Hey, Y'all! Lets get right to it.
The other day, a Georgetown University law student was testifying before a congressional committee, and she said that, in a nutshell, contraception should be covered by health care plans. A lot of plans don't cover that sort of thing, particularly those plans offered by religious colleges, or businesses with their roots based in religion. Maybe all plans don't cover contraception. I don't know.
Anyway, a lot of folks straight up lost their shit upon hearing this. Radio host Rush Limbaugh called her a 'slut', a 'prostitute', and said that she wants to be paid to have sex. There has been a fuckton of newspaper stories about this, and a lot of the commenters on those stories feel the same way. 'Yeah, she's a whore, taxpayers are already putting her through school, we don't wanna pay for her to have sex', blah blah blah. Who knows if taxpayers are paying for her to be in law school or not,I think she has some sort of scholarship, but I am not doing that research because I don't really care.
I will tell you a couple things. Simple math, really. College, as I understand it, is, for a lot of kids, the first time away from home, away from the apron strings, and a time when one does a lot of learning who one is. Does that make sense? Good. Kids experiment with everything. Drugs, sex, learn how to live on their own, blah blah blah. Learn responsibility. Figure out who they are.
Part of that is meeting new people. Some of those people, they will have sex with. Lucky them. It's what people do. We are one of the very few species on this planet that has sex for entertainment. Always have, always will. But they don't want kids. They aren't ready emotionally or financially. Don't get me wrong, no one is really ready, but college kids especially. And most of them know it.
You remember Roe vs. Wade? In short, that court decision allowed women to get abortions, legally, safely, and, thanks to a free market, affordability. So. Financially strapped women were able to have abortions, and not have unwanted children. Remember, we, as humans, are gonna fuck anyway.
So, what does this all mean? Welp, it means this. Taxpayers don't want to foot the bill for contraception. I get that. But they didn't think about one of the ramifications of Roe vs. Wade. Roe vs. Wade was in 1973. The crime rate, 15-20 years later, dropped. Why? Because unwanted children aren't cared for, and taught right from wrong. So they commit crimes. And go to jail. Jail that is paid for by the taxpayers. Source; Freakanomics. Read it.
It seems to me that if taxpayer money is going to be spent anyway, then use it to pay for contraception for whoever wants it. Use it to help people not have kids they don't want. Makes everyone happy. Less crime, fewer unhappy poor pregosaurs, fewer deadbeat dads. Less welfare, less unpaid child support. Everybody, and I do mean everybody, wins.
Another part of this is the outrageous cost of health care in the U.S. According to the Washington Post, Americans, on average, spent just shy of $8000 dollars of health care, per person, in 2009. Canada, $4800. Germany, $4200. France, $4000. Why is that? You think that folks in the Motherland are just unhealthier? Well, according to the poll, no. People are the same, healthwise, give or take, in these countries. Why the difference in cost?
Its simple, really. It's the price. I mean, health care costs are completely out of control in the states. We all know that. One of the reasons, probably the main reason is, governments elsewhere put caps on what insurers can charge. They tell insurance companies to keep the goofy shit to a minimum. Example. My kid used to have to take a medicine called Concerta. It is made in America by an American company. Daniel was taking this shit before he moved here, and for the first few years of life here. My point is, we, his parents, have had to buy it in both countries. Want to guess where is was less expensive? Yep. Even with transportation costs, it was cheaper here. Say what you will about socialized medicine. Same level of care, vastly different costs to the patient. With the exception of Medicare and Medicaid, the government pretty much lets the market figure itself out. While that seems to work fine for keeping the cost of T.Vs down, it's not working for the price of health insurance.
It seems to me, that if the U.S. government would provide contraception for anyone that wants it, from vasectomies,to the pill, to condoms,, at no or low cost, it would, in the long run, end up being less of a burden on the taxpayer, from less indigent people getting free pre and post-natal health care for unwanted children, to less police, to fewer cases in our courts of unpaid child support, to less overcrowding in prisons. Everybody wins!
Thats all I got. Peace.
