Purchasing contraception is seldom discussed in public. But in the wake of the Department of… Purchasing contraception is seldom discussed in public. But in the wake of the Department of Health’s mandate that health insurance plans cover contraception, we’re going to hear a lot more about it.

There are several good reasons to oppose this mandate. First, it’s removed any incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop cheap contraceptives since they’re guaranteed consumers at whatever price they charge. It’s also made cheaper generics less attractive — with insurance companies paying the tab, the cost of contraceptives will be hidden from the person buying them. Insurance companies might try to bargain with drug makers, but they might also find it easier to quietly raise everyone’s premiums. And pharmaceuticals have no incentive to spend money developing new contraceptives, as the old ones are guaranteed to sell.

Furthermore, this mandate hasn’t, as some people believe, made birth control free. Somebody’s still going to have to pay the costs, and those costs are going to diffuse. Who will pay? Let’s consider three answers:

1) “We’ll make the evil insurance corporations pay for it!” But where do the evil insurance corporations get their money from, if not from consumers who will pay higher premiums?

2) “Employers will pay for it!” They might, but this makes it more expensive to have people on payroll, so the cost will come out of reduced wages or fewer hires.

3) “The government will pay for it!” But the government has to get money from somewhere. And by the way, making the government pay for things means we need a larger bureaucracy, which doesn’t come cheap.

In short, the mandate only spreads the cost around the economy. This means that the people who use birth control pay less because other people — such as the old, impotent, abstinent and religious — are paying for birth control that they don’t use.

But the most important problem with this mandate is that it’s a fundamental threat to freedom of religion, as complying with the law will require people to violate their beliefs. Obama’s compromise — asking that organizations themselves don’t pay, but their insurers do — is nothing of the sort. Considering that these organizations are paying insurance companies in the first place, this amounts to paying Peter in order to pay Paul, and calling it a concession that you don’t have to pay Paul directly. And the fines paid by those who refuse to comply constitute a beliefs tax — that is, a tax that must be paid because the practitioners of a particular faith refused to bend that faith to the shape the government’s desires.

To those who pooh-pooh this as evidence of nothing more than how out of touch Catholic bishops are, let me ask you this: How would you feel if, say, a President Rick Santorum required all employers to cover psychiatric treatment to “cure” people of homosexuality? I think you would join me in condemning this as ridiculous. You would feel quite angry at having to pay for something that is an affront to your beliefs.

Of course, you might argue that this is a poor analogy, as homosexuality is not a disease that needs to be cured. To which an observant Catholic could respond that neither is pregnancy. Both your beliefs and the beliefs of the guy with the rosary beads are passionately felt. One set might seem more valid to you than the other, but you cannot deny that both exist. And much as you might like to impose your beliefs on somebody by persuasion or legislative fiat, I doubt you would like to have the same done to you.

Now, I understand that contraception can be a matter of public health, is cheaper than abortion (or a lot of unwanted children) and that access to it can be difficult for the poor. But according to the Guttmacher Institute, a center that started as an offshoot of Planned Parenthood, the government spent $1.85 billion on family planning in 2006, and 54 percent of all women in need of publicly subsidized care received it. Publicly funded services are estimated to have prevented 1.94 million unintended pregnancies. So I wonder how much this mandate is really necessary and how much the poor would be helped by an expansion of extant programs. Furthermore, although I think the Catholic Church is wrong about contraception, they have the constitutional right to be as wrong-headed about this as they please. And by this mandate, the government sets a dangerous precedent by which other beliefs can just as easily be attacked.

Contact Mark at [email protected]