{"id":13659,"date":"2012-02-21T11:29:29","date_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=13659"},"modified":"2012-02-21T11:29:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T16:29:29","slug":"the-real-problem-with-forcing-employers-insurance-to-pay-for-contraception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/02\/21\/the-real-problem-with-forcing-employers-insurance-to-pay-for-contraception\/","title":{"rendered":"The real problem with forcing employers’ insurance to pay for contraception"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Adam Smith Institute blog, Tom Clougherty<\/a> discusses the biggest problem with the current American debate over contraceptives and insurance coverage:<\/p>\n

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Now, I\u2019m no Rick Santorum. I\u2019m a fan of contraception. But there\u2019s so much wrong with this story that it\u2019s hard to know where to start. Should the government really compel<\/em> you to buy a service from a private company? It\u2019s probably better than the government nicking your money and providing that service themselves, but for a libertarian it still rankles. Then there\u2019s the insensitivity to deeply-held religious conviction, which not only exposes the \u2018liberal\u2019 left\u2019s inability to tolerate social mores that differ from their own, but also highlights the way big government inevitably tramples on diversity and choice with its one-size-fits-all monomania. And then there\u2019s the idiot-economics which suggests that you can force a company to provide a service without anyone having to pay for it. In this case, assuming insurance companies can\u2019t find a way of covertly passing on the cost of contraceptive cover to church-affiliated employers, then everyone else with insurance ends up footing the bills through higher premiums.<\/p>\n

But perhaps the biggest problem is the one explained by Sheldon Richman in this<\/a> Freeman<\/em> article: contraception has nothing whatsoever to do with insurance.<\/p>\n