So, how many of the hormonal contraceptive users have it prescribed for something other than birth control? I must assume since you not only have brought it up, but repeated your objection that it must be a significant number. 50%? 25%? Even 10%?
Secondly, what other medicine is offered at no cost to insured individuals? My father's blood pressure medicine that helps keep him alive? Nope. My mothers diabetes supplies? Nope. My wife's thyroid medication? Nope. (That's right a HORMONAL PILL and we still have to pay for it. Oh, it too, helps keep her alive.)
Thirdly, if birth control is so prohibitively expensive that individuals must be sheltered from ANY expense towards their cost, why isn't the government giving it away?
Fourth, if you have realized that the government and other places actually DO give away birth control, why must a religious employer be required to pay for it in contravention of their own doctrine?
Apparently you took my questions as my support for Obama's plan. I didn't say anywhere that I support Obama's plan as is; I just don't like how this debate has been framed, as sluts vs the religious; and as per your word choice I'd assume you bought into that dichotomy. Do you even know what Ms. Fluke was testifying about or do you just take Rush's words for it?
“A friend of mine, for example, has polycystic ovarian syndrome, and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy.
“Unfortunately, under many religious institutions and insurance plans, it wouldn’t be.
....
“For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation, she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor, her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy.
...
“Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary as a result.
“On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony, she was sitting in a doctor’s office, trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe.
“Since last year’s surgery, she’s been experiencing night sweats and weight gain and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. She’s 32-years-old.
“As she put it, ‘If my body indeed does enter early menopause, no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies simply because the insurance policy that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school, wouldn’t cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.’
Nothing about her testimony is about preventing birth, her friend need the medication to prevent cancerous cysts from forming. That's what I'm concerned about. Women who have a medical need to birth control having their employer deem they cannot have what is medically necessary over religious convictions.
To answer your first question more than 3 million people in the United States have anemia. Women and people with chronic diseases are at the greatest risk for anemia. Polycystic ovarian syndrome affects as many as 5 million women in the United States may be affected and it can occur in girls as young as 11 years old. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder affects 3-8% of women in their reproductive years. Which is between 4,302,000 - 11,472,000 women in the US.
So based on some quick math (correct me if I'm wrong) 10,802,000 - 17,972,000 women in America are afflicted with three diseases or
disorders that birth control may be prescribed for. That's 7.5 - 12.5% of the entire female population of America (based off 2000 census 143.4m women in America). That's only the numbers for the three afflictions that I know of that birth control may be prescribed for, so the total numbers may be much higher depending what else birth control is prescribed for not including preventing child birth.
Fifth, if I make an outrageous claim to prohibitive costs for sexual activity that would require me to have sex an average of three times per day, every day for 3 years in order to match those costs, I am either a liar or a slut. Rush must have believed her to be an honest slut, rather than a lying one.
It's obvious you didn't listen or read a word of Ms. Flukes actual testimony and solely based your beliefs off what Rush says. First off you don't take birth control every time you have sex, you take it once a day. You do know that right? It wouldn't matter how much sex Ms. Fluke was having (if that was relevant) to the cost of her birth control. Second I keep hearing from the cost of condoms vs the cost of the pill. It doesn't matter a bit, its about a necessary medication not preventing birth.
