for these is when the beneficiaries alone pay the premiums.

On a similar topic, IMHO people’s health premiums should vary with their obesity and their smoking habits. Why should anyone else subsidize such foolish risk-takers?


As to non-conception health risks, as I understand the plans I have een privy to, doctors' prescriptions of birth-control for these purposes are often covered as 'health' related. But I am no expert.

 

[Merge]

To that extent, why stop there? Isn't having children a life choice? My wife and I actually have our first on our way. We already waiting to get into a financial position where we could pay for caring for the child, I couldn't imagine having to pay for the birth.

Actually you make make that argument for almost anything that can lead to an increase in costs. Drinking, smoking, overeating, promiscuity, engaging in activities that can cause injuries... basically anything outside of watching TV in your living room becomes a lifestyle choice that can lead to injury.

As to the birth control issue. It has been shown that using birth control pills reduce the risk for certain caners for women.

That is one of the few medical "choices" for people that has a benefit that could actually lead to reducing outlays for insurance companies.

 

[SnakeTom]

The purpose of insurance is to spread the risk. It defeats the purpose if each and every person decides which particular illness, disease or condition they should be covered for. I guess single men could then say I don't want pregnancy coverage or women could decline prostate coverage. With each and every choice like that the risks and costs increase for everyone else.

Also just as an aside to Merge's comment. Sitting in front of the TV constantly actually is a bigger risk as inactivity leads to obesity, diabetes, heart disease etc.

TK

 

[Old_alum]

Originally posted by SnakeTom:
The purpose of insurance is to spread the risk. It defeats the purpose if each and every person decides which particular illness, disease or condition they should be covered for.

TK

EXACTLY!

Risk is an uncertain event, especially as it varies from modal expectations. If a group will have expected results (costs) but the members of that group are uncertain, then the group can agree to share the costs equally so that no one member loses at life's roulette table.

Birth control has no ''risk''. It is a choice. It has no ''uncertain'' costs. They are specified. Therefore it is a terrible candidate for ''insurance'.

Originally posted by SnakeTom:
....It defeats the purpose if each and every person decides which particular illness, disease or condition they should be covered for.

TK

It does not affect the ''purpose'' (discussed above).

Any group which merges for sharing mutual risks is equitable. There are always many individual conditions that might affect risk in a small way, but there are a few that impact risk in a big way. Many of these big impact conditions that are not genetic or environmental but are a choice: smoking, obesity, adiction, etc.. IMHO these high impact, easily identifiable risk-impacters should not always lead to exclusion, but should always lead to higher premiums.

IMHO none of these are the government's business.

Originally posted by SnakeTom:
With each and every choice like that the risks and costs increase for everyone else.

IMHO this is not accurate. ''With each and every choice like that the risks and costs increase for'' the chooser, only, as it should be.

 

[Old_alum]

Originally posted by Merge:
...why stop there? Isn't having children a life choice?

I wish for the sake of many couples that having children were purely a choice. In a private insurance pool there could or even should be a choice for any insuree to opt out of obstetrics coverage. I suspect the insurers might calculate that the cost of managing such an option could be cost prohibitive, probably since a lot of --- if not almost all --- civil-unioned couples would opt in. (See discussion of low- and high-probability impacts above).

Originally posted by Merge:
Actually you [may] make that argument for almost anything that can lead to an increase in costs. Drinking, smoking, overeating, promiscuity, engaging in activities that can cause injuries... basically anything outside of watching TV in your living room becomes a lifestyle choice that can lead to injury.

Correct, and it would be economically and socially the better plan unless the condition were so rare that the insurer could not justify the exclusions based on the insured population's mix of elections.

Originally posted by Merge:
....It has been shown that using birth control pills reduce the risk for certain caners for women. That is one of the few medical "choices" for people that has a benefit that could actually lead to reducing outlays for insurance companies.

This is contrary to the analysis and statistics that I have read. Granted that the ''Planned Parenthood'' monolith has promoted one obscure side-effect of some (one?) birth control formulations which impacts one type of cancer, the statistics seem to show that there are many more and apparently more threatening cancers which are caused by those birth-control formulations.

 

[donnie_baseball]

Originally posted by Merge:
As to the birth control issue. It has been shown that using birth control pills reduce the risk for certain caners for women.

That is one of the few medical "choices" for people that has a benefit that could actually lead to reducing outlays for insurance companies.

...offset by the fact that they increase the risk for breast cancer and blood clots.