Posted on 03/08/2012 6:15:26 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The question of who controls health-care costs has been endlessly discussed, but it seems that we’ve all missed the answer: the media. In recent weeks, we have watched the cost of birth-control pills rise dramatically: Three weeks ago, in the infancy of the Sandra Fluke fracas, we were told that the annual cost was, at most, $600; then Fluke upped the ante, reporting $1,000 per year in her congressional testimony; and finally, her figure was widely misreported as being $3,000 per annum. This last spike seems to have been the messy byproduct of Fluke’s claim that $3,000 would be the cost over her three-year stay at Georgetown Law.
Fluke’s figure seems to have been plucked from thin air. Planned Parenthood estimates the monthly cost at between $15 and $50, which translates to $160 to $600 per year. If we were to take their maximum figure and run with it, we’d still be well below Fluke’s oft-repeated claim. But even Planned Parenthood’s price is on the high end. As has been widely reported, both Target and Walmart (and their online iterations) have been selling generic birth-control pills for $9 per month in 41 states since 2007 — equivalent to the cost of three cheap coffees at Starbucks. (The cost in the nine remaining states is around $27, or $324 per year. For the difference, we can thank those states’ regulations making it illegal to sell prescription drugs as loss leaders.)
Over the course of a given year, these pills would cost their buyer $108, approximately one-tenth of Fluke’s estimation. In the interest of fairness, we should up that to $120 to include sales taxes in those few states that levy them on prescription drugs, and then throw in a trip to the doctor’s office to get hold of the prescription. Let’s presume it’s an expensive trip — say, $80. We’re still looking at only $200 per year, at which rate Sandra Fluke could stay at Georgetown Law for 15 years and pay for contraception no more than the $3,000 she claims it will cost her for three.
The uninsured and unemployed are irrelevant to the debate over the HHS mandate, which applies only to the insured and the employers that insure them. But even an uninsured woman who paid a (pricey) doctor out of pocket to write her a prescription would be looking at no more than $250 per year, or $25 per month.
The Walmart/Target figure is not a red herring. Brand-name drugs and their generic counterparts are identical in their active ingredients, dosages, and methods of consumption. The difference in price between generic and branded drugs is almost wholly attributable to their respective positions in the patent cycle. It is true that many insurance companies do not provide coverage for generics, but this is because drug companies often impose supply restrictions, requiring that insurers buy branded drugs instead of generics as a condition of being allowed to buy other branded medicines that have no generic equivalents. For the most part, patients do not notice the resulting increase in costs, because of the way our system takes purchasing decisions away from consumers. This is a problem in its own right, but one not addressed at all by the HHS mandate.
Day after day, we hear melodramatic stories, rarely backed up, of a supposed crisis in access to contraception. In the real world, in 41 of our 50 states, contraception costs little more per month than a trip to the movies and, in the other nine, its monthly cost is about half what the average American spends on gas each week. Rome is burning all around us, and it is time we redirected our attention from this pseudo-problem to the flames that can actually sear us.
— Charles C. W. Cooke is an editorial associate at National Review.
This is the argument that Rush should have made.
And the cost premium hormonal contraception via patch or implant averages at $390 PER YEAR. That’s the equivalent of 1,170 condoms per year, which should be enough, I daresay, even for Sandra Fluke.
So, what is Ms Fluke’s ultimate motive in:
1. attending Georgetown U, a Catholic institution
2. trying to change their birth control policy
3. pushing to give testimony before the subcommittee?
I believe the answer is that she, and her like-minded cohorts, want to force the Catholic Church to fund abortions.
The Obamacare mandate requires that insurance companies cover the full cost of any FDA approved contraceptive, not just generics. So while the cost of generics may be quite low, it is not impossible that Ms. Fluke was paying $1,000 a year for a brand-name patented product.
For any other drug, Obamacare wants to push you into the generic, even if it is not as effective, in order to save a couple of bucks. But the rules are different for contraceptives.
Which is probably the reason why patented birth control accounts for so many of the advertisements you see on daytime TV. They are looking for customers with pockets full of Other People’s Money.
It IS the argument Rush made. And in response to the initial news reports, he did it with condoms.
Condoms are less than $1 each. So a budget of $1,000/year suggests how many sexual encounters each year?
Hence the “slut” - because if you take Fluke’s testimony literally, then the women of Georgetown are having in excess of 1,000 sex acts each year. Maybe more like 2,500 - 3,000.
If a woman has 1-2,000 sexual encounters every year, what is she?
Rush’s entire point was NEVER that Fluke was REALLY a super-promiscuous coed, but that she was LYING about her claims of the costs! That was what made it funny: it was ABSURD that anyone would take her seriously. He - and we, since my daughter was listening too - was laughing at the idea that birth control is a heavy financial burden that needs government intervention.
That is obvious to anyone listening to the entire show, instead of taking a few sentences out of context. The problem is that the MSM is excellent at lying instead of reporting...
Has anyone actually found any of her “sexual partners”
I find it hard to believe that she’s had sex with a male.
This whole thing is a sham and she needs to be exposed further.
You know. Rush has the money to dig into Ms. Fluke’s past and discredit her and prove that she is in fact a “slut”. Why not do it. The Dems are making political hay out of this debacle. The Women’s Approval of Obama now is up around 57%.
That is WHY the Left started that fire to begin with. To hide the reality of what Rush stated so clearly.
Truth is anathema to the left; it doesn’t bend to their proclivities.
She sets my gaydar off as well. However, the point Rush was making by illustrating the absurdity of it was that her testimony about the cost of birth control was false - false to the point of being laughable.
I don’t think anyone truly believes Fluke is having sex with over 1,000 people (or the same guy over 1,000 times) a year. That is why my 14 year old daughter broke out laughing when Rush went ‘let’s see....$1 a condom. How many condom cans you buy for $1,000....someone help me with the math’.
It sure does add up...
If PP can get 50% of their 300,000 abortion ‘clients’ to sign up for the Sandra Fluke plan... its an ongoing revenue stream of $180 Million dollars a year at a very healthy markup.
If they can add 1% of the 12 million female college students... it’s another $150 Million a year in revenue.
Nothing more than a giant money laundering opportunity to promote death and democrats.
There were some other things that I think Rush should have attacked. Fluke said she wasn't going to tell her story and then told the stories of six women. Some of those stories were open to ridicule. According to Fluke, one woman:
"told us about how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance and she had to turn and walk away because she couldn’t afford that prescription. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception."Have no choice but to go without contraception?" Free contraception, Planned Parenthood, and $/9 month contraception weren't raised.
Similarly, Fluke said one of the women she was speaking for was "a married female student [who] told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldn’t fit it into their budget anymore." Again, how are free condoms not in their budget? Or a trip to Planned Parenthood? $9/month? Can you imagine Rush riffing on that?
Fluke also told the story of a woman who was raped and didn't get tested for STDs because the didn't have contraceptive converage, so she assumed nothing related to a woman's reproduction was covered. That's just stupid, and even if her contraception was covered it wouldn't have treated her stupidity.
Rush missed a lot of softballs when he erroneously claimed Fluke talked about own her sex life and made up all of these things Fluke 'said' about her own sex life.
What would one expect from a LIAR?
"Ode To Sandra Fluke"Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin' south
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breatheSomeone's got it in for me
They're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out
But when they will I can only guess
They say I shot a man named gray
And took his wife to Italy
She inherited a million bucksAnd when she died it came to me, I can't help it if I'm lucky
People see me all the time
And they just cant remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas
Images and distorted facts
Even you, yesterday
You had to ask me where it was at
I couldn't believe after all these yearsYou didn't know me better than that sweet lady
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth
Blowing down the back roads headin' south
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breatheI ran into the fortuneteller
Who said beware of lightning that might strike
I haven't known peace and quiet
For so long I can't remember what it's like
There's a lone soldier on the cross
Smoke pourin' out of a boxcar door
You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be done
In the final end he won the wars after losin' every battleI woke up on the roadside
Daydreamin' 'bout the way things sometimes are
Visions of your chestnut mare shoot through my head
And are makin' me see stars
You hurt the ones that I love best
And cover up the truth with lies
One day you'll be in the ditch
Flies buzzin' around your eyes, blood on your saddleIdiot wind, blowing through the flowers on your tomb
Blowing through the curtains in your room
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breatheIt was gravity which pulled us down
And destiny which broke us apart
You tamed the lion in my cage
But it just wasn't enough to change my heart
Now everything's a little upside downAs a matter of fact the wheels have stopped
What's good is bad, what's bad is good
You'll find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottomI noticed at the ceremony
Your corrupt ways had finally made you blind
I can't remember your face anymore
Your mouth has changed, your eyes don't look into mine
The priest wore black on the seventh day
And sat stone-faced while the building burned
I waited for you on the running boards
Near the cypress trees, while the springtime, turned slowly into autumnIdiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull
From the grand coulee dam to the capitol
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breatheI can't feel you anymore
I can't even touch the books you've read
Every time I crawl past your door
I been wishin' I was somebody else instead
Down the highway, down the tracks
Down the road to ecstasy
I followed you beneath the stars
Hounded by your memory and all your ragin' gloryI been double crossed now for the very last time
And now I'm finally free
I kissed goodbye the howling beast
On the borderline which separated you from me
You'll never know the hurt I suffered
Nor the pain I rise above
And I'll never know the same about you
Your holiness or your kind of love and it makes me feel so sorryIdiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves
Were idiots, babe
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves
Are you certain?
A lot of his comments sounded like he was saying she was super-promiscuous. He called her "the Georgetown student who went before a congressional committee and said she's having so much sex, she's going broke buying contraceptives."
He said "She's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception.'
He claimed she said "I'm going broke having sex!" (and since the birth control pill is paid by the month, he meant she was using a lot of condoms).
He asked Fluke who bought her condoms in the sixth grade.
He said "I know what her virtue is. She's having so much sex that she's going broke! There's no question about her virtue."
Those are only a portion of his statements.
I'm leaving out the parts about how she said she was having so much sex she couldn't walk and things like that. By the way, Rush Limbaugh has removed the transcripts of his comments about Fluke from the 2/29 and 3/1 broadcasts.
I think a fair read of what Rush Limbaugh said is that she was promiscuous.
Of course not! Libs never let the facts stand in their way and if need be, you manufacture statistics. That's why we are in economic "recovery" with only 8+ % unemployed. You just quit counting people until the figures look the way YOU want them, and then scream and shout and get all the media to spread "the word".
I believe that the money generated from this program is the whole reason they want government to pay through our premiums. This is the exact opposite of competition/free market. When the day comes that PP stops getting funded through the federal budget - it will compensate the lost money through raising prices of their ‘services’. They will charge whatever level they want and health insurance companies (or ObamaCare) will have to pay the price they are demanding.
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