Was looking into the procedure of vasectomies (which are freely available in my country) and I always see some line like this in Wikipedia for most interesting medical procedures or other important services.
The U.S. Affordable Care Act (signed into law in 2010) does not cover vasectomies, although eight states require state-health insurance plans to cover the cost.
Why the heck are Unitedstadians even patriotic at all if they live on the basis of “this basic thing is only ensured on a state-by-state basis”.
Sorry gonna semi-hijack this thread to go off about tubal ligation (sterilization for someone with a uterus) in the US.
Although the ACA requires insurance plans to cover tubal ligation, 18 states allow providers to set their own policies and these policies can be used to prevent access. Specifically for white cis women, they will deny the procedure for being childless or having “only” one child, being unmarried (to a cis man), or being deemed too young. Even if they’re married, doctors will sometimes demand their husband’s approval. And even if none of these conditionals apply, the provider might add additional hurdles like needing a psychologist’s approval. And of course, there’s the “religious objection” card to be played at any time. 1 in 7 people in the US get care from a hospital aligned with the Catholic Church, so that’s a lot of religious control over women’s bodies.
Now if we’re talking about BIPOC cis woman, especially those in poverty, incarceration, or other precarious situations, the system will trip over itself to find reasons to forcibly sterilize them. Also any woman who are disabled or have autism have no trouble whatsoever getting sterilized if they ask.
I wonder why there are so many barriers for white, allistic, able-bodied women to get sterilized and so easy to do for all other women. What a mystery.
It is truly baffling how the Freedom Land has so many barriers for people trying to access a thing that they’re already paying for when it’s useful for them rather than for the KKK. And considering that it was explicit state policy until not that long ago to sterilise non-white people (particularly Native people) and there were even criminal hysterectomies happening in the border camps just 4 years ago it’s no surprise that this is still implicitly policy. A lot of doctors are old enough to have been practising since then without facing any repercussions or re-education. The USA has to end.
Also this map is fun because it’s not even “always the same map”.