[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Blitzgal

Um, yes you do have rent insurance. If you don't, and some asshole in your building burns the apartment down, you'll be fucked. Also car insurance, which is something else that you use every day.

I didn't mean homeowner's insurance. I meant Rent Insurance that you pay monthly premiums for, which then pays your rent. Sounds absurd, which is my point. Since rent is a regular recurring non-variable cost, buying insurance for it makes no sense. So you'd similarly be paying monthly to an insurance company that would then pay for your monthly birth control.

You're insuring against pregnancy, which again, is far more expensive.

That's not how insurance works. Preventing something is not insuring against it. Insurance is a lottery that pays out on a negative event.

It's more cost effective in general for insurance companies to cover preventive care, whether it's smoking cessation programs or nutritional programs for people at risk of cardiovascular issues. Insurance companies have long struggled against covering preventive care, because they'd rather take a gamble and hope that they end up not having to pay for the preventive care but also somehow avoid paying for the greater health concern later down the road. That's as far as the "logic" goes on this front.

Except for the insurance companies, pregnancy avoidance may not necessarily be cost-effective. Your premiums would go up and they effectively gain a new customer. This depends on the numbers, but I'd be surprised if they lose money on the kids.

While I somewhat agree with your logic, and I think birth control costs can vary widely depending on the type of birth control used (I know women who were paying almost as much per month for birth control as I was for health insurance, which would throw health insurance costs out of whack), I would point out that some health insurance companies cover viagra. The logic is that it's a "health condition". Of course, viagra seems elective (rather than a medical issue that needs treatment, like a heart condition) and it's a recurring cost like birth control is. It seems like the justification for insurance companies to cover viagra is weaker than the justification for covering birth control. (One thought I had was that maybe viagra costs less so there's less resistance to covering it - but a google search says viagra costs $20+ a pill; I was surprised it was so expensive.)

This is interesting, I didn't know viagra was covered.