Unfair For Men To Subsidize Maternity Costs?

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Some Republicans say it’s unfair for men to subsidize women’s maternity insurance since only women use it. Really?! Is it fair that men’s contribution to making babies is a pleasurable orgasm, and that women’s contribution only begins with an orgasm — if she’s lucky (just 30% of US women always climax).

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Men help make babies, shouldn’t they contribute to making sure that their babies are healthy?

Some Republicans say it’s unfair for men to subsidize women’s maternity insurance since only women use it.

Really?!

Is it fair that men’s contribution to making babies is a pleasurable orgasm, and that women’s contribution only begins with an orgasm — if she’s lucky (just 30% of US women always climax).

After maybe having an orgasm women end up with all the burden, varying from discomfort to possibly dying in childbirth.

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55 thoughts on “Unfair For Men To Subsidize Maternity Costs?”

    • As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, my perspective, JoAnn, is that the only way our horrible social conditions are going to improve is if all women get good nutrition and prenatal care during pregnancy and all children are spared the the tragedy of growing up in poverty. If we want to do away with drug and alcohol abuse, sexual abuse and violent crime, we have to insure that all members of society emerge from childhood intact. At present, way too many of them don’t.

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      • I COULD NOT AGREE WITH YOU MORE!!! A WOMAN’S BODY SHOULD BE PREPARED PRIOR TO BEING PREGNANT TO ENSURE A GOOD START FOR THE INFANT. TO ELIMINATE CAUSES OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT, PEACE OF MIND MUST TAKE PLACE, THIS MEAN NOT TRUSTING IN ANY GOVERNMENT, BUT HAVING CLOSE CONNECTIONS WITH LOCAL COMMUNITIES, AND WORK TOGETHER WITH PITCH FORKS TO BRING HOUSING COSTS DOWN. THERE MUST BE A CHANGE IN THE ATTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE; HERE IN GEORGIA, IF A POOR PERSON SHOWS THE LEAST AMOUNT OF AMBITION TO CLIMB OUT OF POVERTY IT IS FROWNED UPON. FOR SOME MYSTICAL REASON IN THE STATE OF GEORGIA, THEY JUST THRIVE ON POVERTY. THERE ARE TENSIONS IN EVERY OCCUPATION.

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  2. Just being a bit controversial I guess (sometimes I need to be after a day of the mainstream at the office) but just because every child has a man and woman as a father (at least until recently) doesn’t mean every man and woman has a child. The subsidy system was established because economists thought that by boosting population they would increase the workforce, lower the dependency ratio, deepen consumer markets.

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    • ..and yet my tax dollars are paying for Viagra and Cialis and a penis pump so that these men who think that they should not share in maternity costs can actually get an erection to help make that baby. That works both ways. If men should not pay for maternity costs, then I should not have to pay for their penis pumps. I don’t need a penis pump seeing as how I’m female, but I’m paying for one, nevertheless. “Just being a bit controversial here, I guess.”

      “Department of Health and Human Services said Medicare, the government health insurance system for seniors, paid nearly 474,000 claims for vacuum erection systems, or VES.”

      http://news.msn.com/us/penis-pumps-cost-us-government-millions

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        • I am paying because I pay taxes and my tax dollars help fund Medicare and we are all paying for this because Medicare pays the costs to alleviate ED(erectile dysfunction). I have never heard of ED killing anyone and yet, medications to help men get an erection are covered by Medicare while dental and vision are not covered. Vision is only covered if a person has cataracts.

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          • Excellent point, Shelby. This really bugs me as well – it’s absolutely deplorable that men can get penis pumps on Medicare – yet that vision, dental (and hearing loss) which are far more vital to a person’s health remain uncovered.

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            • I am absolutely disgusted by it Dr. Bramhall, as you know since I posted a blog about how we are paying for penis pumps and no man have I ever heard, died because he couldn’t get a boner. I have heard of people dying because of a lack of dental coverage. And vision care should certainly TRUMP erectile dysfunction care! It just goes to show you who is in charge of the decision making. It ain’t women and that’s for sure. More’s the pity! I’d like to have a go at it! But I’d be shot before I could get three sentences out!

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      • I am completely for what you are saying by the way. I am sure there is the occasional exception on all sides, but do I think that the majority of people can’t pay for all these things themselves? (completely accepting that raising a child is more expensive than a penis pump or viagra) No I don’t – OK – so in the main all these people can pay for all these things themselves!

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        • This article does not state that men are paying the maternity costs from birth until the child comes of a majority age. And if you click on the link, you will find that Medicare was charged and paid double the cost of penis pumps and yet Medicare goes on and on about how it uncovers fraud and deals with it. Paying double the price for penis pumps is fraud and was paid by Medicare. Millions for penis pumps? Seriously?

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          • i am afraid if you introduce a national system for anything, it gets abused. I used to work for London city hall. An intern spilled coffee on the keyboard and it stopped working. I said ‘ don’t worry about that’ and took it down to IT to be changed. In the supermarket they are £15 …. IT said ‘we have to charge your unit…’ I said ‘fine, how much is is it? ‘ ….. £149

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            • I am not surprised. Yes, there is always going to be abuse, however, I just thought it a bit disingenuous to state that because every man does not ‘father’ a child, maternity insurance should not be paid for by men when women are paying for a device to assist a man with his erectile dysfunction problems when a device of that sort would not benefit women and in some cases, quite the opposite.

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                  • No I am in collapsing state socialised healthcare system UK – which also has the same problems. But given that it is a system designed for medical emergencies and also has the same probs …is not quite such a mess as the US

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                    • WE ARE JUST AS BAD AS YOU FOLKS IN THE UK. THINGS ARE NO LONGER SUNSHINE AND FLOWERS HERE, BUT RATHER HELL TO PAY AND THEN SOME.

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                    • Well, at least your taxes are paying for some assistance for everyone. The only people our tax dollars are really supporting is our so-called congressional representatives. They don’t have to worry about health care costs, but everyone else does and with an aging population, this is a big problem over here.

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                    • and huge here too. and we have been committed to it since 1947 when nobody was obsese, hardly anyone had cancer, if you drank on a friday night and hit someone (happened) then you sorted it out yourself, when there were not massive stocks of licenced copyrighted drugs…. rough times without a doubt. But it is struggling now

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                    • It is struggling like everything else is struggling. Like I said, with an aging population, the advent of the internet where no one goes out to meet anyone anymore, they just sit at a keyboard all day and children are obese thanks in part to video games and other electronics that they just cannot pull themselves away from. These gadgets have done nothing but make people fat and lazy. Decades ago, of course we were not fat and lazy. Now, we have devices to do everything for us while we sit back with a tub o popcorn and clap our hands to turn the lights off or on or just get an app to do it for us.

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                    • Cross-subsidy is not going to continue to work because the numbers are dwindling rapidly of employers that offer their employees, heath care coverage, which is usually better than the government subsidized health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid. And even non-profit hospitals are feeling the pinch and are branching out by building specialty clinics in high income areas.

                      Raising the birth rate to expand population is not a good idea because with automation coming down the pike and in many areas, already here, that puts paid to many entry-level jobs for the young and with so many students having to pay back student loans and who never quite got a foothold in this economy and they never will, it would bode even worse to attempt to solve this problem through population expansion.

                      I realize that you say your National Health Care system is not all that it should be and is failing and we all know why; an aging population and a younger generation who are soon going to be mostly unemployable and so there will be no great employer driven healthcare coverage for them especially seeing as how more and more jobs will be lost in the future. I am quite actually at a loss as to what is needed because, again, with a dwindling tax base due to unemployment that is quite actually not what is reported because if you take a look at the government’s unemployment rate which stands at 4.9% and is a total lie because of how they count the employed; temps and part time workers to make the unemployment rate look better when there is over 95 million Americans unemployed, cross-subsidizing is just not going to be tenable in the near future and the situation is rapidly heading there.

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                    • I totally agree with most of what you say above. But it is not what policy advisors are saying. Cross-sub has been going on here for years. Employer driven health coverage is not common here. I don’t think the problem is unemployment by teh way, I think it is primarily depressed wages

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                    • Over here, the problem is unemployment AND depressed wages and the fact that many youngsters don’t even have health insurance since they are mostly working part time jobs; those who can even get any work, that is. Income inequality is a huge problem over here, huge!

                      Dr. Bramhall had a post up about how many thousands of janitors are college graduates and it was included in that the fact that thousands more are waiting tables because corporations are hiring Chinese workers and Indian workers and paying them less than what American college graduates are asking. Here in America, since we have another huge problem, that of student loan debt, it is essential upon graduation to get a high paying job so as to be able to live and pay back student loans at the same time and since rents are skyrocketing, this simply cannot be done on a paltry salary.

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                    • SO, HE IS CUTTING WHERE IT HURTS THE POOR, AND HIS TAX CUTS ARE ONLY BENEFITING THE RICH; ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO THE STOCKS, ETC…THAT THEY OWN. THE GAP BETWEEN THE RICH AND THE POOR WILL BE GREATER THAN THE GRAND CANYON.

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                    • NO DO NOT PROP UP A FAILED SYSTEM, JUST DO NOT BE A PART OF IT. I AM NOT GOING TO PROP UP A DAMNED THING. THEY HAVE STOLEN ENOUGH FROM US.

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                    • I AM SURE FROM THE LESSONS WE HAVE LEARNED, WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THEM. AS FOR ME, I LOOK FORWARD TO THE RETURN OF JESUS CHRIST.

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                    • AS CHRIST HAS TOLD US, IT WILL BE EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO GO THROUGH AN EYE OF A NEEDLE, THAN IT WILL BE FOR THE RICH TO ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

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                    • TRUE, BUT THIS IS ONLY A TEMPORARY EXISTENCE. OUR ETERNITY IS WITH JESUS CHRIST AND NOT WITH THIS WORLD. CHRIST HAS ALSO TOLD US, NOT TO LOVE THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD.

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                    • WE HAVE AN ETERNITY TO LOOK FORWARD TO, WHEN JESUS CHRIST RETURNS, THERE SHALL BE NO MORE HOSPITALS, DEATH, OR CEMETERIES. WE SHALL SEE THE DEAD BE ETERNAL WITH US. WE SHALL BE ASSIGNED DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES WITHOUT EVIL, CORRUPTION, OR SIN; WE SHALL BE IMMORTAL AND TOTALLY PURE IN WHAT WE DO. THERE IS SO MUCH TO LOOK FORWARD TO, AFTER WE TRANSCEND THIS WORLD AS WE KNOW IT NOW; AS THERE SHALL BE A NEW HEAVENS AND NEW EARTH; AND THE INFINITE UNIVERSES SHALL BE CLEANSED FROM ANY DEMONIC SPIRITS AND THE ADVERSARY.

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                    • You are quite welcome! It was my pleasure. I must say that I have always wanted to head ‘cross the pond and see how things are in your neck of the woods. I had the opportunity last year and didn’t make good on it.

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    • Simon, I think the welfare system is a bit more complex than that. In his 1933 The Coming Struggle for Power, John Strachey argues that welfare subsidies were started in the UK to stave off the revolutionary struggles that were afflicting the rest of Europe.

      As I mention in my comment to JoAnn, there is pretty clear evidence that some of our worst social problems stem from our overall refusal to meet children’s basic needs growing up.

      I am really fascinated by the debate you and Shelby are having, though I definitely side with her – if we’re going to use tax dollars to subsidize Viagra and penis pumps, it’s blatantly unfair to refuse to subsidize women for maternity care.

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      • I don’t want to subsidise viagra either! (BT cut me off here I am afraid but I am back on my own network!). We live on a finite planet and economics’ basic assumption is infinite need – great! At some point this is going to give. Certainly in the UK – I am not in the US although I have been there – we have a system which is geared to population expansion – a 2 pronged system: we encourage immigration and we subsidise childbirth. I am an economist and I still hear this as the model. We have a planet that is collapsing. We have 20 year olds who pay £1000 a month for a bedsit and own nothing – and never will. They subsidise middle class families to have another kid on the state. I don’t care how politically incorrect it is I am against it.

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  3. EACH INDIVIDUAL AND FAMILY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO CUSTOMIZE THEIR OWN INSURANCE POLICIES AND BE ALLOWED TO PURCHASE OVER STATE LINES, IF THERE IS ANY INSURANCE AT ALL. WE DECIDE FOR OURSELVES WHAT OUR POLICIES SHOULD LOOK LIKE, AND ACCORDING TO OUR INDIVIDUAL OR FAMILY NEEDS.

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  4. Futuret, I’m totally fed up with health insurance companies robbing us blind with skyrocketing premiums and service denials for medically necessary treatment. I think there should be a law banning health insurance – and the US should establish a system of publicly funded health care – like they have in all other industrialized countries. We have a national health service here in New Zealand and I can’t fully describe how wonderful it is to be able to go to a doctor or hospital when I’m sick without worrying how I’m going to pay for it.

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