Okay before I read these posts let me just praise the sweet, sweet headline interplay between you and Goldy. Good stuff!

Agreeing 100% with you, @1!

Love it! Thank you for this.

Unpaid Intern ftw! Goldy gets the germ-filled coffee Epic Fail!

It's been stated in the previous posts, and summed up here in the last paragraph: The reason this is terrible is that you don't get to make female reproductive health care separate from every other kind of health care. You just don't. And when these assholes are spouting on about their "religious freedoms", the only place they ever seem to want to wield that control is over women's reproduction and sexual health.

Imagine if some Scientologist business owner said, "None of my employees can receive Prozac, even though that is a legal medication prescribed by doctors that is normally included in the health insurance plan my company subscribes to."

For every person claiming this is "caving" on the issue there is a fundamentalist Christian claiming it went to far. It's called compromise.

um @8 seriously wth?

So let me get this straight: birth control is 100% covered. At no additional charge. And we're going to throw a hissy fit over semantics?

See, this is why we can't have nice things, politically anyway. Because if we're going to have to manufacture outrage over whatever legal formula is needed to accomplish 100% of our goal, then we might as well give up entirely on the whole democratic process. Where are you going to go when you only get 75% of what you want on an issue? Or 50 out manage to salvage 25?

Take the fucking victory, for cripes sakes.

And get a little perspective. There's so much more going on in the world that deserves your outrage.

@8 jumps the shark even for him.

And on the topic of objecting to legislation based on what's religiously offensive, like it or not, religion is an incredibly important part of the lives of a large part of the population. Their views do actually matter too. This is a democracy, after all.

Put it another way: we're asking religious people and social conservatives to swallow some difficult and bitter pills on several issues. Opposition to abortion or marriage rights are legitimate political positions to hold, even if we think they're wrong. And we're expecting them to politely accept the outcomes when those issues are decided in our favor. This is a big thing to ask.

The least we can do is show some respect and sensitivity to their beliefs and opinions, even as we expect the same of them towards us.

@12: When someone's religion is all about hatin' women, they get no respect from me. Whether it's the Taliban throwing acid at schoolgirls in Afghanistan or the fundies arguing about my right to not have babies, I have no respect for it.

@12: Again, imagine the scenario I propose of a Scientologist refusing Prozac for their employees. Am I supposed to be equally respectful of that position? After all, Scientologists take their beliefs very seriously.

Bam!

I agree with this post 100%.

@12 Yeah, ladies! Why are you getting so upset that "separate but equal" healthcare policy was just Federally institutionalized?

BTW, since something like 90% of adults nationally find birth control morally acceptable, we're not happy with Obamz caving to the views of a vast minority, and it's retarded policy to cater to the whims of a tenth of the population. They may yell the loudest, but they don't represent the views of the majority, and they shouldn't have such control over the direction of national policy.

Why should I pay you not to have a child???

If you believe it is your own best interest to not get pregnant, shouldn't that be YOUR responsibility, not the taxpayer???

Improper use of government IMO. Nanny-state shit.

While I can see this as a victory for universal contraceptive coverage. This is still a separate but equal issue. We agreed that was and is unacceptable for race and marriage equality, this is no different. Religious organizations are still employers and need to follow other employment laws and regulations why are lady bits exempt from this? It's like when HRC dropped gender identity from ENDA in 2007. Liberals just dropped women's health like teh gays dropped trannies. It's fucked up and confirms my realization that as a Trans woman I'm eternally screwed..
Thanks again to liberal apologists for reminding us we aren't even close to equal not even among our "peers".

@12 "Religion is an incredibly important part of the lives of a large part of the population."

This is why we allow them to have it, and to practice it, and to not whip them to death for heresy for disagreeing with our state religion. Oh, wait. This is also why we don't have a state religion.

Now, for this to actually work, and to be neutral and fair towards everyone's religion or lack thereof, we have to govern in the secular interest only, ignoring everyone's religious interests completely. Religious freedom is the right to practice your own religion, yourself. It is not the right to curtail secular rights or dictate the religious practices of other people. If you want that, go start your own theocratic state.

Shorter: be religious at home. Don't expect favors, concurrence, support or agreement in public. Be thankful for what religious freedom you have here, because you continuously prove you don't deserve it.

@18 - So you'd rather pay the cost of prenatal care, a hospital birth, and the resulting human, who will accrue healthcare costs for the next 85 years?

Birth control is a bargain. I wish they put it in the water like fluoride.

@18 Why should the government pay your church to run a hospital? If you want to run a religious hospital, you should pay for it yourselves out of your church coffers. The government is for secular affairs. If you want to do public business with it, you should have to abide by secular rules. If you don't want to do that, just close the hospital, or pay for it yourself, or sell it to one of the corporate hospital chains.

Maybe I'm missing something. Women (like me, just for the record) get birth control for free, just like the Affordable Care Act said originally, right? Has anything changed with those benefits? If not, how is this misogyny?

I happen to work in insurance. Despite how obtuse policy language and claims handling may be, the business model is simple: sell promises for less than it costs to keep them. I would bet anything that every single health insurance carrier is right now looking at their customer lists to find out if they have religious organizations. The next step is to invent a charge for these customers to cover their birth control costs, because the insurance companies aren't going to do it out of the goodness of their hearts.

Insurance company: Dear client, your premium for the next year will be a gazillion dollars.

Religious nut job: Now wait just a minute. I ain't payin for that there birth control.

Insurance company: Ah, I see you're interested in our Religious Freedom package, with special pricing for people like you. Your new total is a gazillion dollars.

This is like offering someone an ice cream cone, rolling it in sawdust, then trying to explain how it's still an ice cream cone underneath. Why are you ice-cream-cone-demanding women all so finicky?

@23 Well, as @21 points out, it's definitely in the insurance companies' interest to provide birth control to any of the patients who want it. It's way cheaper than obstetrics costs. Preventing one unwanted pregnancy probably saves them enough to provide birth control for 20 women for five years.

Plus, if they can bill the policy holder for the coverage, even better!

@23: I hope that is the practical upshot of how this all shakes out. However, I would hope it's "Your premium next year is a gazillion dollars. OH, you're interested in our Religious Freedom package. In that case, your new total is 1.5 gazillion dollars."

"They may yell the loudest, but they don't represent the views of the majority, and they shouldn't have such control over the direction of national policy"

Of course I agree with you dear, but my experience in government, and in the "gay community" tells me that those who scream the loudest and longest get the most attention.

Look at our sorry House of Representatives: it is the way is is because the majority stayed home in 2010 and allowed the screamers to elect a "majority" of their kind. That "majority" immediately re-districted the nation to ensure they would have a majority, even though the real majority doesn't want them in power.

We can scream until the cows come home about how Obama has betrayed us - and in some instances we are right - but we betrayed ourselves first. Life is not an After School Special where if we design pretty enough posters, the Principal will come around. We have to be twice as noisy as the screamers, and we have to show up for things besides presidential elections, and we don't do that.

Just FYI, not all BC is co-pay-free. My best friend is on the ring (due to various medical issues, it's what works best), and there's no generic alternative that she can be switched to, so her prescription this week? A $80 copay. Or $95 without it. So even though a lot of stuff is covered, there are so many loopholes that I think a lot of us are still going to end up paying for BC, even if we aren't using it because we're all slutty slut sluts that the right wants to paint every woman with an IUD as.

Shouldn't we be sending angry emails to Planned Parenthood, then? And looking for another organization to contribute to?

and people wonder why sperm counts are dropping

When male birth control finally goes mainstream (and I think we're very close to that), I can't fucking WAIT to see how that plays out. Will the church object? Will the government come up with a "separate but equal" plan for dudes? Will idiots continue to insist that the government shouldn't fund birth control while sitting by and watching the population surge with unwanted children? Or with children who are very much wanted, but still have to go without food, healthcare, education, and all the rest because of socioeconomic status? Will they continue to deny access to birth control while insisting they don't want people to have abortions? Seriously, this is going to be interesting.

The one problem with this post:
"Medical science should not hinge on what is socially or religiously offensive."

Mostly I agree with you. Particularly on the religious part. But there are lots of areas of medical science, such as nonconsensual testing, human cloning, etc., that society finds offensive and rightly so. And it's that sensitivity to it that means we don't experiment on the 'unfit' any more.

Wait, why are men even allowed to comment on this post?

Especially gay men like me?

Oops, sorry.

@23 As another birth-control-using-woman, I am not quite getting the outrage. I'm just as pissed off as everyone else that religious assholes still have to get patted on the head all the time over stuff like this, but unless I'm missing something, what it amounts to is little more than a pat on the head.

Yeah, this whole argument seem to be missing a very relevant point: there ARE religious groups making this into a shit storm, and they DO have the legal system (that whole 1st amendment thing) to some degree on their side, and they REALLY COULD cause this entire thing to go up in flames. It seems that the author is advocating a big "fuck you, you guys are assholes!" type response to the religious idiots who are causing the problems. Thankfully the President is a bit more intelligent and prudent than that and has gotten you exactly what you need from the situation. Getting what you want from this situation, i.e. full recognition that your vag health really is like any other health, would require misogynistic religious organizations to suddenly stop thinking you were second class citizens. Please don't hold your breath on that one, or you're going to have another serious health problem very quickly. No one, including Goldy, is saying they're right to do what they do, but it's just the sad truth that they do have the right to do it. We'll need to change the entire system of dealing with religion in this country to change that, and that's not a battle to be waged over the health coverage you've just secured.

@13 That's such a crude, deliberate misrepresentation of religion that it's a prime example of why our politics sucks so hard today. You are just as much a part of the problem as the biggest racist teatard lunatic. If you take the time to actually look at why Catholics (for example) oppose abortion, you might find there's something more there than mindless, rabid hate of women. But then, you might actually have to critically examine your own beliefs. Far, far easier (and lazier) to get wrapped up in this sort of tribal politics.

@14 You know what? I'd actually be fine with that. If you're paying for a product, it seems to me you ought to have some say in what you're buying.

Put it another way: my current employer doesn't offer domestic partner benefits. That sucks because I'd like my partner to be covered. I've asked my HR department to consider it, but beyond that, my recourse is to work someplace else. And that's fine...I don't need the federal government stepping in and forcing them to do that.

@20 I'm not religious myself, but surely, if you are religious, that must have some practical consequences for how you choose to conduct your affairs. Religion isn't just an intellectual exercise; it actually means something.

If I were Catholic, I'd choose not to patronize businesses that conflicted with my religious values. For instance, I wouldn't buy sex toys in an adult store. I wouldn't shop at a store that didn't pay its workers a decent wage and offer them benefits.

Forcing Christians to pay for something they consider morally wrong is analogous to forcing them to patronize a business they find morally objectionable.

This sort of thing falls under the same reason we allow Quakers and other conscientious objectors to avoid being drafted into combat roles in military service.

@40 - What does any of that have to do with health insurance?

All this stuff about "forcing people to pay for things they don't like" is nonsense. It happens all the time in all sorts of areas. I think blowing up Afghani children with flying death robots is immoral but there go my tax dollars paying for flying death robots over Afghanistan. And that sucks. But my moral revulsion isn't reason to stop doing it or to give me a rebate on my income tax - we're living in a society here.

@7 and 12 - the problem is how much weight we assign to the opinions of the fundamentalist religious minority. They hold sway disproportionate to their numbers.

When you shout "gynocide" about something as fundamentally innocuous as this bill, you're confirming the worst stereotypes your enemies hold. Good job.

Just curious, IS this targeting women only? Was vasectomy covered without question already, with no questions asked? How about the new reversible spermicide injected into the vas deferens?
If those are covered, are religious groups demanding that they also not be covered (if those groups realize that the second one may be available soon)?

Why do we only hear about "religious" (and by that, I mean allegedly Christian) fundies objecting to medical issues? I've never heard of a vegetarian pharmacist refusing to dispense insulin derived from cows or pigs (come to that, I've never heard of a Hindu or Jewish pharmacist doing that either). There are no vegetarian bosses who don't want their staff getting animal insulin (or refusing to pay for it, "on principle").

Does the Westboro Baptist represent all Christians? Do terrorists represent all Muslims? Surely anyone can understand how one group of people does not represent an entire society.

Then why does one compromise by politicians represent all of society as is claimed in this SLOG post? Politicians engage in politics which never makes anyone completely happy. The criticism by Jocelyn in this article are really just a criticism of how a democracy works.

No you won't ever have an unmitigated victory in a democracy, deal with it. In fact for women this is unmitigated victory because for them they will get their healthcare for free. The only difference is that the government has agreed to pay the cost instead of forcing the business to do it.

Say this this is any kind of failure by the president of democrats is crying like a little child. The only difference between what we got from our politicians and what we want from them is that we can't stick it to bigoted religious groups.

This reminds me of a child who wants another child's toy. When an adult offers to buy a second toy the child says it isn't good enough because they want the other child to be without theirs.

This is a massive political victory, deal with it.

@46. Excellent post.

@41 The difference here is between being obliged to buy from a private market and fulfilling a government function.

For whatever reason, the federal government decided to pursue a private market method of providing health insurance. And we decided to impose much of the burden of purchasing insurance on employers. Those were both mistakes, IMO, but that's what we're stuck with. The least we can do is offer some consideration for those employers.

@45 I agree! I think vegetarians and vegans ought to have plant-derived insulin available to them. If it's not already on the market and you think there might be a demand for it, then maybe you ought to go into business.

@42 You could very easily make the argument that the LGBT community punches, far, far beyond what its numbers would dictate. We argue that marriage rights and employment protections and AIDS research (which was very controversial when I was coming on the scene) are right things to do in and of themselves. But Christian conservatives would argue the same thing about their agenda.

I just learned that the cheerleaders at the Superbowl get around $50 for that day's work. Compared to what the boys get, it's chickenfeed. I've read comments like, "Well, that's what it pays and the girls still want to do it, so what's the problem?"

I hate "market forces".

I'm a lady and I agree with Goldy: what matters is that women get their free birth control. If this deal is what takes to make that happen, so be it. Yes, it's bullshit that religious organizations get any kind of special privileges, but in politics you don't get everything you want.

Agreed. I don't fault men for not understanding, but this is codifying misogyny. We women have equipment that can manufacture another human being...we shouldn't have to pay extra for this simply because biology said we're the 50% of the population who has these features.

First off, I will say I don't agree with much of any of the health care labyrinth that is proposed or currently exists. On the other hand, the idea of parsing out separate area of treatment has been around for years. Why is Dental coverage separate? Your teeth are part of your body. Why is vision care separate - at least the focusing part. So I have VSP to get my glasses but my eye surgery was covered by my health insurance, but not the glasses necessary to deal with it.

#18 why should anyone pay to keep you alive and to facillitate the birth of your children? Most of your health problems, just like everyone elses, will or have been the result of bad choices. Not having a child when one does not want one is a good and responsible choice. So you expect others to pay for your bad choices but you should not be expected to pay for the good choices of others. If your problem is with paying into other peoples health care that is one thing, but to tell women their good healthcare choices should not be covered is another. Some advice...never, ever, have children.

While I hate the idea that health care is parcelled out this is better than the alternative...no bc coverage at all. What is most alarming is the health care system is being bought out by a religious minority. They can afford it because they have been subsidized by the majority. They get to play by their archaic rules on our dime.