On Thu, 1 Mar 2012 12:59:59 -0800 (PST), Josh Rosenbluth
wrote:

On Mar 1, 3:28*pm, RD Sandman
wrote:
George Plimpton wrote :

and told private companies that they must provide
products for free,

No, he didn't.

The insurance companies are private sector companies. *When he backed off
requiring church employers to provide contraceptive devices he said that
the insurance companies would provide them for free. *We all know that
isn't going to work. *There is no free lunch. *Ergo, the church
organizations will be paying for those contraceptives via their
healthcare fees.

I thought it was cheaper for insurance companies to provide
contraception than not to because of the cost of pregnancy care.

You're right. However, it's more complicated.

Medicaid can show real savings. The Guttmacher Institute and some
other health care policy institutes have done the research on this,
and Medicaid basically buys it. About half the states have applied
contraceptive coverage as part of the pre-natal package for Medicaid
and the like recipients, and it works out.

But here's a point that's not often considered outside of the
industry, regarding private insurers: The average person remains with
one private insurer for a bit more than 3-1/2 years. Like most forms
of preventive care, private insurers find that there is no benefit to
them in providing it. If they do, some other insurance company is
likely to reap the benefit.

I studied this in regard to diabetes prevention, and the same
principles apply to contraception. Insurance companies don't talk much
about it, but their incentive to provide preventive treatment of any
kind is small or nonexistent. Financially, it's generally a loser for
them. So it's the kind of thing that you can only make work through
regulation -- like seat belts or fireproof materials in an automobile.
The natural, market-driven incentives in both cases are perverse.
That's when you need regulation.

--
Ed Huntress