The Department of Health and Human Service issued a nearly unanimous recommendation about birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act last week. The panel stated that birth control should be covered 100 percent by insurers to an outcry of opposition from different facets. Some groups condemn the guidelines because it might include the controversial morning after pill.

The Catholics for Choice organization opposes the fact that the guidelines exempt certain religious organizations from having to cover birth control. Some companies worry that the expanded coverage will equal more expensive insurance policies.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) expressed his own outrage of the plan on Monday.  He stated that offering free birth control could mean the end of the entire species.  Speaking on the House floor, King stated:

We have people that are single, we have people that are past reproductive age, we have priests that are celibate. All of them, paying insurance premiums that cover contraceptives so that somebody else doesn’t have to pay the full fare of that? And they’ve called it Preventative medicine.

Well if you applied that preventative medicine universally what you end up with is you’ve prevented a generation. Preventing babies from being born is not medicine. That’s not— that’s not constructive to our culture and our civilization. If we let our birth rate get down below replacement rate we’re a dying civilization.

King also called the new guidelines “bizarre” and “Orwellian.”

“Now none of us would have health to worry about if they prevented us,” he said, “would we, Mr. Speaker?”

That is what insurance is though. We all pay for other people’s treatment.  By King’s logic, I shouldn’t have to pay for overweight smokers with heart disease either. We really need some sort of intelligence test before an elected official can be sworn in. And a far more pressing problem to humanity is global warming which King and his GOP colleagues ignore every chance they get.

The new guidelines were recommended by the panel of experts at the nonpartisan Institute of Medicine. The guidelines will ensure that all health insurance companies fully cover a range of preventative health services for women, including contraceptives, cancer screenings, breast-feeding supplies and HIV testing.

A recent poll states that 77 percent of American voters believe that insurers should cover the cost of contraceptives without co-pays.

Image Courtesy of  http://www.facebook.com/SteveKingIA

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About the author

Erin Chavez
Erin Whitney-Chavez has been writing professionally since 2009. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts from St. Bonaventure University and received a Master of Arts in mental-health counseling from Argosy University. Erin Whitney-Chavez is a licensed mental health counselor and has worked in the mental-health field for more than 10 years.

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