Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.
Editorials
Monday, December 18, 2000Insurance should cover
birth control methodsThe issue: A federal agency has ruled that refusal to include birth control pills and other contraceptive devices in health-insurance programs is illegal.
MILLIONS of women could benefit from a decision of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involving the inclusion of birth control pills and other contraceptives in health insurance programs.
Many insurance plans exclude contraceptives. Women's advocates have lobbied in Congress for legislation requiring inclusion but the EEOC has now become the first official body to conclude that the law already requires it.
The commission cited the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which requires equal treatment of women "affected by pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions" in all aspects of employment, including fringe benefits. The law also protects women against discrimination because they have the ability to become pregnant, not just because they are already pregnant.
Insurance companies have maintained that they are willing to cover contraceptives if employers are willing to pay for it. Some employers do; others say it is too expensive.
The EEOC rejected opposition based on cost, noting the law specified that cost is not a defense. An EEOC attorney added that studies have found the cost is minimal.
The issue become much more visible when the male impotence drug Viagra came onto the market in 1998. Women's groups argued it was unfair that many insurance companies covered Viagra but did not cover birth control.
Indeed, the advent of Viagra may have been exactly what this cause needed. Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, noted, "It made people say, 'Oh my God, how dare they!' "
Given the huge numbers of women affected, it seems inevitable that birth control pills will be covered by insurance. The decision of the EEOC is the breakthrough that had to come eventually.
Indonesian loan
payment is withheld
THE International Monetary Fund has withheld a $400 million loan payment to Indonesia because it is dissatisfied with the slow pace of economic reform. The step is another blow to President Abdurrahman Wahid's 14-month-old floundering government.
The IMF has demanded that Indonesia sell state banks and pay off its debt. But the government has been slow to take decisive measures. The IMF move could damage the shaky economy and create more political trouble for the president, who has been under heavy criticism.
Indonesia was to get the money this month out of a $5 billion IMF loan. The institution won't dispatch a new review team to Jakarta until early next year, meaning the aid wouldn't be disbursed until February at the earliest.
The move comes as Indonesia is at what the IMF says is a "crucial stage" in its economic program, with investors harboring doubts about the government.
The delay is the second in the three-year program Indonesia signed with the IMF last February. IMF loan programs have repeatedly been disrupted by political upheaval, allegations of corruption and ethnic violence.
Wahid must find ways to get his government moving faster on reform or risk abandonment by the international financial community.
Teen-age murders
FOR whatever reason, 1999 saw the national homicide arrest rate for juveniles down an astonishing 68 percent from its peak in 1993. The turnaround brought the arrest rate down to its lowest level in 33 years. That certainly qualifies as a good news story.
FBI statistics show that the juvenile arrest rate for four major violent crimes -- murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- plunged 36 percent from its 1994 peak to 1999.
Much of the decline has come among black teen-agers in major cities, who were largely responsible for a wave of violent crime in the late 1980s and early 1990s. But there were also sharp declines in murders by white youths.
According to James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University, the murder rate by black teen-agers fell from 244 per 100,000 youths in 1993 to 67 in 1999. The white teen murder rate fell from 21 per 100,000 in 1993 to 10 per 100,000 in 1999.
What explains this remarkable reversal? Experts cite a decline in the use of crack cocaine, police crackdowns on illegal guns and expanded crime prevention programs in the schools.
It adds up to evidence that increased law enforcement and prevention efforts can make a difference -- a life or death difference.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
