Planned Parenthood: Abortions Run $350 to $900

I've been reading through more stuff about the health care malformation, particularly the factors that will come into play in the House-Senate reconciliation process, now that the DNC has officially committed itself to marching us all off of a cliff.

I'm hoping that the whole thing falls apart over abortion, and to that end I've been reading up on Bart Stupak's efforts, a Democrat member of the House from Michigan. In the middle of this article, I found this piece of info:

Abortions in the first trimester typically cost between $350 and $900, according to Planned Parenthood.

Two things come to mind. The first is that this is yet another example of a problem of perception people have about health insurance that is in part driving this nonsense forward, that it's not insurance if it does not cover every single little conceivable thing. Insurance is only meant to be a backstop that aims to restore you to the state you were in before some calamity struck. If your house burns down, your insurance replaces what you had, you do not get a better one. If your car gets wrecked, your insurance is supposed to replace it with a car of equal value to yours at the time of the accident. Health insurance should only be there to catch you if you fall seriously ill such that treatment requires balance sheet breaking expenditures, NOT to pay for getting hangnails removed, etc. If the medical service in question is something that could reasonably be paid out of pocket, then it should be.

$300 to $950 is not a back breaking expense. It should be paid for by the individual seeking the procedure. This is the kind of cash that can be easily set aside in small amounts over time (and everyone ought to in general). Mandating the inclusion of such things in coverage only drives up the cost of everyone's insurance unnecessarily.

The second thing that comes to mind, is simply this: you cannot include abortion coverage in any plan with forced enrollment or you will be forcing those of us who object to the practice to pay for it. Let me make this very clear: I will not participate in any such thing, ever. If you want to buy murder, pay for it yourself.