Reply #61: Well, not to seem like I'm parsing words here...

[colinmom71]

Because in general principle, I do agree with you. But a lot of health insurance companies separate medical coverage from prescription drug coverage, except when drugs are prescribed during a hospital stay through the hospital pharmacy (medical insurance does cover that when separate plans are involved). So when this is the scenario (sep. med. and drug coverage), the parallels between Viagra coverage and abortion coverage become invalid since we're dealing with two separately functioning insurance companies with differing policies for coverage. (Were there a universal coverage system that covered all medically relevant procedures and medications, this policy difference between companies would be non-issue, as it should be.)

But as for my previous post, it's not that I'm comparing the life impact of a cosmetic procedure to an abortion. But rather, I was pointing out that health insurers require presentation and acknowledgement by the physician of a medical problem in which the prescribed procedure is designed to cure or alleviate symptoms. With your mention above of nose jobs, sometimes even those may be prescribed to alleviate a medical problem and can be covered by insurance should it be found that the surgery would help with a disorder that would likely worsen and impair life function in the future (i.e. - a severely deviated septum that causes sleep apnea for instance). But as we know, most rhinoplasties are chosen for purely cosmetic reasons (absent medical cause) and are thus not covered.

Personally I find there to be a more compelling argument in favor of covering all abortions regardless of medical cause. And that would be the stated goal to protect women's health by ensuing that abortions are only performed by a licensed medical professional, in a safe manner according to contemporary medical professional standards, and done so in order to avoid the complications that would otherwise cause serious injury and costly medical bills to fix after the fact should non-professionals resort to performing abortions for lower income women due to lack of funding. It would likely cost far less to cover birth control and first trimester abortions (medical and surgical) than to have to cover all the traumatic injuries that would happen due to botched abortions. Not to mention the vastly greater sum for pre-natal and delivery costs to sustain a pregnancy that was not wanted and not affordable for the expectant parent(s) to begin with...

Hope this explains my stance above more accurately...