Dude, why are you losing your health care?

Yeah. We should totally go back to the days when people were dying in the streets and gutters. Things were so much better then. There was no birth control back then, you know.

I'm not. Right now I'm on fully subsidy because my income last year was so painfully low. This year I'll make above the full subsidy limit so I'll be paying for part of it.

I love Canada.

Our health care is provincial, right? So could we theoretically have completely different health care? I assume you know because you lived in both provinces.

That's why you, as a taxpayer, try to vote for representatives of your own thoughts (or close approximations of them). So that hopefully, they push agendas which you wish to pay for.

Probably do. But from what I recall they're pretty similar. The last time I looked into the health care in Ontario I don't think I'd been there long enough to qualify for it.

No but being frugal with your money is. If you do want Ice Cream, why not buy a 5 gallon tub of store brand for the same price as the pint of B&J? Put back the other 4 pints of B&J and use the saved funds to purchase enough ingredients to make spaghetti to feed 3 people that nigt. Oh wait, they're on welfare, they don't have to worry about it. It's not their money anyway.

Sorry. I'm with Formus on calling bullshit on this. Again, maybe it's because I'm in Canada but I have NEVER seen the kind of shit you're talking about. And I've met my fair share of poor people.

You, my friend, are grossly misinformed about what the majority of people do with financial assistance. You are taking the cases of a few, and applying to all. Therefore, I'm going to stick you back in the same column that those pesky Ron Paul supporters are in. So there!

*Note - I did not say you are a Ron Paul supporter, just that you are lumped into the category of misinformed persons with them.*


I'm also with FreakPirate and Formus. I live in the teen pregnancy capital of Canada (seems like it, anyway) and even I've never seen this much crap.

Bullshit the money comes from somewhere

Are you out of your damn mind first of all you don't need any $300 birth control second I'm pretty sure Bitch_PhD's last article talked about Wal-Mart having BC without insurance for $9. If you don't have $9 a month you probably should be focusing on more important priorities than fucking (that's just me), third I can only think of 1 subsidiary of 1 insurance plan that doesn't cover BC and since I spend all day long filling prescriptions I've got a pretty good idea of how much they cost and how the health insurance works. You might not be able to get your brand name Yaz! or some such stuff but they'll definitely cover multiple generics. Some plans even go so far as to completely eliminate copays on BC.

While I don't agree with eliminating the welfare system there are a ton of people who I see abuse it everyday. They constitute a minority but it's still frustrating.

What are your occupations? Most co-workers I've had over the years have felt the same as I do. Maybe if you had to deal with it 40-50 hours a week you'd notice it.

I currently work as a delivery driver and stock boy at a grocery store. Not exactly a high paying position. Over the years I've worked as a warehouse monkey, a dishwasher, a forklift driver and occasionally in the theatre. Like I said, I've had my share of exposure to poor people and have still never seen the kind of stuff you're talking about. Nor have I heard of anything like that from anyone I know.

Therefore I tend to think you're full of shit.

Well I'd say maybe it's because I worked in a store in the shitty part of town. But you all informed me earlier that Alaska is too rich and white to have poor neighborhoods.

I worked for two summers in a warehouse across the street from a homeless shelter and what is known in Edmonton as "Tent City". When I went to school there was a meth dealer across the alley and I found one of his customers passed out on my sidewalk.

And I still haven't seen any of that.

I find it interesting that a discussion about the rising cost of birth control, especially for college students, has turned to a battle royale over TANF.

Anyway, back to the subject:

As a student who experienced the rate hike at a university over the past year, I went from paying $6 for 3 months of contraception to paying $60. I was a full-time student working a full-time job, and paying $60 for pills was still fucking insane. Let me add that this $60 price is through "reduced generic brand rates" through pharmacy programs and Planned Parenthood, so imagine what I'd be paying out of pocket if I wasn't pushing to get generic pills, or didn't live near a pharmacy that provided such luxuries. So you can throw your assumptions about who can and can't afford birth control aside, because I was a middle class university student and I still struggled to pay for birth control. It is also interesting to add that the state healthcare program here in my state will cover prescriptions for Viagra, but not contraception. Chew on that one for a while.

I smell patriarchy and it's stinky.