It's been a long time coming, but the FDA has finally approved an oral contraceptive you can get without a prescription. The US is now one of the dozens of countries that either formally or informally allow women to buy contraceptives over the counter:
The reason for approving OTC contraceptives is simple. First, they're safe. Second, contraceptives are more likely to get used if women don't have to get them routinely re-prescribed:
An El Paso study showed that women were less likely to stop using contraceptives if they could buy them over the counter. A California study showed that both unplanned pregnancies and abortions went down significantly among women given a 1-year supply of contraceptives instead of continual 1-month supplies.
The particular contraceptive approved today is called Opill, and will be available next year. Hopefully others will follow.
Cue up the idiots calling this murder and new state legislation trying to stop it in all the usual places..
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OTC birth control! Good! ... Now, how much will it cost? If it's $100 or more per 1-month packet, then it's no deal. Or if insurers refuse to cover the cost.
Do insurers regularly cover other over-the-counter medications? I suspect if they do, it is only when prescribed by a medical professional.
This is my question. It is currently free for at least a lot of women I know (as a prescription).
If you notice, most of the countries that we usually associate with having some form of socialized medicine also require prescriptions for birth control pills. I suspect that necessity is very much related to their payment systems for medication, which likely restrict coverage to prescribed medications. That would mean those countries have a sort of procedural impediment to making birth control OTC.
I guess in the US, with its much less formalized and more market-driven health-insurance system, we'll have to see how the individual insurance companies respond. I suspect some might offer coverage simply on a cost-benefit analysis, or perhaps states (at least non-red ones) will add mandatory coverage to their insurance regulations. As usual, we can expect this expanded "freedom" of medical care in the US to be accompanied by additional policy chaos, possibly higher costs, and increased lack of transparency.
For an insurance company birth control pills are a hell of a lot cheaper than a pregnancy
With OTC it will be easy for charities to subsidize or give them away
Obviously this is interfering with god's plan to increase destitution and suffering and cheap labor.
You didn't mention cost, Kevin. In the United States that will be the most critical factor in determining whether or not many, many women use the contraceptive pill routinely.
Someone will shortly file a lawsuit in Texas to stop this.
...And since witchey potions like that didn't exist in Cotton Mather's day, I expect there's at least 3 votes from Leo^2's pets.
So I assume abortion foes are dancing in the streets about this? 😂
Naw, incels are. But they're gonna be disappointed, I'll bet!
If they are OTC, insurance will not pay for them.
A Health Savings Plan, maybe. But how many have those?
What a perfect solution
Now the born agains can just increase their daughters allowances so that they can go out an purchase birth control without having to get the parents involved in that "sex stuff"
This is true feedumb. Now no one will have to teach their kids restraint!!
Abortion? Fugettabouttit
Now we're talking personal responsibility here!!!
It's a beautiful thing
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