Rick Santorum: Contraception Shouldn't Be Covered By Insurance At All

Former Sen. Rick Santorum said on Friday afternoon that he was not persuaded by the Obama administration's revisions of rules requiring religious institutions to cover contraception as part of their workers' health care plans.

Speaking less than two hours after the president said he would give those institutions a way to exempt themselves from the policy, allowing them to punt the coverage straight to the insurance company, The Huffington Post asked Santorum whether he was placated.

"No," he replied, "not at all."

Santorum, of course, isn't the type of person that the president is likely to persuade on topics of contraception coverage. The former Pennsylvania senator is a renowned culture warrior, who has risen back to the top of the Republican primary polls by appealing to social issues. Elaborating on why he opposed the revised version of the Obama contraception rule, he explained that he didn't believe insurance companies should cover contraception at all.

"This has nothing to do with access," he said. "This is having someone pay for it, pay for something that shouldn't even be in an insurance plan anyway because it is not, really an insurable item. This is something that is affordable, available. You don't need insurance for these types of relatively small expenditures. This is simply someone trying to impose their values on somebody else, with the arm of the government doing so. That should offend everybody, people of faith and no faith that the government could get on a roll that is that aggressive."

Birth control can be readily available, sometimes on the cheap, for many women. But for a good portion of them, it's neither. Moreover, roughly 14 percent of all birth control prescriptions are written for reasons other than contraception, including ovarian cancer, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and endometrial cancer. The Huffington Post profiled one illustrative case of the benefits of insurance-covered birth control earlier on Friday.

Comments

[bryflayz]

08:58 PM on 02/15/2012

We really should hold off on judging Santorum right now.. Let's wait another nine months. Voters have such short memories. Like guys who get Catholic women pregnant and forget that they weren't using condoms and thought that she was using contraceptives. Timing is everything, you know

[kcourtney]

11:02 PM on 02/22/2012

love it

[Hglad]

06:02 PM on 02/12/2012

Rick Santorum = Fruit cake with too many nuts.

[taylorperdomo]

01:03 AM on 02/12/2012

Santorum is showing his complete ignorance of the fiscal responsibility to protect the public's health. He obviously has no concept of half the population, women, especially working women who are usually the primary bread winners of the family. Not everyone has a rich husband who defended white collar criminals for a living. He does not understand that when you are feeding your children and husband that you cannot always afford the birth control specifically needed for your body. In his ignorance, and limited intellectual ability, he cannot conceive that negligence to a woman's needs causes more unsustainable births, poverty, and lower quality of life, especially because those who can will not pay their taxes, or deny proper health care to create a slave class in order to maintain their supposed manifest destiny or willful economic oppression to survive.

[Realistical]

11:50 PM on 02/13/2012

I would recommend that these people keep their pants on.

[taylorperdomo]

03:54 AM on 02/16/2012

I have had no problem with abstinence but unlike your virgin self of pristine self control that never has sex, children come as a natural and predetermined desire to have relations and reproduce. Now this might be shocking to you but people will have intercourse. Most of these people will be adults as teen pregnancy is at a 20 year low, but uterine cancer even withe vaccines, is at a very pessimistic killing rate, along with fibroid cysts that could have been controlled by birth control instead of repeated miscarriages and hysterectomies. Most of these from married women who, although have higher education on not educated in the female health.

[loeska]

12:54 PM on 02/16/2012

What?? Should sex be banned too? And only
indulged in when one wants a child?

Come to think of it in a realistic(al) way, sure,
of course, why not?

But I suspect that men would find a way around
it in some way or other. And the emotional price
would be paid mostly by the women.

[Shrank]

09:49 PM on 02/11/2012

Rick Santorum: "The Obama birth control ruling has nothing to do with women's rights. Women have the right to remain silent. Women have the right to do what they're told. Women have the right to get pregnant. And women have the right to serve me my dinner when I get home."

[exlib1059]

11:11 PM on 02/11/2012

Women have the right to go into a drug store and purchase birth control. The Federal government has no business telling anybody that they have to provide it to another person.

[Ankhorite]

12:45 AM on 02/12/2012

The feds have the right to decree what expenses should be routinely insured -- that is part of regulating the insurance industry, which we as citizens desperately need the government to do -- and that's what the feds are doing here, in order to prevent discrimination against women.

You may be more pleased to know that the feds have outlawed insurance companies from charging more for women who have had a baby; the propensity to have babies can no longer be declared a "pre-existing" condition and tossed out of the insurance policy.

[nycatholic]

07:33 PM on 02/12/2012

AMEN exlib. This is a religious freedom issue, plain and simple! The Government is intruding where it does NOT belong.

[bayguy13]

05:20 PM on 02/11/2012

If contraception shouldn't be covered by insurance, than Santorum's anti-psychotics shouldn't be covered either.

[synergie]

04:44 PM on 02/13/2012

As if that would affect anything, clearly he's been off his meds for quite some time.

[ennis438]

01:45 PM on 02/11/2012

Mr Santorum is not the king and it really doesn't matter what he thinks. If he does not believe people have the right to make up their own mind on personal decisions, then maybe he should run for president of North Korea.

[exlib1059]

11:27 PM on 02/11/2012

You seem to be a little mixed up. The debate is not whether women have the right to use birth control, its whether the Federal government has the right to mandate that someone provide birth control to another. I hope this cleared things up for you.

[Ankhorite]

12:46 AM on 02/12/2012

The feds have the right to decree that insurance policies cannot discriminate on the basis of sex by refusing to cover drugs taken only by one sex or the other -- like birth control, or Viagra.

[SMSinTexas]

12:55 PM on 02/12/2012

Medical insurance is meant to cover..... medical costs. I hope this clears things up for you.

[lunchlady]

11:18 AM on 02/11/2012

What's his position on insurance paying for Viagra Cialis etc? Bet he thinks that's A-Okay, wink wink

[SMSinTexas]

12:56 PM on 02/12/2012

Men have a right to their erections.

[lunchlady]

01:13 PM on 02/12/2012

Are you being funny? Well, I don't feel any obligation to help pay for broken men to get Mr. Softee back in business, through my taxes or insurance premiums. Especially if whatever women they're having sex with can't get their reproductive health covered.

[talkstocoyotes]

08:53 AM on 02/11/2012

As usual, a load of santorum.

[jjtm562]

08:23 AM on 02/11/2012

When will this guy's time be up?

[exlib1059]

11:39 PM on 02/11/2012

What's taking you guys so long to assassinate his character.

[synergie]

04:52 PM on 02/13/2012

He's doing an excellent job of smearing himself with his own santorum. He's beating everyone else to the punch.

[kcourtney]

11:12 PM on 02/22/2012

the only reason rick hasn't been assailed is because a very small percentage of the right wing scarily enough, agree with his 12th century rhetoric. In a general election he wouldn't do very well at all.

[Ankhorite]

12:48 AM on 02/12/2012

It's up, it's up already. He lost his last election for Senate by 18 points. He's just running for President to publicize his causes -- which he used to freely admit, until he got a whiff of victory up his nose.

He'll stay in the race so long as a multi-millionaire or billionaire is willing to sponsor him, even if he can't get any normal people to donate a dime. So we're stuck listening to his gabble.

[exlib1059]

12:02 PM on 02/12/2012

1. His time is up? I guess maybe in your head. I just watched Santorum have a twenty minute appearance on Meet the Press.
2. He doesn't publicize his causes? I guess you didn't bother to actually read the article that preceded your comments.
3. Regarding rich political sponsors, what I can't figure out is how the "victims" of society are financing Obama's billion dollar campaign war chest.

[nycatholic]

08:05 AM on 02/11/2012

He is 100% correct. Any private, sexual act of pleasure and it's resulting consequences should not be paid for by the Gov't, insurance companies, religious institutions OR any employer for that matter.

It is absolutely ridiculous in the first place, in addition to being an infringement of first amendment rights! I may not love everything about this candidate, but BRAVO for speaking the truth and throwing this ludicrous politically correct nonsense to the wind.

[lunchlady]

11:29 AM on 02/11/2012

And what about Viagra Cialis etc? Is getting Mr Softee back in business a private sexual act of pleasure? Or a medical necessity? Sexual activity is required for women to keep their husbands/boyfriends/whatevers, and also for men to keep their women, perhaps to lesser extent. If birth control is a luxury to be paid for by the individual then the same for Viagra etc.
Perhaps private pay for contraception is reasonable after all- if the woman can't pay for it and her man won't pay for it then they shouldn't be taking the risk for making babies at all, since the govt will probably end up paying tor the raising of their offspring. But somehow telling people to Just Not Do It doesn't work very well.

[nycatholic]

06:50 PM on 02/12/2012

Amen. And telling people what TO DO does not work very well either . . . especially when it infringes on their First (or ANY) Amendment rights, and especially when the one doing the dictating is the Government.

[Lynda Spady]

03:19 PM on 02/11/2012

NYCatholic, many woman use birth control pills for other health issues that never have to do with having sex. I first went on the pill when I was 13 because my periods would cause severe pains and headaches, that would basically paralyse me. I was also on the pill in an attempt to control the cyst forming in my ovaries as I started the change. This was not an act of pleasure, but a medical need for me to first lead a normal life and then to prevent a more serious health problem.

[nycatholic]

06:44 PM on 02/12/2012

Very true. My Dr. put me on birth control when I was about 20 years old because I experienced such bad cramping. "But I'm a smoker," I told him, "that puts me at risk of heart attack and stroke dosen't it?" "I've read it causes blood clots" I said.
He told me that I was "young," and none of this really needed to worry me. So for FIVE years I was on the pill (not covered by insurance, btw,) and exposed to many potential health risks some of which are coming back to haunt me now.
But you see this is not the REAL issue. As I keep stating - regardless of opinion - AMERICANS need to be concerned with THIS point: Government intrusion. This administration is trampling all over our Constitution, growing BIGGER and more powerful while WE the people grow smaller and weaker.

[Matt Juba]

08:00 AM on 02/11/2012

Santorum only cares about himself and his worthless Catholic beliefs.

[exlib1059]

11:32 PM on 02/11/2012

Hey freethinker - think again. You're a by-product of years of liberal indoctrination.

[nycatholic]

07:45 PM on 02/12/2012

This is an American issue, it's a human rights issue! A free thinker should see that.

[goatini]

01:29 AM on 02/13/2012

No, you and others here are actually by-products of 2000 years of superstition indoctrination.

[lcdlover]

03:46 AM on 02/11/2012

Hi. This is part 2 of my comment, sorry

So, a big unexpected bill like a severely disabled child would fall under your insurance contract, while day-to-day stuff like contraceptives are better off picked up by the individual. This keeps prices down, and in the case of the very poor, they would not usually have employer sponsored health insurance, so this would not apply to them.

It never fails to amaze me that the presumably nice people who offer comments here at HuffPo write such venomous stuff about Republicans and especially about the Republican candidates. Please consider that these are your neighbors, co-workers and friends.
Respectfully submitted.

[talkstocoyotes]

08:54 AM on 02/11/2012

Say all the nice gushy things about him you want. Santorum is not my neighbor and co-worker, and he certainly isn't my friend.

[nycatholic]

09:09 AM on 02/11/2012

AMEN lcd.
You surely can debate a topic without all the nastiness, friends or not. We are all fellow human beings . . . each with our own life experiences which have brought us to formulate the opinions/values we have today.
There is no call for unkindness from the candidates, or from one another. I can't STAND it when they waste time bashing each other. Stick to the issues! You don't have to agree with one another, your running AGAINST each other! Debate and move on. Just as WE should.
Agree to disagree.

[lcdlover]

10:16 AM on 02/11/2012

Hello talksto,
Thanks for the reply, I guess. Look, I know it's not going to be a love fest here, just as it is not on AmSpec and the like, but my God, the remarks here range from the merely rancorous to the truly malevolent, without even the most mild doubts expressed. Of course you are not personally friends or neighbors to Santorum or the others (and when poor Newt was surging, he was treated to a bashing, and not just on the liberal side, worthy of a serial killer or child molester) but surely you have a family member for instance, who disagrees with you on some issues. My sisters and I are on opposite sides of the left/right spectrum, yet we manage to get through (most) dinners without calling each other hateful venomous names.
Anyway please read the WSJ article and tell me what you think.

[LangstonA]

05:43 PM on 02/11/2012

insurance companies claim that covering the cost of child birthing and pregnancy costs more that covering the cost of birth control. So if unintended pregnancies went up, insurance companies costs would go up and people's premiums would go up. By covering birth control insurance companies would keep their own costs down.

[exlib1059]

12:23 PM on 02/12/2012

Most private insurance companies come to that conclusion without the Federal government butting in.

[lcdlover]

03:45 AM on 02/11/2012

Hello
I peeked at the comments for this article with trepidation but this is really over the top. For example:
1) "Oh, how I wish HIS mother had had access to insurance-­covered contracept­ion! The world would be a much better place than it is now."
That's just nasty and adds nothing to the conversation
2)"Mrs. Santorum gave birth to a special needs baby when she was 48. Where are your tax returns Santorum?" That is rough, really rough. I'm not sure the writer is receptive to argument but I'll try. Insurance, as John Cochrane points out in a great (and emotion free) WSJ piece on Thursday, "is supposed to mean a contract, by which a company pays for large, unanticipated expenses in return for a premium: expenses like your house burning down, your car getting stolen or a big medical bill."

"Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses. There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn't add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn't charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste. You'd have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you'd end up spending more."
There seems to be a word limit so I'll finish in another frame...

[geezernerd]

02:53 PM on 02/11/2012

WSJ is not a credible source anymore. Not since Murdoch bought it. If you want to sound convincing, you need to do better.

[ocrmom59]

10:17 PM on 02/10/2012

well I bet all those women who didn't vote November 2010 will be voting in the rain, snow and sleet just to make sure that none of these candidates get anywhere near the white house. They were brainwashed to believe that blacks had no right to be president so they didn't vote and for thatthey got to see their favorite whiterace try to take all the rights away from women. If they fail to elect the president they can rest assured this will be their last time to vote because the republicans will stripe them of the right to vote and hold any kind of public office.

The republicans want to take away all the things that people worked so hard to get. Since this is black history month, I wonder how the republicans is feeling knowning the things that blacks did contribute to this world and how they are using them and are taking it for granted. After Obama get reeelected there will be so many people praying and asking their God why did he forsaken them, they will be wandering in the wilderness for forty years trying to get out and the world will have left them by.

[chris16]

09:53 PM on 02/10/2012

Mrs. Santorum gave birth to a special needs baby when she was 48. Where are your tax returns Santorum? I want to know if you consider Bella's medical bills you own personal responsibility. Your family certainly knew the risks you were taking having a child when the mother is 48 years old. Are you paying for your political props with campaign funds? Real cute - Bella's picture that family members have on display.

[Ankhorite]

12:54 AM on 02/12/2012

I don't think we should drag Bella into this. I'm pro-choice, including when the choice is NOT to abort.

I'd like to see his tax returns but not because of anything to do with Bella.

[chris16]

01:51 PM on 02/12/2012

ankhorite: I would like to take Santorum to my nearby Catholic Hospital so he can talk to some of the custodial and housekeeping staff that get on and off the bus early and late and night. I would like him to do their shift for a day and than ask them if $50.00 a month for out of pocket payment for family planning is significant. Santorum is really against all birth control except "natural method". Access to birth control is the best way to provide unplanned pregnancies and abortions.

[kcourtney]

11:22 PM on 02/22/2012

she wasn't referring to Bella in a negative sense. Rick opened up that conversation by accusing women of getting abortions just because of prenatal care and Rick was having his health care covered under the federal government as a government employee. So it's not the child but the bills regarding his wife's care. Rick deserves everything he gets in this blog. He opened up this can of worms against women and we have the right to ask him questions about how nice it must be for him to have the best health care plan around while some women can't even get the breast scan they need.