The Orwellian World of Obamacare

A legacy of having worked in the health care industry is a subscription to the New England Journal of Medicine, an august paper of all manner of things medical.  Admittedly, two-thirds of what appears in the NEJM is well over my head (due in no small measure to the plethora of unpronounceable medical terms).  Still, there are articles on health care policy that attract my attention and sometimes my amazement.

Take for example the December 19th issue and an intriguing piece "Religious Freedom and Women's Health — The Litigation on Contraception" by Timothy Stoltzfus Jost, J.D.  Jost leads off his article sensibly enough:

Health policy experts widely agree that health care should not merely be sickness care; rather, it should actively prevent disease and preserve wellness. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) contains an entire chapter dealing with prevention and public health. The ACA also improves private and public insurance coverage of preventive care. 

Excellent - and one aspect of Obamacare worth preserving.  Indeed, I was privileged to work with a brilliant physician who was, and remains, a strong and articulate advocate for turning health care on its head and pay more for health instead of dealing with illness.  Proactive rather than reactive medicine.

The very next sentence in Jost's piece reads: "One preventive care requirement, however, has caused a major headache for the Obama administration. Indeed, it has provoked charges that the administration is waging 'a war on religion.'"  Preventive care???

The result of a disease left untreated?

Jost continues with a brief review of the Affordable Care Act's requirement to provide "women's health service" including FDA approved contraceptive services.  He reviews the objections and suits filed by various religious organization claiming that application of the requirement to their organizations violates the First Amendment.  Those suits have been joined by non-religious businesses as well as governors of seven states.  Jost sorts through the arguments; but it is the juxtaposition of preventive care with pregnancy that I found both amazing and troubling.

Follow the "logic":  Preventing disease and promoting wellness are good and therefore contraceptive services (including the "morning after" pill) are disease prevention measures.  Ergo, being pregnant is a disease or at minimum a form of being unwell.  Wow!  Since when did being "with child" become bed-mates with diabetes, heart disease or cancer?  Most pregnancies are the predictable results of a completely voluntary act: sex.  So, just as, say, advocating better diets and an active lifestyle to reduce the occurrence of Type II diabetes, how about advocating abstinence as a "cure" for pregnancy?  Never mind...

In the Orwellian world of Obamacare, pregnancy is now a disease and babies - children - are the debilitating results of a disease left untreated.  Treatment, of course, needs to be provided by tax payer dollars to everyone regardless of religious belief, the First Amendment be damned.  How on earth does any person with a shred of sense wrap their heads around this?