Wingnuts: Either contraception is too expensive to offer without a copay or so cheap anyone can buy it. Please pick.
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Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) November 15, 2012If you were taking a modicum of comfort in believing that President Obama’s reelection meant at the very least a vacation from vagina-centric political bickering, our apologies. Team Uterati never sleeps.
To be fair, you can’t blame wingnuts for their confusion about just how much contraception costs. Target offers birth control pills for $9 a month. This was a surprise to Sandra Fluke, the poster child for taxpayer-funded contraception, who initially testified that birth control would cost $3,000 over the course of her law school studies. During the campaign season, Team Obama circulated an e-card so women could ask their moms for $18,000 to “help” pay for birth control in the absence of Obamacare coverage.
If those numbers are true, then yes, contraception is too expensive. But just as unemployment checks create jobs (according to Nancy Pelosi), taxpayer-funded birth control makes money. Recovery, here we come!
@AmandaMarcotte THANK YOU. Religious Right says to me it's "pennies" and the No Big Govs thinks it will break the state.—
Pete D'Amato (@damatocorp) November 15, 2012
@damatocorp For insurance, it's revenue-neutral, but taxpayer-funded contraception returns $4 for every $1 invested. It's profitable.—
Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) November 15, 2012
But is cost really the issue after all? No, it’s a fear and loathing of lady parts — a misogynist surtax of sorts imposed by those “birth control Nazis” who oppose paying for others’ birth control, as “real journalist” Chris Matthews calls them.
@AmandaMarcotte @lancefinney I don't think most opposition to the HHS mandate is grounded in the cost (either high or low).—
John McGuinness (@JohnJMcG) November 15, 2012
@JohnJMcG I agree. The cost is grafted onto a deep fear and loathing of female sexuality.—
Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) November 15, 2012
Marcotte hasn’t addressed religious objections to providing taxpayer-funded birth control, but anyone familiar with the blog posts that cost Marcotte her position with the John Edwards campaign knows how she feels about Catholics and their beliefs on contraception.
Even if you aren’t Catholic or didn’t vote for Obama, Marcotte notes that the right to free birth control is granted by a higher power.
slate.me/ZCKSs8 Mitt Romney calls contraception a "gift". The U.N. calls it a right.—
Amanda Marcotte (@AmandaMarcotte) November 15, 2012
