A night out on the town is more expensive than a months prescription for the pill, and that's drinking beer and eating pizza. I have to pay for my blood pressure meds, you need to pay for your own birth control pills, that's life,Alexandra. Do you know how many elderly people in this country have to chooses between food, heat and medication, yet birth control is free, something wrong with that picture.

"The reality is that young Catholic women are absolutely sexually active, and they are on contraceptives,'' says Mangione. Birth control should be covered by health insurance, she says, because women who are denied it are "forced to have an abortion, or they raise a child that they can't support or they put a baby up for adoption.'' THIS IS NOT THE ISSUE. No one is taking away YOUR BIRTH CONTROL Go the the drug store and BUY IT AND ANOTHER THING--Sandra Fluke goes to Georgetown Law School on the PUBLIC DIME. Now she wants THE PUBLIC to make sure her busy sex life has no consequence !!!!FORGETABOUTIT.

How well Bella tows the liberal line. She frames this as though those evil Republicans want to deprive women of birth control. This is simply not true. The objection we have is a government mandate for it. As the piece mentions, there are many health care plans that offered this even before Obamacare required it. The free market worked, and everyone was happy-the consumer, the insurance company and the employer. The objection we have is the intrusive government placing mandates on coverage, of any kind. If an employer does not want to cover birth control, or for that matter, ANYTHING, that employer should have the right. Government intrusion is the issue, not birth control.

To NHCabin and migh, It is so stupid that birth control is not readily accessible and totally free for all. I mean, here you are worrying about the cost of birth control: Do you want to pay for the human cost, as well as the economic, of an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy which will result in abortion, adoption or maybe "just" a life of poverty or strain for a child and his or her mother? Why are we Americans so backwards? In Europe, there is a much lower rate of unplanned pregnancies because birth control is extremely affordable, if not absolutely free, and readily available to all, and ENCOURAGED for young people so that they won't have to deal with the consequence of an unwanted pregnancy. I am a practicing Catholic and went to a Catholic high school and college and find it laughable that the theology professor quoted here puts any conditions whatsoever on the morally acceptable use of birth control. He's just talking the party line and, as the article says, 98% of Catholics, thankfully, are not listening to a bunch of mostly old white men in the Vatican City.

What's your point Bella? Young Catholic Women don't speak or act on behalf of the church. Catholicism isn't a cafeteria menu where you can choose one from column A and two from column B. One either follows the teachings of the church or one is living in a state of sin. We've always had sinners and always will. The church will forive their sins when they are truly sorry for them.

Martha, how about taken some responsibility for yourself, have we totally lost that. Go to the drugstore and get your contraceptives, heard of title x, plenty of free giveaways. We have unsustainable problems in this country, birth control is not one of them, planned parenthood will give it free, Walmart and Target will fill your prescription as low as 9.00 a month. As far as Europe goes, I don't want their lifestyle, if you haven;t noticed, their not in good financial shape, maybe they should rethink everything for free.

Could all the losers who obviously never watched a second of Sandra Fluke's testimony please stop commenting on it? Thank you.

All other non-experimental prescription medications are covered by insurance when they are used as they are intended. What makes contraceptives different? Other than as an opportunity for men to control women's sexual lives, I mean.

1) We're not talking about "free" contraception, we're talking about insurance coverage with no co-pay. 2) It's not "public" money. We are saving public money by preventing expenditures to fight the poverty, child-rearing costs, and health-related costs that arise from unintended pregnancies.

Health insurance typically covers birth control...some have copays, some do not. But it seems silly to mandate no copay while people still have to pay copays for drugs that are medically necessary. If someone has to pay for those, then you should pay for your birth control. Besides if you are having sex with multiple partners, you should be using condoms, not the pill.

I wonder if the old white men on the panel would ever decide that Viagra should not be covered by health insurance. Can you imagine that? No I cannot either. This is about women's health and partisan politics, nothing more and nothing less. The GoP is losing droves of women on this issue; consequently, they will lose the White House in 2012 and possibly even the House. It's the economy stupid, but unfortunately for Republicans, even that is improving too...

Do you pay full retail for those meds? The argument isn't about co-pays, the argument is whether it's covered at all. You are lying.

Do you have documentation to back up your claims? Liar.

I'll be eager to read your opinion on this matter when coverage for you or your family is denied because it is your employer's right. Yours is the argument of one who has never faced such difficulties.

Just because something in society becomes the perceived "norm" doesn't make it right. The Catholic Church has the responsibility to not alter it's teachings to accommodate those who feel they can live their lives any way they choose. Those who claim to be practicing Catholics can't pick and choose the rules. The church has existed for over 2000 years it must know what it is talking about and should not compromise the truths it knows are real.

Sorry, but not ALL non-experimental prescription medications are FULLY covered by insurance without a copay, which is what the HHS directive does. I have to pay a co-pay for my blood pressure medication. People taking statins must pay a co-pay. A friend pays a co-pay for her asthma medication, and it just went up $10/month. And you have to pay a co-pay for ED medications. Why are oral contraceptives different? They do not cure a disease or prevent one. All the others do that. So I'll throw your question back at you - What makes contraceptives different? Why are they in a special class of drugs that will be provided FREE when most other drugs have a co-pay? Even drugs that save people's lives! Some elderly people have been known to cut their blood pressure or heart medicine doses in half to "stretch" the prescription because they cannot afford the co-pay. Why are contraceptives different?

From the article: "Birth control should be covered by health insurance, she says, because women who are denied it are 'forced to have an abortion, or they raise a child that they can't support or they put a baby up for adoption.'" Nobody is being "denied" birth control. The question is, who pays for it?

Screaming Gerbil: I'm not Catholic so I obviously don't follow "the teachings of the church." Does this mean I'm living in a "state of sin?

The fact is that Catholic scriptuures does not specifically condemn birth control. Though Pope Pius XI in 1930, argued that opposition to contraception had doctrinal support, church authorities later diagreed. Any authentic desire to reduce abortion requires the promotion of contraception. Could the Church's real concern be its shrinking congreations ?

the question shouldn't be "why single out birth control pills for no copayments?" it should be, "why do we pay copayments for medications at all?" we already pay for insurance coverage. what is a copayment but a backhanded way to discourage use of the healthcare system? the current American health insurance system is a scam, and we should be moving towards single payer posthaste. either way, we shouldn't let the fact that our current methods of paying for healthcare are regressive and broken undermine public health and good policy.

I dislike Rush Limbaugh intensely, and am considered rather liberal, but this issue about who pays for contraceptives has me wondering where we all are headed. pretty soon, these kids will want us to buy them homes! (isn't that pretty much what is going on? People who probably shouldn't have been given loans, are now whining about needing a bailout?). Ms. Mangione, you have every right to have birth control, but I don't think you have the absolute right to demand that I help pay for it! Do what we all did at the beginning of the sexual revolution: We paid for it ourselves. And here is a huge bit of advice for you sexually active catholic women: Unless condoms are used, you could still end up screwing up your life with a sexually transmitted disease. I know several women who ended up just that way...and unfortunately for them, men are not attracted to women that have had STDS that affect them chronically.

insurance is so expensive becuase of all the must haves. SOrry, contraception, unless for a medical condition, is not a must have. Nor is viagra and scores of other items.

The logic of Ms Mangione aligns well with Ms English pro-abortion no personal responsibility, Uncle Sugar or Cousin Patrick will make someone pay for your every want. Ms postulates that if contraceptives are not covered by her health insurance plan, it will force her to have an abortion, raise a child they can't support or put the baby up for adoption. I hope that placing her baby up for adoption is the choice she makes. But before there is a baby involved, she may consider the aspirin contraceptive or demanding that her male partner wear a condom. The US got to a 14+ trillion debt and trillion dollar yearly deficits by the attitude of entitlements rather responsibilities.