Misogyny and Health Care: When it doesn't take two to tango?

Nicely Done, Arthur

Something about dubious statistics goes here.

To wit, facing a statistic that reflects a five-year period (2006-2010), you select one year that coincidentally happens to be the lowest.

NCVS rape statistics by year, total rape/sexual assault:

• 2006: 272,350 (Table 3)
• 2007: 248,280 (Table 6)
• 2008: 203,830 (Table 6)
• 2009: 125,920 (Table 7)
• 2010: 184,390 (Table 5)​

What a striking coincidence, that when you decided to run with a one-year statistic in order to argue against a five-year statistic, you just happened to accidentally use the lowest number of the set.

Now, there are some legitimate issues to clear up; the RAINN's numbers are slightly off compared to the NCVS numbers I took from the reports. That is an issue of the data sets being used; compare, for instance, tables one and five in the 2010 numbers; the four thousand more rapes in 2010 Table 1 appear to be a statistical rounding issue. If I use the higher number in that table, RAINN's average is very nearly perfect.

RAINN also might have failed to account for the fact that 2008 was a leap year, which would have a small, perhaps negligible, effect.

Additionally, these numbers account for rapes of both men and women, while the question under consideration with Asguard only involves the rape of females by males.

However, you have the appearance of cherry-picking, and combined with your earlier attempts to redefine context (see #11, 23, 24, in which we are supposed to accept that your reading comprehension is so poor that you cannot understand how sentences in a paragraph relate to one another), we find ourselves having something of a problem.

If you're going to try to con people, do a better job. I mean, at the very least, as I've noted, try a little subtlety.
____________________

Notes:

Rand, Michael and Shannan Catalano. "Criminal Victimization, 2006". Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. December, 2007. BJS.gov. April 6, 2012. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv06.pdf

Rand, Michael R. "Criminal Victimization, 2007". Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. December, 2008. BJS.gov. April 6, 2012. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv07.pdf

—————. "Criminal Victimization, 2008". Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. September, 2009. BJS.gov. April 6, 2012. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv08.pdf

Truman, Jennifer L. and Michael R. Rand. "Criminal Victimization, 2009". Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin. October, 2010. BJS.OJP.gov. April 6, 2012. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv09.pdf

Truman, Jennifer L. "Criminal Victimization, 2010". Bulletin. September, 2011. BJS.gov. April 6, 2012. http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv10.pdf

 

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Tiassa, I used the latest complete report listed from the DOJ site, so no, I wasn't cherry picking. If I knew more recent data existed I would have used it.

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=317#pubs

And the fact is Tiassa, using bogus stats like X per minute and redefining the sum of Rapes and Sexual Assults by spouse, former spouse and boyfriend as MARITAL Rape is the only attempt at a CON job we've seen.

But you really should read the fine print though:

For 2010, the estimate of rape or sexual assault is based on 57 cases out of 73,283 individuals.

But still nothing in these figures talks about Marital Rapes as you claimed, and use of the Bogus X per minute metric is just HYPE (or a con, take your pick).

Yeah, unlike the numbers you published, I dealt with the number of rapes of females.

In 2010, it was 169,370.

But I stated BOTH rates per 1,000 for men and women.

And so providing actual data, for a stated year (2009), from a reliable source (DOJ web site) based on a rational Metric (rates per 1,000), is not in anyway, shape or form, a Con Job.

 

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Consider that the above is a preposterous analogy for birth control pills, on its face.

On the contrary, a single insurance company paying for those pills would have enormous leverage in negotiating a lower price on the medicines, than would the set of individual purchasers. It's only the latter group that would have to pay "retail." If they all go through one insurance company, then there is no concept of "retail" involved, at all.

Rush Limbaugh was very clear about that point - and his views are as close to canon on the contents of the Republican platform as anything else.

Unless y'all would care to forcefully and unequivocably disown him?

 

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Tiassa did you seriously just argue that the set of rapes commited by male spouses is GREATER than the set of ALL rapes commited by both men and women?

As for the rest how is it rancid to provide evidence as to the medical and psychological reasons for a question YOU asked (ie why should it be medical nessary to treat ER) or to ask for the price for a specific medication as that will give a price comparison to actually work out if this is "unfair" or not. Levelan ED is the most wildly prescribed pill, there are others used but this is the one used when the sole intention is birth control (for instance PB was prescribed a different one to help with prolly cystic ovarian syndrome) and it comes in a packet with 3 months supply (assuming you use the sugar pills as well as directed)

 

(Something, something, Burt Ward)

I don't know, did I? Your analysis is eagerly awaited.

I would suggest it was the first two points in your post are what spoils cream and curdles reality.

I did offer you a figure regarding the costs of oral contraception, so the fourth point in that post is in doubt.

I live in the Seattle area; we don't have universal condom coverage (point five), but we do have public health distribution of sexual prophylactics and even put some money toward needle exchanges to limit HIV and other disease communication.

As to six and seven, that's well and fine, but we come back to the specific context. As I noted before, you seem to be having some trouble working within the confines of the proposition.

Point eight is so astoundingly full of crap that I'm really not sure where to begin. So for now I'll just point to working within the confines of the proposition; point out that, no, I never said that rape is "just about not getting any"; and remind that if you attend the confines of the proposition, no men would be having "quite active normal sex lives" involving women.

Point nine is interesting, but unsurprisingly overlooks the confines of the proposition.

• • •​

I've found two problems with facepalming in the internet age. The first is that sometimes, after laughing so hard at something, I don't actually have the energy to raise palm, insert face. The other is actually dangerous: Have you ever "facepalmed" so hard that you hurt yourself? Maybe I should wear contacts instead of glasses. But that still won't help my nose ....

 

Tiassa I'm sorry but your whole thread looks like one of those various members post to make racist attitudes towards blacks look logical and this is why.

Firstly a significant portion of the population aren't going to care if there cover doesn't include the pill especially if it means cheaper rates. 10% of the population are gay or lesbian so they don't care, then there are te couples who have already had kids and have had a vesectomy, women who have had hystorectomies, single men and others, not to mention those actually TRYING to concive.

Secondly this is one area where surly the capilist system should work quite well, being female isn't a preexisting condition so if you find your policy doesn't cover the pill and you want it to then just switch to a policy which does, and your going to know and be able to do something about it pretty quick so that shouldn't really be an issue

Thirdly your whole health care system is a joke, hell its hard to say health CARE without laughing. When I compare this thread to the women on sicko who's husband was dying of cancer and his only option was a kidney transplant and the insurance company was willing to pay for his brothers to be tested for compatibility but then refused to pay for the transplant when they found one WAS a compatible donor it's very hard to treat this thread as a serious health debate. If it was Australia or England or NZ or somewhere that the basic life saving med was already in place then sure we could discuss the pill and it's place in wholistic health care but it's hardly a priority when people who have heart attacks lose there house to pay for the medical bills. I have spent so much time advocating for the US to get a Universal Health care system and in the end I found it easier to laugh at how stupid your system is than dispare at the children and others who are dying to preserve an ideal and a fear of "socilised medicine". So concidering that the US health care is a basket case from the start AND that those very people you were discussing previously as being unable to aford kids are PROBABLY also those who are unable to aford INSURANCE and therefore uneffected by any lack of coverage for the pill how can you expect this to be taken seriously?

I mean your complaining about the cost of the pill but what's the cost of Temoxifin which is used to treat hormone dependent breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.

Lastly yes I did initially miss where you posted the cost of the pill but even after seeing that I would still like an answer to the specific question of levelan because as I said that's the sanded pill used and various different scripts cost different amounts so to compare apples with apples I wanted to compare the generic version of levelan ed

Oh and one last thing, if you answer this post with this

you would be correct and thats for a good reason, healthcare is never in isolation or at least it never SHOULD be looked at in isolation. Triage isnt just about treating the 10 patients you have in front of you, it goes right up to the whole system level. For the same reason that people who demand a full trauma hospital for each country town are nuts because they are ignoring the cost involved, the avilablity of workload and training and staff etc, you cant just look at funding for the pill and ignore the fact that inorder to fund this funding must come from somewhere else. If we are talking about a private health care fund then its quite likly that something that they have to pay for every 3 months for most women for up to 35 years or more would become an extra which can be avioded for those like my 2 gay friends who have no intrest in it. Thats the way your system works and i apologise for this being incoherent but ash keeps callling me

 

Wasn't stated as an analogy to OCPs. though.

It was used to support this idea:

When a large percent of your claim base use a medicine continually you generally have to pass on a larger percent of the cost.

And yet you've just changed the example to a SINGLE insurance company, which is a totally different issue.
And discussing how mass purchasing can reduce the price, which while possible, again is a different issue.

The fact is all Federal employees and 98% of private policies already cover Birth Control, and it's the 15th most prescribed medicine, so economies of buying scale have probably been accounted for already.

But, regardless of the price, my actual argument holds, if everyone takes X, then the whatever it's cost, the cost of X + Insurance Co overhead, has to be included in the cost of your insurance.

There is no free lunch.

Sorry, I don't listen to Rush, so no clue what he is or isn't clear about.

Nor do I care since I didn't refer to what Rush thinks, I referred to the Republican Platform, so please show where one of their planks is for Women to stop having Sex with men.

 

Our system is 1000 times better bells, isolated incidents aside, PB wasn't in a toilet, she was in a bed in one of the busiest hospitals in the state within 30 min and in ultrasound within 2 hours, the only wait was waiting for the test results to come back as is standed practice, this is the normal experience of someone presenting at a public hospital with a misscarrige, not a toilet. Compare that to people dumped at homeless shelters with drips still in there arms because they don't have insurance and people given enough coverage to get tested for a kidney but then refused the operation. Think about that bells, tested to see if your comparable for a procedure which might save your life and then denied access when you find you are. How sadistic is that bells? You call that CARE????

And you know dam well that was just a typo, you try typing everything on a phone and see if you don't make typos

 

Agreed, and it's also what I call a tempest in a teapot.

The US is a large place with over 300 million people.

This "Government Minister" as you called him was a County Commissioner.

We have over 3,000 County Goverments and many more County Commissiners. (so typical county size averages about 100,000 people)

So to find one County Commissioner who says or does something silly, like refusing $9,000 from the Feds for Family Planning, is pretty easy to do, but to then catagorize the US as a whole because of something said or done at this lowest level of govenment is absurd.

 

Supremacism and Other Notes

I would also add to that the issue that much of what is wrong with our healthcare system stems from our efforts to avoid single-payer.

In recent years I can recall a few conservatives arguing that the employer-based health insurance system we have right now was unfair to the employers, which is fine, except this was, again, like "Obamacare" ("Romneycare", "Heritage Care") a path to avoid single-payer. The recent complaints didn't get much traction; I don't remember seeing it move from discussion boards and comment sections into the major-league political arena.

However, where our neighbor goes astray in considering the marketplace solutions is that in our employer-based healthcare system, simply shopping around and switching policies isn't so simple. Through the employer, one gets a lower premium. This is a matter of economies of scale. I mean, instinctively, I'm sure there are some fiddlers playing in accounting and actuarial, but that is only ever proven after the fact, and economies of scale are a sufficient, legitimate, documentable consideration.

I may not have been able to afford rent when I worked for the insurance companies all those years ago, but I sure as hell had health insurance.

In that sense, I would note that if our health care system wasn't a sickening joke, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all. It's not that I'm without sympathy for certain aspects of Asguard's concerns; he does despair, after all, for our sacrificial lambs. But I'm having difficulty taking seriously those first two points in his list, which seems to tread back to his masculinist cause. And his eighth and ninth points in that list overlook the proposition that brings this discussion to the board, that women should simply stop having sex with men. The Viagra question, for instance, keeps coming up over the years because, in the first place, the issue of the little blue pill being covered by insurance while some plans don't cover birth control pills has been on the radar for over a decade, and still isn't resolved; to the second, Republicans are fighting to make women ask their employers for permission to be on the pill; to a third, while he is correct that Viagra has other applications, so does the pill, and yet we come back to (the confines of the proposal) the horrific irresponsibility of poor women having sex; and, to a fourth, it seems ridiculous that if the solution is for women to stop having sex with men we should be covering drugs that would increase the amount of sexual congress men would be asking women to engage in.

Without the Rush Limbaugh/Foster Friess/New Hanover Commissioners argument against women being sexually active, or the GOP's "ask your employer for permission to be on birth control" plank, the Viagra question wouldn't really be relevant to discussions of women's oral contraception.

I would also note, attending other issues, that Tamoxifen is not necessarily covered. There are exclusions and limitations in every health insurance policy, and either the drug itself or its cumulative cost will eventually cross one of those lines; additionally, some insurance companies require genetic testing to ensure that Tamoxifen will be a suitable treatment for any given patient. I haven't found statistics on how many people are excluded from Tamoxifen; to the one, it's probably a small number, though that's hardly comforting; to the other, the thresholds for genetic suitability are also unknown to me.

And, just for chuckles, I would note that I was able to find an out-of-pocket listing for Levlen ED (0.15 mg) at $46 for three months ... through an online Canadian pharmacy (which requires your American doctor to fax the prescription to a Canadian doctor who will reissue a new prescription in your name) ... and it comes with a "bonus" unspecified quantity of Viagra. One can also find data suggesting that Levlen ED loses efficacy for women weighing over 65 kg (143 lbs.), that it is one of the least effective forms of oral contraception in general, and that it is most effective for hormonal regulation unrelated to birth control. (Anyone who has seen a woman absolutely floored by menstrual symptoms should recognize that not all oral contraception is actually prescribed for the purpose of contraception; I had a friend who was on a mini-pill in high school from menarche because her menstrual cramping and other symptoms verged, at the very least, on disabling. I've actually witnessed women icing their abdomens and bathing in cold water in futile attempts to alleviate menstrual cramping that could, literally, put them on the floor in seconds.) And to that, I would note that I'm not without sympathy to those men for whom Viagra is effective in pulmonary hypertension, but that's also part of the confines of the proposition: the other medical uses of oral contraception pills don't seem to matter to the New Hanover Commissioners and conservatives trying to focus on women having sex with men.

The American context of the contraception discussion ultimately comes down to a sexual "purity" argument. I believe that long-term abstinence can be unhealthy, especially if it is driven by external and/or psychomoral factors. As I've noted, Lysistrata calls. But is lesbianism a "choice"? These are also people who oppose homosexual conduct. And, historically, it was conservatives who fought to retain spousal privilege against the rise of marital rape laws in the United States.

This whole debate is about "keeping women in their place", and the only reason we are expected to take it seriously is because enough people complain about how their rights are violated if they aren't allowed to pick and choose who is entitled to what rights. We see this in conservative politics from censorship to ethnicity to citizenship status to sexuality.

It's all about supremacism, and it is ubiquitous in conservative politics.

 

All coverage of medications is by USE.

So while an insurance company might cover Viagra for Hypertension it might not cover it for ED.

Similarly while a policy might not cover OCP for contraception they very well might cover it for other medical uses.

There is no single answer to any of these questions.

But what we DO know is that, not just "some", but indeed 98% of the policies, as of 2002, do cover Birth Control Pills so clearly you are having fun flogging a dead horse.

As to Republicans are fighting to make women ask their employers for permission to be on the pill, please provide source for this assertion since it is undoubtably false.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/keyword/kathleen-sebelius

 

Tiassa are you sure it's genetic testing and not testing on the cancer itself? The reason I ask is because I learned the hardway about tomoxifin, mum had breast cancer. Fr what she has said about the drug it's basically antiestrogen and only works on hormone dependent cancer. She has never had gentic testing but did obviously get tested as to wether her cancer was hormone dependent before they put her on it, it makes sense not to prescribe it if the cancer isn't the type it works on

As for your comment on levelan, never herd that about the weight limit and I believe I mentioned that it's the most common used for straight contraception rather than for other side issues (and no I don't say that to trivialise things like PCOS). Anyway $45 is a little higher that what we pay but not excessively so, and that's what I was trying to work out, personally I would love the english system where every medication costs £5 but we don't have either. Atmitedly if you were discussing low income earners they pay $5 till they hit the PBS saftey net and then it's free but if all your taking is the pill you won't hit it

As for your comment sure Tiassa it is anti femanist, because the whole argument looks like a feminist storm in a teacup, as you say, bring in UHC and the problems over but with the current system the pill is a tiny concern when compared to the cases listed on sicko and others like them. The guy with kidney cancer was paticually sickerning because the treatment was a sick sadistic joke (who would pay to get someone tested then go basically "nah nah nah nah nah, now we aren't paying")

 

(Insert Title Here)

I must be following politics way too closely, because I thought that one was common knowledge by now.

There was the Blunt Amendment, for instance:

The measure, an amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) to a highway funding bill, would have allowed not only religious groups but any employer with moral objections to opt out of the coverage requirement. And it would have allowed such employers to do so in the case of not only contraception but any health service required by the 2010 health-care law ....

.... All the Republican candidates have made the birth control issue a key part of their stump speeches in recent weeks, banking on conservative anger over what they contend is the rule's narrow religious exception.

Only churches are fully exempted, although under an accommodation recently announced by the Obama administration, religiously affiliated organizations such as Catholic charities, schools, universities or hospitals can refuse to provide contraceptive coverage through their insurance plans for employees.

(Aizenman and Helderman)​

Or Arizona HB 2625:

Arizona House Bill 2625, authored by Majority Whip Debbie Lesko, R-Glendale, would permit employers to ask their employees for proof of medical prescription if they seek contraceptives for non-reproductive purposes, such as hormone control or acne treatment.

"I believe we live in America. We don't live in the Soviet Union," Lesko said.
"So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom and pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs."

Lesko said this bill responds to a contraceptive mandate in the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act signed into law March 2010.

"My whole legislation is about our First Amendment rights and freedom of religion," Lesko said. "All my bill does is that an employer can opt out of the mandate if they have any religious objections."

(Betancourt)​

And last month, the Missouri state Senate passed a similar measure:

The Senate passed a bill that would let employers deny health insurance coverage for birth control for employees who do cannot prove a medical need for it. The bill now goes to the House for consideration.

(Crisp)​

The blanket "no" intended by the Blunt Amendment was stupid enough. But the Arizona and Missouri bills leave no question.
____________________

Notes:

Aizenman, N. C. and Rosalind S. Helderman. "Birth control exemption bill, the 'Blunt amendment,' killed in Senate". The Washington Post. March 1, 2012. WashingtonPost.com. April 7, 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ed-in-senate/2012/03/01/gIQA4tXjkR_story.html

Betancourt, Thania A. "Senate judiciary committee endorses controversial contraceptive bill". The State Press. March 12, 2012. StatePress.com. April 7, 2012. http://www.statepress.com/2012/03/1...ee-endorses-controversial-contraceptive-bill/

Crisp, Elizabeth. "Missouri Legislature takes up birth control, abortion bills". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 29, 2012. STLToday.com. April 7, 2012. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_4006eeb6-79da-11e1-878e-001a4bcf6878.html

 

Sorry that's not quite right, it's not a storm in a teacup, it's definitely a problem for this effected. It's just compared to the other problems in your system which are costing lives it's hard to see this as a major priority

Oh and bells maybe Queensland is a basket case like you portray but I doubt it since the latest satisfaction ratings on the public hospital system run by ABS were so high and they asked people who had just come out of hospital about there experience.

 

Like I thought, undoubtably false.

Tiassa's assertion: Republicans are fighting to make women ask their employers for permission to be on the pill

So, in US slang, "to be on the pill" is to be taking BC pills to prevent conception.

But, as Tiassa has already explained, one can need BC pills for OTHER medical reasons then preventing pregnancy.

Which is what this bill addresses, for those companies that have opted out of having to provide BC pills in their health care for moral reasons, this would allow their employees to still get these pills for these other medical reasons.

Same with the Missouri bill: prove a medical need , because apparently you aren't aware, but taking BC to prevent pregnancy is NOT a medical need.

So NOTHING at all in any of those bills makes any employee have to ask their employer if they can take the pill to prevent pregnancy.

 

More of your own definitions

Once again, Arthur, we see you insisting on your own definitions.

Thank you for making that clear yet again. What is that, three times in this thread?

 

I agree with the Board of Commissioners that taxpayer funding should not go to the support of irresponsible decision making. That's why New Hannover County should not pay the Board of Commissioners any salary for the time they wasted rejecting these funds.

Everyone having sex should be engaged in doing it responsibly, and the Board has a role to play in encouraging people to take that responsibility, but denying services to everyone because of the perceived irresponsibility of a few is simply moralizing on the public dime to the detriment of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

I am not certain they intended to single out woman as the culprits here (as opposed to it seeming that way because women are far larger consumers of reproductive health services, and so were mentioned more often), but it's not the place of the Board to attempt to impose their sexual morality on the poor. Shame on them.

 

Really, so are you now claiming that when you used the term "to be on the pill", you were only talking about it in relation to the relatively less common MEDICAL uses of the pill, and you did not mean for us to assume that this had anything to do with Birth Control?