Collisions with Reality

Like many others, I was heartened by the response to Komen pulling grants for mammograms from Planned Parenthood. And so it got me wondering. If we can agree that all women should have access to mammograms, what about access to pap smears? From there it’s not much of a jump to agreeing that everyone should have access to colonoscopies (even if no one really wants a colonoscopy).

Maybe it’s a bit of a bigger jump to note that everyone should then have access to cancer treatment, but otherwise what’s the point of a free screening?

And from all that, for the second time in a week, I can only conclude that universal health care might be the solution to some of these problems.

Today is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, so Friday’s announcement of nearly universal contraceptive coverage was excellent timing. The most successful way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. Worldwide, the abortion rate is lower in countries where it’s more accessible, as accessibility to abortion is generally correlated with accessibility to all reproductive health services for women.

But back to the contraception coverage: women bear a disproportional financial cost of birth control, and they bear the entire physical cost of childbearing. This is not a move that is unfair to men; rather, it levels the financial playing field for women. I have good health insurance, and yet birth control has been my largest out-of-pocket medical expense over the past decade.

Finally, dare we hope that this is a true, tentative step towards universal health care in this country?