Armed with evidence that dispensing a years worth of birth control rather than forcing women to pick it up monthly, reduces unintended pregnancy, the California legislature is ready to pass SB 999 making an annual supply the norm.
Independent analysis by the California Health Benefits Review board shows that giving women birth control a year at a time would result in 6,000 fewer live births and 7,000 fewer abortions, and would save $42 million.
It seems like an easy decision, but it is facing some opposition from a surprising source – the insurance industry.
While the science is clear, the motives of the insurance industry are not.
Women who have to make fewer trips to the pharmacy are more likely to not miss dosages of birth control. A key factor in the effectiveness of birth control lies in not missing even small dosages.
Last year, Colorado faced the possibility of ending an effective program that decreased unwanted pregnancies by 40 percent at the behest of conservatives in the state.
The experimental program, which gave teenagers and young women long acting birth control like IUDs, was a roaring success. Teen births dropped by 40 percent. It was funded with a $23 million grant from the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. When that money ran out last year, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper turned to the legislature where he was rebuffed, despite the reduction in government spending on Medicaid and government assistance–key conservative principles.
It would seem to be safe to assume that the goal of society as a whole is to make abortion, which is almost universally considered to be the least desirable outcome, less used.
So why the pushback?
The conservative claim, while dubious, is long established: birth control makes people, particularly teens, irresponsible.In a report on NPR’s All Things Considered, Republican lawmaker Kathleen Conti explained it this way:
“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the doctors encouraged the kids: ‘Now that you’ve got this, feel free to have sex with everybody.’ But I think it, by default, takes away one more intimidating problem.”
The insurance industry stance is more perplexing. They are worried about unused pills if such large prescriptions are filled even though evidence does not point to this being a problem.
When the legislature votes next week on this bill, here is hoping they will look past the stubbornness of the insurance industry Frequently, as California goes, so does the rest of the country. Here is hoping that holds true for the millions of women who use hormonal birth control methods.
Featured image by David Quitoriano, Creative Commons license.
