Pricy Prevention Means an Unhappy Nation

very year, the consequences of female health

take a toll on the nation as a whole, inflicting the
morale of the society and dipping into taxpayer
money with an almighty suction. The very fact that
women are the chosen gender susceptible to the
ambivalent bestowal of pregnancy creates a tasty platter
of unappealing facts: nearly 70% of pregnancies in the
U.S. are unplanned; a whopping $13.5 billion is spent on
unplanned pregnancies, teen pregnancy is an increasing
statistic and between 700,000 to 800,000 legal abortions
are performed each year. Female health goes beyond the
scope of pregnancy prevention, but this is a sector that
should not be shunned by our national leaders, and
effective policy should be enacted to make these statistics
more pleasing to the average eye.
Education is universal approach to practically
every problem, and through education, informed minds
are expected to create an improved future. Its a well-
known fact that pregnancy rates tend to run higher
amongst the less educated crowd of America, so this is
a simple approach that can be easily accomplished.
Schools that teach their budding youngsters on the road
of sexual discovery the detailed ropes of prevention,
which stem beyond abstinence, convenience stores and
condom dispensers, will reap the rewards of lowered
pregnancy rates. People need to be informed in their
early years the common sense of paying a trip to a
gynecologist to get the most effective birth control that
doesnt rip or tear in order to make healthier life
decisions.
The real problem at state when it comes to
prevention is the monumentally burgeoning cost. Most
forms of birth control for women costs between $15 to
$50 a month (with health insurance coverage), which
aggregates to a potential of $600 a year, just for the sake
of a worry-free passionate life. If the health insurance
plan a woman has doesnt cover birth control, she can
expect to pay about $100 per month. Large companies
are obligated to provide insurance plans that included
birth control coverage, a reasonable and very pragmatic
policy that is threatened by the pious flames of Hobby
Lobby and its religious crowd of supporters at the
moment. The medical fact is that birth control prevents
pregnancies through the use of hormones, and the more
affordable and available it is to women, the better it will
be for the health statistics of the nation as a whole.
Incidents like the current hubbub with Hobby Lobby
fanatics delving into the legal works place a massive
roadblock on womens health. If Hobby Lobby gets its
hoped for heavenly light in the supreme court, it will
smash down draconian injustice upon thousands of its
female (and more indirectly, male) employees.
The basic legality behind the separation of
church and state should make the road of female health a
smooth one, and we need the government to make
progressive policies, but the current case at the Supreme
Court will give an important verdict this heated summer
that will show whether we are actually moving forward
or not. Before moving to making birth control more
affordable, we need the availability to extend to all
American women, and universal health care creates that
opportunity. An effective reform would be for all
insurance providers to be mandated to include birth
control coverage in their plans. Medical costs in the
United States are notorious for their skyrocketing prices
in numerous sectors, a broad issue that requires further
analyzing, but it has been universally recognized that
prevention is a quintessential building block for a
healthier tomorrow and the developed countries with the
best healthcare systems are praised for their effective
preventive care. Free preventive care is a benign solution
that would of course include free birth control. This is the
ultimate solution to the horrific and ascending statistics
that come from unplanned pregnancies.

E

Womens Health Coverage: A
Means to a Better Tomorrow
By: Paola Camacho
Resources:

Alspalter, C., Uchida, Y., & Gauld, R. (Eds.). (2012).
Health care systems in Europe and Asia. New
York, NY: Routledge.

Center for Disease Control. (2010). Abortion
Surveillance United States (DHHS Publication
No. 62(ss08);1-44). Atlanta, GA.

Palmer, K. (2012). The real cost of birth control. US
News. Retrieved from:
http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/alpha-
consumer/2012/03/05/the-real-cost-of-birth-
control

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen & Unplanned
Pregnancy. (2014). National & State Data [Data
File]. Retrieved from:
http://thenationalcampaign.org/data/landing