Journal roman_mir's Journal: Affordable Condom Act 3
Obama government now decided that destroying the housing market is not good enough, there needs to be more government initiated and mandated destruction, this time related to the contraceptives.
The idea is that women must be able to get "free" contraceptives as part of their health insurance package provided by their employer or insurance company, and this must be specifically done without co-pay, so the entire cost must be absorbed by the provider or employer.
Well, just like the Affordable Housing Act that helped to initiate and mandate the eventual housing bubble and collapse, this will also cause something similar though it will be expressed in a different manner.
1. Mandating that insurance provides a specific product regardless of the wishes of the customers is unconstitutional. A sterile woman or a woman who is perfectly happy to buy her own contraception would still have to receive an 'insurance' package from the employer or insurance company that would include this particular product.
2. There is nothing free about government mandates, somebody always ends up paying. So the real payment will be deducted from the wage, fewer women will also be hired, as there will be more potential for lawsuits based on wage inequality, after all, if women are going to be paid less dollars and be paid in condoms instead, this of-course would also violate other government mandates. Otherwise everybody's wages will have to come down, are you ready to be paid in condoms?
3. Why would men buy contraceptives at all (unless gay or dating somebody who is unemployed and uninsured)? So almost all contraceptives will be paid for this way, of-course usage will go up dramatically, as everybody will be asking for more and more of condoms and other contraceptives. Why not? If it's part of pay, just get boxes of them. Use them for anything. Need gloves? Party balloons? How about reselling them to other countries on a side? Great way to subsidise your income by reselling supposedly 'free' condoms' and OTHER contraceptives.
4. Whatever is subsidised ends up used more. Women who didn't take the pills before, now they can do so for free, so why not? Some women moderate their cycles this way, never mind birth control. Again, more artificial demand.
5. The manufacturers will not be competing on price anymore, they can come up with new versions of contraceptives and raise the prices and employers and insurance will have to cover it anyway, so it's going to be not a competition for the pocket of the direct client, but now competition for a subsidy, this is exactly why health care and education and other government subsidised things are so much more expensive than what happens in the normal free market. Prices for condoms and other contraceptives will skyrocket, NOBODY WILL BE ABLE TO AFFORD THEM OUT OF POCKET, especially not the young, and not those without jobs.
6. With prices skyrocketing there will be more incidents of unwanted pregnancies and more incidents of STDs.
7. Part of employee wage now will be paid in condoms - so this is not going to be taxed, so even less income taxes will be collected from the employees, so this is another reason for employees to gang up and vote against employers and those who actually do pay income taxes, so income taxes of higher paid individuals will have to be pushed up again. Oh well, it's not a 'class war', is it? Of-course this will just lead to more deficit spending and counterfeiting.
8. Of-course this distorts what insurance is about - insurance is about unexpected expensive problems, not about expected everyday purchases. Insurance is not a managed health account, and doing it this way will cause higher prices for everybody.
9. Everybody will be getting the most expensive contraceptive they can find for free, why not? People will be using multiple contraceptives at the same time, why not? Not that there is anything wrong with using multiple contraceptives, but that's when you do it on your own terms, not because it's free all of a sudden, but of-course it's not free. Manufacturers will have no reason to compete on price at all.
10. Even if there will be some sort of limit on the number of contraceptives one will get for 'free' in a month, everything still applies, but now it's even worse - it's a person asking PERMISSION from GOVERNMENT to fuck for 'free' and then any extra times will have to be paid for out of pocket anyway, and with obviously higher prices for those contraceptives and with less salary.
11. The slippery slope argument can also be applied - why shouldn't insurance company and employer be forced to provide free food? Free clothing? Free shelter? Nothing is free of-course, but it's an interesting way for government to push people into something of a barter economy instead of using money as pay, and reduce people's choices as to how they are paid and how they can spend their money.
In any case, one thing is obvious, nobody in government takes economics seriously as long as they can use politics of it to buy cheap votes of the majority, who are employees, who don't understand economics at all, but do like to get 'free' stuff. Those are the same people that will be complaining later on that there is 'income inequality'.
Well of-course there is more and more income inequality, and it's all created with ideas like this.
tldnr (Score:1)
Interview on birth control (Score:2)
Interview is in the first half hour of the show: Sam Seder, actor, talk radio host, & occasional guest host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, on Obama's contraception compromise and the state of the Republican race for the White House. [noxsolutions.com]