^^^That. Allat.

ETA: Dang you, Phil. That was meant for Rhoyal but you got there too fast.

Excellent lambasting of the post. You and DrPhil are pretty much in the same boat, mentally.
Woah, talk about leaps of logic! I never said that providing people with preventative health care limits personal freedom. That's silly.

However, taking money at the barrel of a gun (the IRS/government is the gun) to give to other people is limiting personal freedom.

Of course.

However, I suppose my hypotheticals come with caveats. If we are to remove healthcare funding from the federal budget, we are to remove total government intervention in the market. The problem is that we get a little free-market one way...but no free-market in another similar instance.

For example, the banks were able to spend boundless amounts of money and hand-out tons of loans. An exhibition of free-market Austrian capitalism. Except, that in direct opposition to this was the fiat money system, the FDIC, and the federal reserve. These federal regulations and propping up systems created moral hazards creating a collapse. No moral hazards/no government intervention...a functioning market. But when the invisible hand is not allowed to work, it is a nightmare.

With that said, I'm advocating the removal of the federal intervention in the health-care market...but if we remove universal health care, we must remove the whole disgusting mess.

So when you talk about,

Which is created by a system propped up by the government, expounded by the fiat money system and welfare, you're going to have this mess. In spite of this consistent meddling by the federal government, the insurances still like preventative care. Insurance companies and companies that provide insurance love preventative care because it makes having you in their insurance cheaper. If they have a slavish devotion to quarterly earnings, they would have a slavish devotion to preventative measures which saves money. And they do. Do you really think that many corporations (including the one I work for) provide a gym because they want everyone to be skinny and hot?

No.

When you have a regulatory agency which consistently withholds drugs from the populace where it might be someone's last hope, where you have a federal government that prevents cheap drugs from other countries in order to support corporations (form of corporatism, eventual fascism), where you have a government who has now forced the populace to buy insurance (which again is another form of corporatism, eventual fascism) which in itself creates a terrible moral hazard and greatly increases the cost of care, and ultimately a government who props up a multiplicity of companies, you have a problem. The problems these last two or three decades have seen in regards to healthcare are not a result of a government hands-off approach, simply the opposite. The government has been too involved.

The Austrian Free-Market is compassion. The socialized market fakes compassion for power. Power over the powerless.

Oh yes, we definitely started with you and not the other way around.

Good luck with your hypotheticals.

Wow...it must feel really horrible to be in American in EW's head. All this forced tyranny that has been going on for decades...how can he stand it?

Hopefully he can't and will be escaping to a one-person island in the Pacific. Then he can talk shit with no risk of retort.

We can dream.

The "break" concept is from back in the day when there was only one hormone loaded pill that everyone took. Many of them nowadays are so low dose that this isn't an issue at all.

My boyfriend (the one w/ no money that I bitched about before) actually offered to help pay for my $2.50 pill packs, for crying out loud.

Is he worried that you're cheating because of the distance? It sounds like something other than $$ is involved here.

This makes me really sad. :(

It's pretty awkward, at least on face.

I definitely pay for half a shot every six months. It's (pretty much literally) the least I can do.

Sometimes things are about how we present it rather than the overall point.

For instance, if someone thinks you can afford to pay but want the other person to pay half simply as a matter of principle, it can seem silly and like you're trying too hard to prove a point. If it isn't like you all are negotiating the things that he pays for in your relationship, but are only discussing birth control costs, he may wonder "why is THIS the thing that you want to negotiate?"

That can spark annoyance and he can feel like you need to just continue paying as you've always done and find something else to complain about (depending on the tone of your conversations). Afterall, responding to his resistance by saying you'll stop taking it and therefore sex will stop (I assume), is a threat and ultimatum that you have yet to act on. Threats and ultimatums, especially those that you have yet to act on, tend not to work well in relationships. They work better on children.

(Some couples share these kinds of expensives and some couples don't. There's no right or wrong, it's just a matter of what the couple negotiates.)

I don't take hormonal birth control for several reasons, so it's a little more "equal" between live-in and I on who buys the condoms, but it does irk me that in a lot of ways guys see the pill as the woman's business, while reaping all the benefits of having a relationship with a woman on the pill.

ETA: I would agree with you somewhat, DrPhil, but in this case, it seems like she's really having a hard time scraping together the money for the copay. Of course, my threat would be "help me or I'm out" with a follow-through, but I don't pretend to know what works in all relationships. I think if I were on hormonal birth control and in a serious relationship, it would be a dealbreaker for me.

Right - I agree, that's why I went with the "on face" caveat (also I have problems committing to a position, as you all know). The context is everything. I also wanted to brag about being SuperBoyfriend - where's that London barrister douche when you need him?

I feel you.

The bolded works if you're prepared for him to say "peace out," not necessarily because he doesn't want to help you pay but because you suddenly became his parent.

I believe in a hiearchy of relationship concerns. Like you said, everyone/every couple has their own list and ranking of concerns.

Stop trying to impress me.