BOOBS!

Now that I have your attention, it's time for another political rant, but the central players are those lovely mammaries that, much like Saturday morning cartoons, we learned to love as a child and still try and get a peak at from time to time when our wives aren't looking.  

As a result of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), health insurance plans now have to cover the full cost of breast pumps for nursing mothers. The new rule took effect for many people at the start of 2013. It's led to a boom in the sale of the pumps, a heaving surge in demand, a swelling bottom line, the executives are tickled, and shareholders dividends have been nursed well from the result of the sales of these pumps, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

Advocates of requiring insurance companies to pay for breast pumps say that the measure will pay for itself in the long run. A very scientific looking study found that people who suckle on breasts tend to have fewer health problems. It is not too far fetched say the same may be true for babies, and paying for breast pumps should mean more babies are breast fed. There is, however, another aspect to consider, new moms now seem more likely to splurge on fancy new things for their breasts, including breast pumps. If you purchased the cheapest pump you could buy last year, and this year you can get the most expensive one free, why wouldn't you not only buy another one?

It is in that last statement that this issue takes flight, for it is not you who is forking over the hundreds of dollars, it is everyone. Weird things happen when you take price out of the equation for consumers. For one thing, they stop looking for the best price. But, even though breast pumps are free for new moms, somebody has to pay for them. Health insurance premiums are driven by how much we spend on health care. The more things that are covered by health insurance policies, the more premiums have to rise to cover that spending. This is being proven over and over again as premiums continue to rise at alarming rates in the wake of Obamacare, which had been promised to stifle such increases, yet here we are about 3 years later looking like a group of dumbfounded men staring at, well, you know where I'm going with that.

I have spent many hours researching breasts on the internet, and have concluded that we are going about this issue all wrong, that it is not an issue where we should be concerned about the health of the baby, but about the general well being of our baby momma's. We should hold them close, and comfort them, stroke their hair and see if they smell nice.

The worst part is people will see free and forget that nothing is free. Then about half of the population will see breasts and forget about all the other problems this bill continues to shine a pair of headlights on.