What Makes Free Birth Control Expensive

Initially, when my local pharmacy informed me that the nine dollar co-pay on my birth control was now waived, I was surprised. When they went on to ask for my grocery card to give me gas points on the birth control I didn’t pay for, I was appalled. Free birth control and gas points sound picture-perfect, if you ignore the long term ripple effect.

Memorably, Milton Friedman said it best, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.”  If insurance companies are mandated to provide free services at the pharmacy or doctor’s office, they have to bill the recipient later through higher premiums to compensate for the added expense. Sky-high premiums are already expected to take effect for many starting next year; the plan my family and I are on will see a dismal increase of 27 percent.

If you aren’t already seeing a frustrating shade of blue, there are also twenty new tax hikes on families and small businesses scheduled in 2013 and onward courtesy of Obamacare.

Simply put, through increased insurance premiums and taxes, I’ll be paying for my birth control and for those around me several times over when I could have paid a measly nine dollars a month. My budget will tighten because our government and the Sandra Flukes of the world refuse to heed a basic life principal: Nothing is free; no matter how many times the government mandates otherwise.

Michelle Stansbury is a political consultant, paid speaker, and Fox Radio Political Commentator. You can follow her on Twitter: @MBStansbury and Subscribe on Facebook here.