On Sunday, you printed a letter to the editor — “No outrage over Viagra, vasectomy?” — to which I simply have to reply.
In the letter, the writer takes shots at anyone who doesn’t complain about insurance coverage for Viagra and vasectomies as being anti-women and not worth listening to. I would like to point out two things in regard to that point of view.
1) The marketplace has decided that some insurance plans will provide coverage for those male “needs” as the writer states. The reasons insurance companies have opted to provide that coverage may be debatable, but is not part of this discussion. Those services are also not provided “free” to the end user on the plans that do cover them.
2) This issue has never been about access to birth control. Most insurance plans cover birth control at a low co-pay and some at no cost. When the government mandates that something be provided “free of charge” to the population, the associated cost of that product is shifted to everyone because nothing is free and someone will pay for it.
I wonder how some are not able to afford the “essential need” of birth control, but can afford a cell phone, $3 coffee at the local stand every day, cigarettes, candy, soda, or anything else that they choose to spend their income on other than their “essential needs.”
Until the writer looks past the Obama administration’s talking points of birth control being a “fundamental right” and anyone who disagrees with that as being anti-women, and realizes that this issue is about the freedom of religion and association, then I consider her opinions to be anti-freedom and not worth reading.
Mark Schooley
Goldendale
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
