Free Condoms!

The safer the sex, the cheaper the healthcare!

As a part of the Affordable Care Act (new healthcare law), a panel recommended that all insurers be required to provide free contraception for women.  And regardless of what the Roman Catholic Church may opine, this seems to be a great idea for a number of very simple reasons.  Prevention is a subject often lost in the healthcare debate as its easy to dwell on new remedies, cheaper implementation, rising insurance costs, paperwork, etc etc, but obviously things like a healthier diet would lead to less illness and, therefore, less of a strain on the already fragile healthcare system.  The same obviously goes for contraception because, well, less unwanted pregnancies and STDs will obviously lead to less need for hospital visits and medication, especially among low income families. And the cost for providing contraception is much less than future costs of treating the various results of sex. 

Since such use should be promoted for the overall health of both the nation and the healthcare system, providing citizens with any financial reason NOT to use contraception can only be counter productive in the long run.  The free distribution of items like condoms or birth control pills clearly takes cost out of the equation, and provides greater likeliness for use.  Obviously this is not a cureall, but its a step in the right direction. 

I can already see the conservative base bitching that this type of policy only encourages sex when it's their goal to scare the living daylights out of people educate teenagers on the "consequences" of their promiscuous actions.  But obviously, and this is supported by statistics, its human nature to desire sex and, if teens are going to have it anyway, they might as well have safe sex and severely cut down the number of unwanted issues.

Bravo, hope this happens.