Brad Plumer has some policy-wonk posts up today about health care reform. Although this isn’t a front burner issue for me most of the time, it got me thinking.
I’m generally supportive of converting America to a single-payer health care system like what most European countries and Canada have. And then it hit me — what if my wish came true?
Would I trust my government to make decisions about things like who gets access to prescription birth control devices? Not if a Republican were in the White House. Given the SCOTUS precedent of Griswold v CT, I’m fairly sure they couldn’t eliminate birth control entirely, but they could include things like ‘conscience clause’ that would allow doctors to not write prescriptions for birth control pills if they chose not to. As we’ve already seen with abortion services, if nobody chooses to provide something, you have an effective ban on service even if it is still legal.
That’s a really scary scenario, and one that is making me rethink whether I support single-payer health care after all. Just one more thing to blame on the right wing nut jobs trying to run this country.