Where's the Birth Control?

Suddenly, healthcare reform seems to be on the mend. The public option returned from the brink of death. The town hall fever broke as inexplicably as it began. And Congress is in the process of remedying discriminatory insurance-company practices based on pre-existing conditions and gender. But just as the prognosis for our healthcare system is beginning to look sunnier, yet another complication has emerged: so far, reform legislation has failed to require insurers to cover some basic preventive services for women, or prevent providers from charging extra for them.

None of the bills emerging from the House and Senate require insurers to cover all the elements of a standard gynecological "well visit," leaving essential care such as pelvic exams, domestic violence screening, counseling about sexually transmitted diseases, and, perhaps most startlingly, the provision of birth control off the list of basic benefits all insurers must cover. Nor are these services protected from "cost sharing," which means that, depending on what's in the bill that emerges from the Senate, and, later, the contents of a final bill, women could wind up having to pay for some of these services out of their own pockets. So far, mammograms and Pap tests are covered in every version of the legislation.

I'm already seeing some of the less expensive/almost affordable plans in CA not covering OB/GYN until deductibles are paid. 2500-5000k. So now we're at no preventive and let's throw in no abortions also?

Too bad the economic considerations that require that not one federal cent be spent on this area of women's health do not extend to the area of government-sanctioned war, huh?  Lots of death and killing there, but I guess that's okay.  

This reform effort was already less-than-acceptable, but now, between the insurance companies calling the shots on what areas of women's health will and won't be covered, and the members of Congress who want to impose their own beliefs on everyone, I'm hard-pressed to understand why any woman should support it at all.

And I'm even more perplexed at how little push-back there has been from any corner of the Democratic caucus, from the party in general or from the so-called women's advocacy groups.  But then, I keep forgetting we have nowhere else to go, and are supposed to be grateful we still have accommodations, even if they are under the bus.

Two years ago, I would never have imagined that my reaction to much of what is coming out of the Democratic Party these days would be utter disgust accompanied by a louder and louder "F**K You!"