The best part of today, aside from the fact that the Affordable Care Act was upheld, has been the rush of schadenfreude that comes from watching sourpuss Michele Bachmann types flip the fuck out about it. The latest group to react poorly are men's rights activists who are upset that health care reform spends too much time focusing on women and their stupid complicated tubing. Anyway: what about the men?


The What About the Men refrain was trotted out today in the comments to a post on Feministe about the ACA and all by the angry divorcees at Reddit's Men's Rights board were all over the fact that the Affordable Care Act provides all this care to women but not men. For example, said several guys who need hugs, the ACA covers well woman visits but not well men visits, that it covers STI testing and treatment for women but not for men, it covers contraception for women but it doesn't mandate coverage for men, etc. The act mandates tubal ligations be covered by insurance, but not that vasectomy be covered.

Except most of their complaints weren't founded. No STI treatment is mandated to be covered for free under the Affordable Care Act, and STI testing is covered for both men and women as preventative care. No reliable male hormonal contraception exists. Tubal ligations must be included, but the act says nothing about vasectomies. This doesn't mean that vasectomies won't be covered, just that they're not expressly mandated to be covered.


In addition, some men are actually upset by the law, as the theory is that women have more expensive procedures (childbirth/lady tubing-related issues) and thus use health care more often than men, which means that the provision that prohibits insurance companies from charging women more will actually result in men paying higher premiums.

Sorry, dudes. Tough shit. I'd have some sympathy if every single man who currently exists didn't owe his existence to a woman who grew him in her body.

[Feministe]