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Suburban Gal says

Health insurance companies, under Obamacare, MUST make birth control FREE to anyone who wants it. If you're a single male or senior citizen who doesn't require birth control, then you won't be asking for it through your insurance company. The same goes for anyone who is anti-birth control.

But the plan MUST include it. You can't say, excuse me, I really don't need that benefit in my plan, can I get a slightly reduced premium for not needing/wanting it? Nope, we're going to make sure that anyone who wants it, gets it, and YOU get to help pay for it to make sure they will be able to get it.

mmmarvel says

and YOU get to help pay for it to make sure they will be able to get it.

thing is, contraception is a LOT cheaper than pregnancy and well-baby care.

So it's a win-win and the only people opposing this are religious nutjobs.

30% of the population, alas.

Suburban Gal says

Health insurance plans cover a myriad of things to meet the needs of different people because more than one person is buying into that insurance plan. That's just how it works.

Insurance should be (and is in other areas of life, like how much insurance do you want to carry on that necklace) a plan that you can choose the coverage and based on your choices, pay for what you want. While car insurance has a base line (typically set by the state) you can add to that base/minimum coverage if you need/want to. As a male (and one over 55) I will never want/need birth control; I hear there is a requirement that the plans cover Viagra, while I hope to never need to use Viagra, I don't think other people should be helping to pay for my use of it. If a person wants to purchase a health plan that covers Viagra or birth control, then they should pay extra to the insurance company to have that in the plan, not force all of us to have higher premiums to include a benefit that we don't want/won't use.

We need universal healthcare to take burden off employees and employers alike.

I do not mind plans covering birth control. In fact, I think birth control ought to be strongly encouraged.

Peter P says

I do not mind plans covering birth control. In fact, I think birth control ought to be strongly encouraged.

I couldn't agree more.

zzyzzx says

Last time someone told me to go to the ER, because of an infection, I bought antibiotics off eBay instead and just took them for about 3 weeks and I was fine after that. I spent $100 vs what a hospital stay would have cost me, just because they wanted to treat me the most expensive way possible (with an antibiotic IV, which would have worked quicker, but cost thousands). Instead I used my brain and searched the internet for an alternative which said that you really only need to go to a hospital if taking oral antibiotics for a month doesn't work. Knowing that no local doctor would prescribe that for me, I went the eBay route

There are so many fake meds that are for sale on the interwebs it's crazy. Not only that, but failure to treat an infection appropriately is what has led to the MRSA epidemic that exists in our country.

It really depends upon the infection, and any comorbidities you might have. Google/ebay don't replace a good MD.