The Fluke Affair

If you're a political animal, you must be aware of the Fluke Affair.

Here's the facts as I see them.

A few days ago, a Committee of the Republican controlled House called for testimony on the Obamacare plan to force religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church, to include birth control in their health insurance policies (assuming they have one).  As is customary, the majority invited two witnesses, while the minority was permitted only one.  That's one of the perks you get for winning.

It doesn't much matter who the other witnesses were, but at the last minute, the democrats requested a change in their witness, to Sandra Fluke, allegedly a 23 year old Georgetown Law School Student, to testify on the hardship of not having birth control covered in her schools insurance.  Georgetown is a Catholic Jesuit Institution, and as the non-progressive Pope does not support birth control, neither does Georgetown.  Under the new rules promulgated by Obamacare, only workers directly involved in the religious aspects of the church would be exempt from the mandate.  The Catholic Church is threatening to either close educational or health organizations (hospitals etc) or drop their medical insurance benefits rather than be forced to buy coverage for birth control.

Republican House leaders denied the Democrats the witness change, so the Democrats held a mock committee meeting, without Republicans, so that Sandra Fluke could testify.  A bright, and able student, she was a very good witness, and testified about the incredible hardship of not having birth control included in her schools insurance  plan, pretending to be shocked that her Catholic school would not  include it, and listed several examples of unnamed friends who were similarly inconvenienced.  One, a lesbian, allegedly needed BC pills as a treatment for a hormonal disorder (which should, therefore, be covered as a medical condition).

One claim in particular seemed a bit extreme.  She claimed that birth control costs could be up to $1000 a year, for the three years of law school, resulting in a total cost of $3000 for her term in school.

Conservatives leaped  on the $3000 figure, and at the idea that birth control should be an entitlement.  At Walmart, a months supply of BC pills costs $9 currently, resulting in a three year cost of approximately $300.  At $1 each, $3000 would buy enough condoms to use roughly three per day for the three years in law school, which wouldn't seem to leave a lot of energy left over for studying.  Possibly she was using an IUD made out of a Krugerrand. I can't image how she can come to a three year cost of $3000.

Rush Limbaugh did a bit on her testimony, riffing off the idea that she needed enough condoms for some 3 sex acts a day, and wanted someone else to pay for them, in this case the Catholic church.  He called her a slut, and claimed that as she could be called a prostitute for wanting someone else to pay for her to have sex, and said that if we were forced to pay for it, a least we should bet video tapes.  He was vociferously attacked in the leftwing media, and only desultorily defended by the right, if at all.  In the end he apologized for calling her a slut and a prostitute.

Now for the opinion section:

For the record, Limbaugh (whom I do not listen to), went a little over the line in mocking Fluke, which is too bad, because she is eminently mockable.  She is many things, but she is not a slut.  This is a self admitted slut:



For one thing, Sandra Fluke is much better spoken, and at least in mock congressional testimony, much less outrageously dressed.

I think the Republicans made a strategic error in not allowing Fluke to testify in committee where they would have had the opportunity to cross examine her.  I doubt she would have been able to drop the $3000 figure without challenge, and might have been wise enough to avoid it. I don't think she would have been permitted to use as many second hand tales as she used.  They would have examined her background (which is why the democrats substituted her at the last minute) and found that she was not a 23 year old ingenue, but rather a 30 year old with a history of activism, and that she had specifically enrolled in Georgetown to challenge their birth control policy.  It would have made for a much less pleasant experience on her part, and likely would not have produced the sound bites desired.

Now, she will never face an unfriendly interviewer, willing to ask where the $3000 figure came from, or why she chose Georgetown University to study at given her well known obsessions.  She and her new handlers will henceforth studiously avoid any interviewer thought to be capable of actually asking such probing questions.  Fortunately for her, there are not many such people in the media today.

Onto the question of whether the Catholic Church (and similar religious organizations) should be required to include BC in their insurance plans.

No.  A thousand times no, for all kinds of reasons. First is freedom.  Employee health insurance originated with the WWII wage and price controls, where companies who could not raise wages could attract good workers by offering "free" health benefits.  You could attract better people with better benefits.  A lot of the bad things about health care in the United States stem from this development, but it does allow business to compete for workers based on coverage.  Mandated everything in health care completely defeats that idea.

A second reason is the idea that coverage of birth control in insurance is a stupid idea in any case.  If you need birth control, it's like changing the oil in a car; it's an expense that you can expect to pay periodically.  The idea behind  insurance is to cover expensive and unexpected events with a constant and fixed payment.  That the constant and fixed payment has to be more than the cost of the unexpected events averaged over the insured population (to cover both the cost of the event and the administration of the insurance) escapes notice by most.  Including birth control in normal health insurance policies forces the insured population to pay more than the straight up cost for it, as well as forcing the portions of that population who do not need birth control (single men, gay, and us old farts) to pay for a service they neither need nor desire.

The Obama administration, with the economy in near ruins, is attempting to make this election about birth control; as Glen Reynolds says, they want the message to be "Republicans are coming to steal your lady parts."  That's not true, everybody but the Log Cabin guys are quite happy with them in their usual places.  There is a wing of the party, epitomized by Santorum, that is personally opposed to birth control on religious grounds, but there is no effort being made or proposed to restrict access to birth control, unless you define abortion as birth control.

No, what republican want is a rational health care system, where incentives are in place to keep costs from becoming excessive.

To Sanda Fluke, I have only one more comment.  Regardless of the costs, keep up the birth control; there's a chance, albeit small, that there's a genetic cause for your entitlement disorder.  Thank you for not breeding!