Is Pregnancy a Pathology? [Serge]

Soon insurance companies may be required to cover oral contraceptives without charging a copay for women who seek them. The reasoning behind this requirement is that giving a woman artificial hormones to trick her reproductive cycle to believe she is already pregnant is now considered important preventative care.

Medical insurance has always been a way for us to insure that a pathological condition would not impose an undue financial burden on a family. If you receive a diagnosis of cancer, and need to get expensive treatment to treat that pathology, your medical insurance is designed to help alleviate the financial burden. Insurance does this by taking all of the fees that others have paid who have not been diagnosed with a pathology and applying it to those that do. In other words, the healthy insurance carriers help cover the burden for those who get sick.

In terms of OC coverage, there are some important questions to ask. First, what pathology are we treating when we give a woman OCs? Is a woman's body which is functioning perfectly now considered pathological because it is acting a way she doesn't want it to? It seems that the desire to have sex without the possibility of children is a choice, but a healthy woman whose ovaries are working correctly are seen as pathologic?

Second, why should others who have purchased health insurance be responsible for funding the sexual behavior of others? Most drugs require a copay. OCs not only will have to be a covered benefit, but a copay will not be allowed. Why should this be the case.

If a woman wishes to have a choice to take a contraceptive - I have no problem with that choice. I don't understand why I also need to fund her choice.