I was a bit burned out from writing this weekend for all sorts of reasons, so I didn’t write anything about Rush Limbaugh’s comments and subsequent apology. So, I thought I missed my chance to write anything on the subject.
Then I read yesterday that he said that what he said was really the fault of liberals. Even if I took his advertiser induced apology seriously, that pretty much wipes out any contrition, donnit?
(By the way, “poor choice of words”? Are there better ways to question the private character of a stranger?)
This gives me the chance to point out a few things that I found wrong with his comments and the reaction to Sandra Fluke’s testimony.
First off, Limbaugh’s (and others too) objections to the compromise is that people like him are being “forced” to pay for birth control pills. What, through taxes? Well, that would be interesting because the policy deals with private insurance plans. If you want to argue from a free market perspective against mandates on industry, have at it. But convincing your followers that their hard earned tax money is going to pay for family planning is lying, pure and simple.
Second comes the monumentally objectionable notion that Fluke was demanding to have her sex life subsidized. Nope. Nope for a couple of reasons.
Her testimony dealt with a friend of hers who had a condition that was being dealt with with perscription drugs that could also be used for birth control.
In other words, she was making no claims about her own sexual habits (which would be none of Limbaugh’s business in the first place) and the friend she was arguing on behalf of wasn’t going to use the medicine for birth control.
Her friend is using a medication that was also birth control for a medical condition, that makes Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute.” This sort of leap on Limbaugh’s part says more about him and his warped view of women than it does about Fluke.
And another thing: Viagra is also indicated for other medical conditions. Should “we,” since by their definition a payment by an insurance plan is paid by “we,” pay for a man’s sexual escapades? What if he’s taking it because of circulation issues? Should he prove it?
Well, we don’t ask those questions. Insurers have to pay for Viagra. You know why? John McCain and Jon Kyl voted for the bill that tells them to.
I need some help here, what makes that different?
11 Comments
BS… She is a plant, a tool, and a clown for the Democrat party. She is nothing but a professional community organizer. Her claims are patently wrong are nothing but political propaganda.
The government, nor an insurance company should pay for any of this. This is just more the entitlement society people in Washington are pushing on us. Who is going to provide all this stuff when the money runs out? Get a job and pay your own way.
My ex-wife was prescribed birth control pills not for birth-control purposes but rather to deal with a separate medical condition she had. Such claims are neither patently wrong nor political propaganda.
Your response (tirade) doesn’t address the question Tedski posed – why should insurers be required to pay for Viagra but not birth control medication? Where’s the difference, other than the affected gender? If there is no difference, and you agree Viagra shouldn’t be covered, then doesn’t that make McCain and Kyl guilty of (to borrow one of your favorite terms) hypocrisy?
Well, as I stated, but you chose to ingore, “The government, nor an insurance company should pay for any of this”…
BTW, her claims of $3,000 are patently wrong and ARE nothing but political propaganda. She was used as a tool, nothing more. She was dressed up and made to look like a girl versus the woman whom she is… Who stated she was 23, when she is really 30? Why? Political theatre is why, and you willingly sit in the mob and eat what is being fed to you. Start thinking critically… both sides are same and leading us into financial ruin. Who is going to pay for all this stuff?
I didn’t ignore your statement, but did not realize you meant it to apply to the Viagra matter too. Fair enough, that’s a consistent position.
Here is the full transcript of Fluke’s testimony before Congress:
http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/statement-Congress-letterhead-2nd%20hearing.pdf
Nowhere in there does she mention her age. I have spent some time on Google trying to find evidence for her stating she was 23, but the only references I have found are from conservative sites which don’t provide sources. Since in the same referenced testimony she describes herself as a third-year law student, that would make it quite unlikely she would be 23 years old. I can find no evidence, anywhere, of her describing herself as being 23. Please feel free to back track on that one.
As for the $3000 figure you cite, that has better grounding, but was not a per year amount. Rather, it was a total over the course of three years. Here is the full statement:
“Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.”
That breaks down to roughly $1000 a year, which is in line with the $100/mo figure she quoted he friend as spending. I know a number of conservatives have found that figure high, and quoted $9 a month at Walgreen’s or whatever, but of course those are basic generics which don’t have the further medicinal properties of more expensive brands. They may work fine as pure contraceptives, but not at all for the scenario Ms. Fluke described in her testimony … or for my ex-wife’s issue for that matter.
Depending on what, exactly, is prescribed and especially if you include ancillary costs such as doctor visits, I could see that approaching $80-100 per month .. which gets you in the ballpark of $1000/yr, or $3000 per law degree.
So the figure given is at least in the realm of possibility, although it seems to me at the upper end of the range. … which would make her claim neither “patently wrong” nor “political propaganda”.
Yes… contraception can cost $1,000,000 a year if you come to my door and purchase it from me. One could have also gone to Target and spent $9 for for a month’s supply of Tri-Sprintec, the generic form of the birth control pill Ortho Tri-Cyclen using her discount prescription card. One could also go to Wal-Mart which charges $9 a month for Tri-Sprintec and Sprintec oral contraceptives.
It seems as though only the expensive alternative is good enough when you are spending someone else’s money.
Her statement was political propaganda because Obama could not take the heat for his trampling of the 1st Amendment and OUR god-given rights. The entire hearing was political theatre since the Republicans denied her testimony the Democrats created the dog and pony show that they called a hearing. It is all BS, I shouldn’t have to pay for anyone’s contraception but my own, the same goes for healthcare.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Let me try this again. That $9 stuff you purchase at Target does NOT have the extra medicinal properties needed for someone who is taking them for reasons other than purely contraceptive. One such person was the individual cited during Ms. Fluke’s testimony. Another was my ex.
So yes, for most individuals using contraceptives for their main purpose that $9 may work. For those who are taking contraceptives for reasons other than simply the contraceptive properties, in all likelihood these cheaper drugs won’t work.
BTW – when we were purchasing those more expensive contraceptives for my ex-wife we were paying out of pocket, so it wasn’t a function of “spending other people’s money”. It was a function of necessity. Fortunately, it wasn’t a huge burden for us, but I can see where it might have been for a family on a tighter budget.
We weren’t purchasing those drugs from you either, thank goodness. Neither should anyone else at your apparent rates.
Lots of people think they shouldn’t have to pay for anyone’s health care but their own … up until their child is the one who develops leukemia.
Your discussion is not about contraception, it is about other medical needs, but it has nothing to do contraception.
BTW – when the just of the argument is imposing the cost of contraception on others, not the user, it is “spending other people’s money”.
As a survivor of stage III cancer I think I know a thing or two about the subject. I paid for my own healthcare. The issue is not about paying for someone else’s healthcare, for as a Christian I am willing to help those whom I choose to help, the issue is being FORCED to pay for someone else’s healthcare and contraception against their will and against their belief system.
Wake up, and stop the taking sides BS. What is going to happen after the Federal Government acquires all these new laws and the sides switch and a Republican is in control?
I don’t post the pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem because I like how it sounds. If your side forces me to do something and you don’t speak up, who is going to speak up when the other side forces you to do something?
My argument IS about contraception – the whole $3000 thing you bring up as “patently false” was in regards to contraceptives being used for purposes other than purely contraceptive (this the anecdote about her friend with the cyst). You can’t use that figure, which was derived from using contraceptives for other medical purposes, as an argument, then claim this is only about contraception.
No one argues that most uses of contraceptives won’t approach $1000/yr in cost … but they certainly can in some percentage of cases, and that figure certainly would be a burden for a significant percentage of families.
You are wrong!
con·tra·cep·tion
[kon-truh-sep-shuhn] Show IPA
noun
the deliberate prevention of conception or impregnation by any of various drugs, techniques, or devices; birth control.
When a medication is used for another purpose, it is not about contraception.
It is political theatre and you fell for it…
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/connecting-the-dots-oreilly-traces-sandra-fluke-to-former-white-house-adviser/
But you fail to understand the entire problem… If the government can force you do to something against your religion, against your will, against your morals and ethics, we are in deep trouble. Just wait until it is you that the government is forcing to do something against your will.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Heh. It’s not solely about contraception. It’s still contraception medicine, and still treated as such and still costly. One of the points Ms. Fluke was raising was the difficulty of getting an insurer to cover the prescribed medication, even with a Doctor’s sign-off, because the insurer believed the purpose was intended solely for contraception.
So it all comes into play.
I can’t have “fallen for it”, since I didn’t watch it in the first place. All I did was go read the transcript and do some other research … things you are, apparently, uniquely incapable of doing yourself.
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
This poem seems apropos here, not in the sense that you typically use it, but in reference to Ms. Fluke, who did show the courage to speak up in a major public forum and has been vilified by individuals such as yourself who persist in making up claims out of cloth, or misusing statements she made. For example, I note you still haven’t renounced the whole “she claimed she was 23″ statement in your second post of this thread, a claim she provably never made, yet one you used to portray her as misrepresenting herself.
As an addenda to the above, when discussing Ms. Fluke’s testimony one of the points she was making was, under the proposed changes, if religious organizations were allowed to prevent contraceptive medication from being covered under insurance they offered it would apply to ALL uses of contraceptives, including uses intended for other medical reasons.
Ergo, it’s all related. If you don’t insure contraceptives for contraceptive purposes, you are also not insuring them for other medical purposes as well.