Althouse: If Obama could say "Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking painkillers" to an elderly woman with a bad heart...

March 9, 2012

If Obama could say "Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking painkillers" to an elderly woman with a bad heart...

... then, in parallel fashion, why shouldn't the government tell young women who want birth control that they are better off using condoms rather than more expensive methods? Condoms, after all, give protection against STDs as well as pregnancy. It would control costs: no doctor visits needed, no calamitous side-effects to treat. Make free condoms plentifully available everywhere.

Remember, Obama took some heat for standing up to the woman who talked about the "spirit" of her 100-year-old mother. If old people are going to get pills instead of surgery, why shouldn't young people have to accept condoms? And shouldn't the government be promoting condoms for disease control anyway?

38 comments:

Thomas said...: Unless you actually make a Catholic bishop hand condoms out, you won't satisfy the urge behind the mandate.; 3/9/12, 9:32 PM
Unknown said...: Or we could just go back to a smaller, less obtrusive government and stop having to struggle with these issues.

We used to call it Freedom.; 3/9/12, 9:34 PM
Methadras said...: They are already available and free. If they aren't they are ridiculously cheap. If anything, the government should make buyable, via foodstamps for the poor, downtrodden, and lottery winners.; 3/9/12, 9:35 PM
Methadras said...: Frankly, if the government got out the subsidized contraceptives business completely, this wouldn't be the social issue it is. Once government gets a hold of something it fucks it up. Royally.; 3/9/12, 9:36 PM
Rusty said...: Oh my. That's inconvenient.; 3/9/12, 9:37 PM
Wince said...: That two good (pill vs. condom) substitution model is what I thought Limbaugh was ham-handedly trying to argue when he said prohibitively expensive contraception means that the user must be having lots of sex.

At the same time, Limbaugh was challenging the left's long held nostrum that condoms are STD-birth control panacea.; 3/9/12, 9:49 PM
test said...: Maybe we should point out that a woman who prefers the government pay over a $1000 dollars a year for her contraception rather than she pay $108/year is demonstrating the failure of government payment pretty clearly. The fact that such an idiot manages to claim the moral high ground is our failure as a society for not mocking such fools out of public life.; 3/9/12, 9:50 PM
Writ Small said...: To get the plan through Congress say it will "bend the cost curve" while scoffing at the clearly demagogic notion of cost-controlling "death panels." Plan to collect taxes for ten years while delaying the start of the program for four years to ensure the bill is “revenue neutral.”

To help the plan survives repeal, emphasize the goodies available to the voting middle class: “free” birth control pills. Let the non-procreative (the gays, the chaste and the socially awkward) make transfer payments to the sexually active majority. Mock objectors as religious fanatics or sexual prudes.

Once the program is entrenched and the economically inevitable budget blowout occurs, implement a system of health rationing and cost cutting. This is the time to substitue condoms for pills.

Enjoy the far more equal society in which the same crappy, waiting-list, rationed, government-run health care is available to all.; 3/9/12, 9:54 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: A fairly astute observation.

I've been waiting for one,...; 3/9/12, 9:57 PM
edutcher said...: The death panel is here, first of all.

As to the issue of latex, welcome to GodZero's America, where the misery is equally shared.

Unless you're part of the Chicago machine.

Whatever the problem, we will get the cheapest and the worst.

Marshal said...

Maybe we should point out that a woman who prefers the government pay over a $1000 dollars a year for her contraception rather than she pay $108/year is demonstrating the failure of government payment pretty clearly. The fact that such an idiot manages to claim the moral high ground is our failure as a society for not mocking such fools out of public life.

As any number of generals can attest, it is one thing to claim the high ground, quite another to take it, and still another to hold it.

Ms Fluck does none, except in the eyes of MoDo.

Just like Cindy Sheehan.; 3/9/12, 10:01 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Ouch! That'll leave a mark.; 3/9/12, 10:04 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: If Obama could say "Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking painkillers" to an elderly woman with a bad heart...
... then, in parallel fashion, why shouldn't the government tell young women who want birth control that they are better off using condoms rather than more expensive methods?

I'm going to go on a limb and say that its because the political advantage in making the right out to be women haters far outweighs any thought of what would be better for women.. period.; 3/9/12, 10:06 PM
wyo sis said...: Both examples clearly demonstrate Obama's utter indifference to people except as political chess pieces, and his particularly baffling (considering how smart he is) tone deafness about it.; 3/9/12, 10:14 PM
Bender said...: If Obama could say that oral contraceptives are "preventive medicine," then why shouldn't government be able to compel every minor female to take the Pill under its authority to compel the vaccination of minors?

After all, teen-age pregnancy is a major public health issue.; 3/9/12, 10:25 PM
Bender said...: Under Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), compulsory vaccination laws are constitutional.

Should minor girls be required to take the pregnancy vaccine?; 3/9/12, 10:30 PM
Tim said...: "...why shouldn't the government tell young women who want birth control that they are better off using condoms rather than more expensive methods?"

You aren't serious, are you?

I mean, the Democratic Party is disproportionately female; within that, outside of Blacks, no demographic group voted for Obama in higher numbers than single women.

This is a direct, obvious pander to women's votes, especially single women's votes.

Somehow, feminism has convinced them they can't get by without big government protecting them, and giving them shit for free at expense to other people.

But I digress. Obama could no more suggest that than he could authorize the Keystone pipeline, no matter how much sense it makes.

He needs all his base to belong to him.; 3/9/12, 10:34 PM
Tim said...: Bender said...

"If Obama could say that oral contraceptives are "preventive medicine," then why shouldn't government be able to compel every minor female to take the Pill under its authority to compel the vaccination of minors?

After all, teen-age pregnancy is a major public health issue."

Depo-Provera. Injected every three months. One-third of single-women every month; STD check up and Michelle Obama's mandatory BMI test too.

Win, win, win.

'cept for the individual responsibility and freedom thing, but the Left has informed us that in the balance with birth control, freedom and responsibility come up short.; 3/9/12, 10:39 PM
Display Name said...: Condoms keep ovarian cysts at bay?; 3/9/12, 10:47 PM
Geoff Matthews said...: Why don't we just sterilize the poor and be done with it?
That's the driving force here. The poor are having too many kids, and are creating too much of a burden for the state, and that needs to change.; 3/9/12, 10:56 PM
sakredkow said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/9/12, 11:30 PM
sakredkow said...: Who thinks there's something wrong with promoting condoms? I just heard on the news that the demographics show an unexpected and dramatic uptick in AIDS in about a dozen USA metropolitan areas. They're going to have to promote condoms, aren't they? Why would we think US is not promoting them now?; 3/9/12, 11:31 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: Why does it make more sense for government to push the use ofl birth control pills? Because some guys don't want to use condoms. Condoms cut down on their pleasure... and that puts the woman at risk if she doesn't have the nerve to tell her boyfriend, no condom no sex.

It's easier (for the guys) to make the girls take the responsibility for birth control. For instance, Rush still didn't even know about how bc pills worked, even after 4 marriages. 2012?

There's also the financial investment the pharma industry has in politics which makes expensive bc pills the way to go. Not to put politics above public health, or anything.; 3/10/12, 12:10 AM
BigFire said...: Re: Geoff Matthews
actually, read up on the eugenetics like Margarate Sangers, founder of Planned Parenthood, that IS their goal. The elimination of inferior genes. The poor, by the very nature of their low social economical state are no fit to continue to breed.

This kind of thinking have never gone out of fashion with the progressives.; 3/10/12, 12:46 AM
Penny said...: Why does it make sense for the government to push the use of birth control pills?"

Because too many thoughtful, responsible citizens forgot to put on a condom, silly!

Duh...; 3/10/12, 1:02 AM
bgates said...: Obama took some heat for standing up to the woman

He stood up to her? Is that what he did? The President of the United States stood up to an old woman? Wow. He found within himself the resolve, the fortitude - let's just say it, the courage to stand up to an old woman, knowing that she was supported by her centenarian mother with the heart condition and he had nothing but pluck, grit, and the fact that he's Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America. Who says heroes are dead? This episode almost makes that time he swatted the fly look trivial.

"standing up to the woman".

I bet he couldn't get her to give him permission to watch SportsCenter.; 3/10/12, 2:01 AM
Gary Rosen said...: Remember, bgates, we're talking about the guy who took out Osama bin Laden, with just a little help from some SEALs.; 3/10/12, 5:11 AM
free_technology said...: I sugest that you team up George Bush with Jennifer Lopez.; 3/10/12, 6:45 AM
SGT Ted said...: We spend 300 million a year on free condoms for low income people.

Thats more than enough money.

When I can't afford movie tickets, I don't go to the movies. If you can't afford Birth Control, you might want to give up sex until you can.

The only people I know that can't give up sex to avoid an unwanted pregnancy are either drug or sex addicts.; 3/10/12, 7:28 AM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: This is a class thing. Upper class young women are on the pill. It's a right of passage.

That's a constituency.; 3/10/12, 7:38 AM
Anonymous said...: I think that the leftist/Obamaian theory is that birth control pills save money by preventing pregnancy, and the death panels do the same thing, just at a different point in life.

So saving money is the purported justification for the free birth control pills. And the free death control pills at the end as well.

This is called "pragmatism" or, as others term it, "totalitarianism."; 3/10/12, 9:35 AM
Jenner said...: This is what I said last week. Birth control doesn't have to be the pill, and since condoms really are a lot cheaper (and have the added benefit of STD protection - i.e., keeps those treatment costs down too), why wouldn't the insurance companies decide to provide an alternative? They would probably then say that they will provide the pill, but only if you have another underlying condition that necessitates it. Which is sort of the reverse of what we have now - some people who need the pill for things other than birth control, probably decide to kill two birds with one stone when they go on the pill.

Otherwise, I have seen here, there are other, perhaps less risky, medicines to take for those conditions without exposing oneself to the side effects of the pill.

Because, let's face it - follow the money. If it were about getting birth control pills to women, the legislation would allow generics to satisfy this mandate. But from my understanding it doesn't - the legislation forces the insurance companies to provide whatever medicine is prescribed - brand name or not. Who is this good for - BigPharma, right?

Certainly some women may need a specific brand, but most will not. There is a tendency to go with a brand (more expensive) when you can afford it. Here, with the cost not coming (directly) out of your pocket, you will choose the pill perceived to be better (the brand name). Don't doctors also sometimes have deals with drug companies to encourage their patients to go with certain brands?

Therefore this is an inefficiency built right into the system from the start. The motives are easily discernable, if you look.; 3/10/12, 1:01 PM
jeff said...: "This is called "pragmatism" or, as others term it, "totalitarianism." "

Makes sense. Thank goodness politicians are available to tell insurance companies how they can save money, as they are known for just spending money on claims like drunken sailors. Now that its explained to them that providing free birth control will save them money for pregnancies, I have no doubt they will gratefully climb aboard.; 3/11/12, 10:15 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Bigfire said:
"The poor, by the very nature of their low social economical state are no fit to continue to breed."

I wonder does Obama realize he may be eliminating the DEM voting base?; 3/12/12, 3:40 PM
R.C. said...: Ann, everyone:

I spend a bit of time in the Catholic blogosphere. They, understandably, get that their freedom to practice their faith in good conscience is being taken away.

At this point, they're just trying to figure out how best to deal with a form of martyrdom that (for a change) doesn't kill you, but only prohibits you from owning a business, a charity, a health insurance company, providing health care, or providing education.

(They're also wondering which of Obama's supporters are lining up to buy their hospitals and schools and other facilities on-the-cheap when they wind up compelled to sell them.)

So trust me, the Catholics get it.

Does the rest of the electorate?

Or do they all believe that the Catholic Church wants to outlaw the legal sale/purchase of contraceptives?

(They don't. They just don't want Catholic businesses, charities, hospitals, and schools compelled to subsidize them. It's like not forcing the Jews and Muslims to subsidize the pork industry, or Vegans to subsidize the meat-packing industry. These groups don't want to outlaw the sale of pork or meat...they just don't want to be compelled to pay its producers and be involved in handing it out to those who want it!)

Does the electorate get this?

Or are they totally snowed by the leftstream media on this?

I can't tell any more. I mean, I know too many smart people. They all get it.

But I don't want to wake up to a second Obama term thinking, "How could that be? Nobody I know voted for him!"

Does the average Joe understand?; 3/12/12, 6:08 PM
Charlie said...: I live in Florida, and enjoy the sunshine. I understand that UV rays can cause skin cancer, so I purchase, and wear, sunscreen. It protects me from a dangerous and potentially expensive health condition, which afflicts millions of Americans and is one of the most common cancers (one in five Americans will develop some form of skin cancer in their lifetimes).
Unprotected exposure to UV radiation is the most preventable risk factor to skin cancer. Unprotected exposure to sex is the most preventable risk factor to STDs and unwanted pregnancies. You can probably see where I'm going here...which congressional subcommittee do I need to contact to schedule my testimony in favor of providing government-funded sunscreen to all of us who make a conscious choice to engage in what we consider a pleasurable activity, with full knowledge of the health consequences? It appears the precedent has been set - let's make the abdication of personal responsibility in pursuit of personal pleasure a statutory entitlement - those of us who participate in potentially unhealthy activities appreciate the rest of you chipping in to enable our guilty pleasure.; 3/12/12, 6:36 PM
SH said...: I think this sort of politicization of healthcare was meant to be a feature of Obamacare and not a bug.

They were hoping to whip up one irrational frenzy after another and beat the conservatives down until they gave up (like in the UK). If a Thatcher type ever showed up; you could blame them for healthcare problems for 25-30 years after leaving office.

So far; not working out as planned. :); 3/12/12, 10:42 PM
Erika Ahern said...: First of all, I am so impressed by the comments here--first time reader!

Second, thank you, RC for articulating the RC side so well.; 3/13/12, 8:58 AM
Joseph P. said...: A win-win situation. Deciding on one side that effects other side. We need to study before deciding to choose what's best for us.

kamagra; 5/8/12, 11:08 PM