Starting in 2013, health insurance will be required to provide birth control without co-pays. Amanda Marcotte claims this will save money:
These new contraception regulations will pay for themselves easily in the short term by reducing the insurance payouts that come along with unintended pregnancies, but insurance companies should expect long-term savings. When children are planned, children are cheaper.
As the Guttmacher noted (PDF) in its testimony on these proposed regulations, improved contraception use means women space out their pregnancies more, and putting some time in between pregnancies leads to better birth outcomes with lower medical costs. In addition, women who plan their pregnancies tend to get better prenatal care and are more likely to breast-feed, two behaviors that improve children’s health outcomes and reduce overall long-term health-care costs.
Cohn is also supportive. But Yglesias says this policy isn't ideal:
What we’re getting isn’t taxpayer-financed, government-subsidized birth control. Instead the practical impact will be higher premiums, resulting in cross-subsidy of birth control by people who don’t use birth control. I’m with Kay Steiger in thinking that this is a logistically cumbersome second-best relative to straightforward provision of birth control services.
Ed Morrissey, on the other hand, is upset:
This edict got handed down from the mountain purely for political purposes. The Obama administration wants to bolster its standing with women ahead of the next election; this mandate will probably get featured in an endless series of campaign ads. “President Obama protects women!” the copy will read. In the meantime, rational provider-patient cost sharing on non-critical products and services will be discarded, forcing the rest of us to eat the cost in higher premiums. It’s the ultimate in arbitrary exercises in authority.
The Dish 