Sean Hannity, explaining his opposition to a mandate for insurers to provide contraceptive coverage, introduced
some brand-new ideas on his radio show on Monday:
Hannity griped, "Why are people accused of waging a war on women if they don't want to pay for their birth control, which is inexpensive?" When his caller tried to point out that not everyone has that kind of money, he started to holler, "But why don't women like yourself, then, maybe then have an 'adopt-a-woman' birth control program? In other words, why should the government be doing it?"
Amanda Marcotte, who doesn't usually agree with Hannity much, thinks this is not such a bad idea:
Perhaps there could be a program where everyone who needs health care, including contraception, pays into a common pool that we can draw out of. You could pay monthly into it—let's call that payment a "premium"—and when you need things like drugs or doctor's visits, you could show a membership card instead of writing a check. [...] You can call it an "adopt-a-woman" program, I guess, but I think a simpler term that would both be more comprehensive and male-inclusive would be "health insurance."
Of course, Hannity probably wasn't thinking about a program in which contraception was treated like other medical expenses; more likely, he wants a public matching program in which women who can't afford birth control have to go out asking for individual help. Maybe a list, so everyone knows which women can't afford the pill yet think they might sometime have sex. Then next time Hannity or Rush Limbaugh want to go on a slut-shaming tirade, they'll know where to look for names.
If you look at insurance and think "this means I am paying for birth control pills for that lady over there" and do not continue on to think "and if that lady doesn't get her pills and gets pregnant I will be paying for her prenatal care and delivery and also I am paying for boner pills for that guy and cancer treatment for that child," you're really missing how insurance works. I'm pretty sure Sean Hannity actually understands how this works. But he's counting on his listeners not understanding, and he's in the business of making sure they stay ignorant and misinformed.