hi tkc,
to me, contraception's just an unexceptional form of medicine.
the reason governments need to get involved in protecting young women's rights to reproductive healthcare services is because old, usually male, religious plutocrats seek to control their behaviour.
usually the reason powerful people appeal to their religious rights is to try to impose their ideas on others. restricting contraception is one of those things.
perhaps such people feel they have a moral high ground. sex is naughty. it is sinful. don't encourage it. whereas for me, the folks making the moral claims are creepy. It's none of their business whether a woman decides to use protection.
if a bishop says he objects to someone taking the pill, i suggest he should avoid swallowing. but i would counsel him to leave a young woman alone to manage her own vagina. let her go to her gynecologist to discuss the issues that affect her.
for sure, don't let a church or a business run by a holy joe use its influence to impose its will on a hospital or a health plan.
of course, if catholics and other christians weren't using their powers to restrict access to contraception and/or abortion, there would be no need for the government to intervene to protect women's access to them. but because they do, the federal government is seeking to protect them.
as much as anything, this is what government is for. to protect vulnerable groups from powerful ones. to make sure a powerful organisation's capricious demands are restrained.
rights often overlap. i would happily advocate for a young woman's right to see a doctor to get contraception than a church's right to impose its religious views on that young woman.
as regards the general idea that actuaries make better health insurance systems, this is the hell the us was just delivered from. it's easy to fasten costs to high use individuals. what happens is that sick/needy people end up excluded from the health system or corralled into spiralling insurance premiums. the way to build a successful system is to embrace the necessary costs involved in providing healthcare and to spread them broadly. vary premiums based on income and not on usage, sickness, sex, or pre-existing conditions.
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