Let me ask you Adak, how many times have you used the women's restroom in a public place?

Probably your answer is zero. Yet, your tax dollars pay for that part of the program and that's been true since you've paid taxes, but I've never heard you crying about that. The same logic applies to requiring all ACA compliant polices to cover maternity care, just as no public building would ever be built with bathroom facilities for only one gender. We're one public, there's one reasonable standard of care, and that's been established in the minimum standards for policies.

Let's look at it another way. Presume the rules were different, and we didn't require policies issued to males to have maternity care, and that policies issued to females did have maternity coverage. Now, the policies are different, how would you rationalize the different costs of these different classes of coverage? Would you let the prices be different, based on the sex of the insured? Would you hold the costs the same and force one group to subsidize the other? Let one group pay for something they'd never use? Let one group get coverage for something they didn't pay for? How do you slice that up? How many exceptions do you want to include once you travel down this path?

How many prostate cancer screenings will women have? How many childhood immunizations will you have? The list could go on and on and on, as I'm sure you can see. Lots of federal regulations are in place that don't touch my life directly, but they serve a purpose appropriately.

I had thought about taking a cheap shot about your mental illness not having been a choice of yours at all, but I have thought better about it. Mental illness is not a choice, you know that, you're just being an ass about it.

OF COURSE your insurance policy will have to cover things you are highly unlikely to personally need. The point is that the pool of insured clients must be large enough that expenses don't exceed revenue.

Just one of many articles outlining the short-sighted ignorance illustrated by Adak in his railings against paying for care he thinks he doesn't need, or care that he thinks doesn't affect him.


http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/c...ent-goes-heart

p.s. I think men should pay for their own hard-ons. (hards-on?)

IM, Justifying who pays for what insurance is only a matter of perspective.

Maternity benefits are for the benefit of the baby... so the baby should pay !

This view is consistent in that everyone is born... both men and women
... but not everyone has children.

With this perspective, Adak can rest more comfortably because he is
only paying for his own delivery... just a few years after his personal event.

Now we only have to figure out what to do with those people who don't/won't pay their bills.

OBVIOUSLY, health insurance should have always covered mental health, maternity care, and breast cancer screenings. That's all part of health and the people will become unhealthy if they don't have these things.

But insurance didn't cover them, because it became a tricky mix of companies trying to remain profitable and state insurance regulators being broadly incompetent while fighting the political will to do nothing so the money would continue to flow.

One hopes that the federal effort would cut this Gordian knot and ensure that health insurance actually, you know, insures health. If car insurance didn't cover back seats just because your car doesn't have one, that would be considered fraud: "Oh you have $5000 of damage, but your check is for $3000 because we don't cover the area between where the driver's seat ends and the rear bumper begins."

I'm not sure how maternity care and breast screenings were paid for by the pool of the insured, in the past. However it was done, it should continue that same way, as much as possible, now.

But mental health? THAT's a big Big, BIG expense, that most companies don't even offer in their health insurance plans for their employees. Not to mention that mental health insurance was not mentioned previously by the Democrats, as a requirement for ACA approved health insurance.

Forcing that cost onto us now, is one more BIG price increase in people's health insurance. It won't be well accepted when we start getting the price hikes that must accompany this forced, extra coverage.

It's hard to accept a new coverage being forced onto us, when we have no idea how much that extra cost will be. And in fact, we have no idea what the cost of our current plans will be, because the characteristics of the pool for each plan that's offered, is still unknown.

It's like we never heard of running a small scale pilot program - what a concept! :rolleyes:

International Franchise Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce say only 1 in 12 small businesses will be helped by Obamacare.

http://www.aei.org/media/economics/i...icas-newsroom/

Because not treating mental health has no costs associated with it.

This is a repetitive refrain that shows lack of knowledge of community health programs
in various states, counties, and cities, not to mention countries on our border and/or overseas.

Maybe some diligent research and definition of "small pilot program" would help,
otherwise it's just "we never heard" wiggle-words.

Start with "MDRC"

Again... denial or lack of knowledge.

Just a "political clue"... remember John Edwards in the primaries ?

Edwards was first to announce a national health plan,
but the other Democratic candidates soon followed with similar ideas.

Sound familiar ?
If for political reasons, GOP Governors refuse to aid the citizens in their state... blame the GOP.

Basically, if our country wants to be the largest industrial nation in the world with easy access to firearms, then we should also have cheap or free access to mental health.

We pay BILLIONS of dollars to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks. The fact is that we are more likely to be killed by someone 'losing it' with a gun than by a terrorist.

If junior is hearing voices and owns a few guns, I would be willing to pay extra into the system so that when his mom warns the cops there is a place for him to stay and whatever professional help and drugs he needs.

The alternative is having an unpleasant meeting with him in a school, movie theater, mall.....

If more insurance companies get involved, the costs will go down as contracts are negotiated. The reason they are high now is that not enough attention was being paid.

Treating mental health is much cheaper than treating physical health. Compare the price of 26 weeks of talk therapy with any medical procedure requiring a hospital stay.

This line of reasoning is extremely offensive to the mental health community and its patients. You may want to apologize.

For saying that they are needed? After hearing the backstories of some of these recent massacres, that really appeared to be an issue.

I'm not being trivial here. There is a point at which the ease of access to healthcare for someone else affects me. It becomes more enlightened self-interest than pure altruism. Firearms are an extreme example, but there are also strangers whose lives intersect and affect my own. Companies make a big deal about impairment due to recreational drugs, because an intrusive drug test and a 'drug free' sticker is cheap. They don't say anything about how a person's mental state might affect their performance or interaction with me.

As dangerous as those individuals may have been people suffering from serious mental illness are disproportionately likely to be victims of violence. The automatic connection of mental illness with violence is unfair, unfounded and dangerously obscures the actual risks faced or posed by individuals.

This is devolving into a "gun" issue, but it not only that.

But mental health also involves abuse and violence given as well as received. Domestic violence is an example.

Since the first days of Obamacare, our health provider has been putting up posters in their clinics,
urging patients and families to discuss domestic violence and child abuse with their doctor during any appointment...