When I was a teen, the nearest health center was a LBGT-friendly one. And we got LOTS of free condoms.
Of course, I didn’t actually use any until much later in life. But still…
I used to volunteer for planned parenthood and they gave me all sorts of condom goodies to hand out wherever I went. I’m asexual so it was fun for me to swat down men asking if they could use them on me! “Do you want the free awesome condoms, or do you want to piss off the safe sex fairy? That’s what I thought. Go have fun now.”
Around Halloween, condoms taped to a stick like a sucker. Actually year round for fun. Those were always a big hit at parties. “Hey want a sucker? This will make it safe!”
Xmas, they had red and green flavored condoms. Red was peppermint green was fruity.
Going to a convention they would ship me with several hundred glittery shiny package condoms. I had an alligator clip necklace for those shiny bitches. Got so much love for it.
You name it, they did it with condoms. Because why the hell not make it fun??
Sadly I’m too old to social these days (jk I’m just not an event person anymore). Or I’d keep it up for sure.
The local Planned Parenthood had a basket of them inside the entryway doors whether they were open or not when I was a teen in the 90s.
And yeah, fun to fuck around with them as a teenager when you’re not going to get to fuck using them.
If you are a laborer and not an owner or a board member then I don’t give a fuck what your job is, you deserve to get paid more. Wages have been stagnant for 50 years, but labor value has increased 3 fold. For non owners everyone needs their salaries tripled just to get us back on track.
Eh, some jobs are overpayed. Unironically, software development is overpaid.
Doesn’t Medicare Part D already cover stuff like penis pumps? Have sworn I read that somewhere.
I think you should just be happy with what you got. There’s people with worse problems than being a needle dick.
Apparently, they are also used for treating erectile disfunction.
Abso-fucking-lutely.
They also say HIV testing for prevention needs to be covered but my state run institution violates it and charges $280. Fuck you MU Healthcare, you homophobic fucks!!!
That is awful. In MN you can get free HIV testing and free Prep, I can’t imagine paying hundreds of dollars for HIV testing.
I ended up going with Mistr since it’s free. Though I don’t like having to milk the blood out of my finger, I’d rather go to the clinic.
Sounds like a good idea, I don’t see why not. Now if only I had health insurance…
I finally got insurance. Now if only I had sex.
Now if only we can bundle them together.
new progressive comersal insues “With our new bundle we bundled intamacy and pation with your boat insurance”
You really want to go the pharmacy and hand them your ID and insurance card while the look you up and say “actually these condoms are ‘ribbed for her pleasure’ rather than ‘skin-feel’ so are not covered, also you’re over your condom allowance”. That would be so awkward barely anyone would bother.
They’ll give you the cheapo Lifestyles condoms from college campuses. The ones seemingly designed to break.
Those are still high quality compared to the Romed ones that were occasionally handed out at our high school. It’s a miracle my first girlfriend didn’t have to get an abortion tbh. We decided it was safer to just pull out.
I mean depends on how many you get per month.
“Shit, sorry babe, I haven’t hit my deductable… I need some money for more condoms.”
In France you can just pick up condom packs for free at any drug store if you are under 26
Omw to france to pickup some condoms
Inevitably it will only be covered by Medicare, commence pulling apart the grilled cheese sandwich.
A desperate attempt by Kamala to win more votes?
The White House: *does anything*
Idiots: DERE JEST DOING IT FUR VOTES!!!
Also idiots: DA DUMOCRATES HAVUNT DUN ENYTHING DURRING DERE TURM!!!1!!
Shhhhhh… The adults are working…
Go finish your beer.
How dare she… Give people the things they want for votes… The outrage!
that’s the hardest ratio on this site I’ve SEEN. The only upvote from one hundred and six people was from yourself.
I’ve got plus around 500 and minus around 500 on Reddit once EDIT: in the same day. Don’t remember which was which. The upvoted comment was vague approval of USSR’s actually existent checks and balances. I suspect the other one was generally the same at the same subreddit. I suspect when Redditors see something vague, they just guess, and then the next Redditor only looks at the vote count.
Let me fix that for you: a politician’s attempt to court disengaged voters by presenting a popular proposal. AKA democracy.
An interesting cause to embrace two weeks before an election, then.
Is it tho?
It’s better than pretending to work at a fast food restaurant while also ignoring health codes.
(White House does anything)
This person: Why are they interfering with the election?!
They’ve been in office for 4 years and they finally think about the voters. What reaction do you expect?
Perhaps the voting public to have a bit more reflection than you seem to. It’s not like this is the one thing they’ve done in four years.
Harris is in serious danger of losing to Trump. It takes a special kind of terrible candidate to be able to do that. Only Hillary Clinton accomplished it in the past. If Trump gets re-elected though, maybe the Dems can try for a new world record by launching three failed impeachments next term instead of two.
Who exactly should they have run, and did you canvass for that person?
Remember, that person also has to want to run.
they finally think about the voters.
Okay so apparently you’ve been burying your head in the sand because it’s been nothing but progress in the past four years. From college forgiveness, to decriminalization, drop in violent crime, expanding overtime…
But nah it’s cool bro THANKS BRANDON or whatever y’all say
I wouldn’t say “nothing but progress”. There was that railroad union busting thing. And the student loan thing (though that was the Republicans’ fault). And currently there’s the whole genocide thing.
But on the other other hand there was the CHIPS act which is massively expanding chip foundries within the country, the IRA which has crap loads of federal money for energy efficient upgrades to homes and businesses, or the Build Back Better act which provided a crap load of federal money for infrastructure improvements. Most of these will be extremely slow burn bills that will be incredibly instrumental in the long term improvement of the country but won’t be immediately obvious to voters
So do they just have to stop governing at some point in order to receive your blessing. Exactly how many weeks/months out should they stop governing?
Damn those dems using common sense policies to win votes!!
I want my representatives to use fear mongering and do absolutely nothing!
No, thats not what I think
…I think
- Musk stan who sees no problem handing out a million dollars for a voting pledge
What is your specific issue with this policy?
I get that you think it is being done as a political stunt, but what is the actual issue you have with it aside from that?
Its a handout to condom companies and stores that otherwise would have to compete on price. Granted, I don’t know how it would be implemented, but these tend not to be implemented well
So it’s better to make people pay for their own condoms and other OTC contraceptives rather than have insurance cover it? Because that sounds worse to me.
Yes, insurance exists for unexpected events, that’s why its insurance. A condom is a cost you willingly accept. And to be honest, primary care often shouldn’t be insurable, but since plans are required to cover it without price discrimination it kills direct primary care- so this is something that has to be accepted. Now, if medicare/medicaid and other programs choose to cover it that’s a different thing, but requiring all plans cover it is dumb. But I guess plans don’t really have to compete that much on price and value-added that much anymore post-ACA anyways
Then insurance should also not cover things like breast exams and colonoscopies, right?
They are not unexpected events.
As I said in theory insurance shouldn’t cover primary care, but this is required post-ACA, and I think before too but I’m not sure starting from when. I think direct primary care could be great(but there are also otherways to do it, like optional primary care insurance).
For some preventative things insurance would choose to cover it if it weren’t required to save them money in the long run.
You didn’t answer my question.
Should breast exams and colonoscopies be covered by insurance?
Insurance is why the cost of healthcare is out of control in the US.
A desperate attempt by Kamala to limit the number of women dying from pregnancy complications since they have little to no access to abortion?
I don’t really think of proposing new policies as “desperate” so much as just trying to outline her goals to people who are still undecided.
Now if she went out and did some weird photoshoot stunt, I might start to pull out the desperate label.
The good ol’ Mickey D’s strategy
The condom part is silly.
Cost and availability aren’t barriers to condom usage. They sell 36 packs of condoms at Walmart for like $15. Basically every single convenience store sells them for prices that, while massively inflated, are pretty low in the grand scheme of things. Most college health centers give them out for free.
The reason people don’t wear them is because doing it raw just feels better.
I know, right? Like who can’t afford $2/year?
Either you scrape together a few bucks in spare change now, or 18 years of child support/penicillin later.
For some, that’s less than a month’s supply.
For many people price is a barrier. One which has no need to exist, and only exists because for some reason Christian bosses don’t want to recognize that their employees have sex, and get all weird about it.
College health centers usually only hand them out to their students. Do you think people stop having sex after they graduate?
This is besides the fact that the best way to reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancies on the whole is to provide and encourage contraceptives. One way to do that is make condoms and contraception covered by healthcare.
Edit to add: man, I get enough awkwardness buying my partner’s tampons if she needs a top-off. I certainly don’t want her knowing my dick size.
Look I’m sorry but this is ridiculous. The type of people to not be able to afford $15/month most likely don’t have insurance, or even access to a pharmacy. While there isn’t any real data on the venn diagram of people having sex more than once a day and being too poor to afford an extra 50¢ per day for every extra sex session, but I suspect it is vanishingly small.
At some point this is just virtue signaling. It’s eyeroll inducing.
First off, condoms break…not often but they do.
secondly, some use toys that may or may not need to be also covered.
Third, you really should be changing condoms after anal and going to something else.
Finally there are people that are incredibly… uh… horny. I’m not one of them, but yes, they do in fact exist. There’s a reason many senior living homes pass around free condoms, too.
And on the note of people having health insurance… that’s also a problem that should be solved. But that’s rather off topic.
Why wouldnt you want your partner to know your dick size?
None of their business
I’m very curious how you have sex with them.
I imagine that- like their size- they wouldn’t want you to know
Well sure, but this conversation isn’t linked to their identity
If you’re having sex more than once very day but can’t come up with $15, you should go fuck yourself (pun intended)
College health centers usually only hand them out to their students. Do you think people stop having sex after they graduate?
No but they can afford them with their easy-to-get high paying job due to graduating right? /s
Don’t be embarrassed, nobody gives a shit about that stuff. Also… if you’re using condoms… how would she not already know your dick size!?
Funny… so I’m leaving it… but you do know I was referring to the cashier knowing?
And yes, this particular cashier does comment on the tampons- and given the whole-getting-hit-on-thing, the less she knows about me the better.
(Walmart Lady needs higher standards.)
Your Walmart doesn’t have self-checkout? Or other open lanes? It’s one particular cashier? Regardless if she’s harassing you like that you need to let her/management know.
Prevents abortions, Republicans should be all for this, right? Right?
No. They should be free to all people, even those without insurance.
They should, but universal healthcare is not yet in the cards unfortunately. This is better than it was.
Everything is in the cards.
It really isn’t considering the probable makeup of the house and senate next year.
What about the 11 of Hearts?
Their utility in both sexual and nonsexual applications makes coverage for just one use impractical. Soil testing machines and powdered metal formers use condoms to contain the loose material in the pressure vessel. They make hilarious balloons. They can keep gunpowder dry in combat.
I interned at a reseach lab that had powdered metal machines that used condoms. For a while, condoms were available as an open stores item. They pulled them due to way more being consumed than made sense for the amount of powdered metal research.
Hot take: the few people still having sex can buy their own comdoms
Condoms are literally a public heath necessity. Even more so in states that banned abortion. My state provides free contraception to teens, and the drastic drop in stds and teen pregnancies paid off the funding for the program in months. Over the years tens of billions will be saved by my state.
Nothing stopping everyone else from having a posh wank now and again.
Health Insurance needs to not exist and Universal Healthcare juts cover all the stuff people need to stay healthy and live productive lives. From sexual healthcare to mental healthcare and of course medicine and anything else you’d need to see a doctor or medical professional for.
Health Insurance needs to not exist
Australia has a hybrid system with both public and private health care, and I think there’s merit to that idea.
For example, some procedures have a long waiting list at public hospitals (given there’s limits to how much they can get done per day), but much shorter waits at private ones that are covered by private health plans. I never had private health coverage when I lived in Australia though.
As a fellow Australian, no. No there is not merit to it. It’s a two tier system, rigged for wealthier people to have better health outcomes.
Have you been to the GP lately? Have you seen what crazy out of pocket costs there are at hospitals? It’s gotten way worse in recent years.
Are you aware of the insanely different wait times between the public and private systems? It’s not a feature to pay to skip the cue.
Are you aware that if it’s not done in a hospital, then not even private health insurance can cover the gap if Medicare doesn’t?
Private health is a fucking scourge. And it’s a fucking joke to say that pay-walling healthcare makes overall wait times lower.
If we just had ACTUAL universal healthcare, wait-times would be equitable, and then maybe the upper end of town would actually want to fund healthcare properly, instead of these brain-dead tax cuts.
We are sitting on a pile of money (mining) that private companies are paying very little tax on.
We could be Norway. Would have been if we managed to get mining super tax through.
There is no merit to this bullshit private hybrid system. It’s getting worse by the year.
Thanks for the comment! I’m Aussie but I’ve lived in the USA for around a decade, so I wasn’t aware of how bad it had gotten. I had only ever used the public system in Australia and never had issues with it up until when I left. My parents didn’t have a lot of money, and my job didn’t pay too well, so I was heavily reliant on the public system.
It honestly sounds like health care in the USA is better (for me personally, not in general) compared to the state of health care in Australia at the moment. My employer pays most of the cost (which is common at large companies) and my plan covers both my wife and I. On my insurance, doctors visits are flat rate $15, and hospital stays are $100 max. A lot of medication are fully covered and cost me nothing out-of-pocket. I need to use a CPAP for sleep apnea, and the machine and supplies are both fully covered. There’s a $4000 out of pocket maximum per year after which everything is covered 100%.
The problem in the USA is that there’s no universal health care. There’s a huge divide between people that are doing well vs people that aren’t having a good time. The prices are crazy for people that don’t have good health insurance - usually people that are lower income, self-employed, or unemployed.
Thanks for your response. I don’t have personal experience, but from what I hear, even with our flawed system, I don’t think it’s too hard to say that I’d much rather have a horrifically expensive health crisis happen to me here, no matter how wealthy I am.
Just judging by the horror stories, because while out-of-pockets are getting stupid, the Medicare safety net, and private health maximums are actually much, much lower than what you’ve quoted. And the obvious fact that having health insurance tied to your employer is some really awful power dynamics.
But, this is just my rough jist/feeling.
I just get triggered by Australians telling others on the internet that our system is good haha. Our system could be a hell of a lot more universal, if you ask this Aussie 😅
Appreciate the chats.
