A Perfect Solution To The Contraception Mandate Problem That No One Will Adopt
Women’s groups (and other groups!) should raise the money to buy the contraception patents from pharmaceutical companies and release them into the public domain so that all forms of contraception become as cheap as condoms. (Some versions of the Pill are in the public domain, but not all of them and women have different needs/physiologies.)
No one is forced to buy anything. Religious groups have their conscience intact. Women have more access to contraception.
Next question!
They’re expensive because you “need” a prescription, due to religious conservative opposition to these medications coming OTC. Only an idiot thinks this isn’t about preventing women from accessing birth control.
— Chet · Mar 3, 02:38 PM · #
good information and point of view. Agree with you, thet women’s groups should raise the money to buy the contraception patents from pharmaceutical companies and release them into the public domain.
— essay jobs · Mar 3, 07:26 PM · #
Chet, Have you noticed that the FDA prohibits LOTS of medications without prescriptions? How come it listened to religious conservatives on this particular item and pays conservatives in general no attention on any others?
Anyone who thinks the recent rulings are about providing more “access” to birth control is living in the Land of Tinfoil Headware.
— The Reticulator · Mar 3, 10:40 PM · #
Yet, birth control is the only medication where the FDA has overruled its own advisory panel, which recommended OTC availability. Paracetamol, on the other hand, is the nation’s leading cause of chronic liver failure. Guess which one you can get without an invasive vaginal exam?
Could you be more specific? Which rulings do you think are “recent” and who ruled them?
— Chet · Mar 3, 11:19 PM · #
More specific? I’m referring to the recent vote by the Fascist majority in the Senate to prohibit conscientious objectors from taking part, for example.
But if contraceptives are more expensive because they require a prescription, how come nobody proposed the obvious solution to our out-of-control medical costs, an increasing part of which are due to the costs of medications?
— The Reticulator · Mar 3, 11:29 PM · #
No one is forced to buy anything…except for the womens’ groups (and other groups!) who are subsidizing this purchase. Presumably, the cost of those patents would be roughly equivalent to the expected revenue stream from them. So this “solution” amounts to “womens’ groups should pay for everyone’s contraception”—or, to put it another way, insurance should not be funding contraception, and the burden should instead be borne by a combination of women themselves and private charity. A nice gloss on a total reversal of the policy.
Arguments like this are why people are so willing to use the term “glibertarian”.
— Dan Miller · Mar 4, 01:43 AM · #
I hear crickets.
— The Reticulator · Mar 5, 08:10 AM · #
Both patents and prescriptions are government-created obstacles to medical care. Having created these obstacles, the government is obligated to help people cross them.
— Consumatopia · Mar 8, 07:15 AM · #