It’s unlikely that the new “Trumpcare” health plan, which barely passed the House, will make it through the Senate. Senators even stated they were creating their own variations to it, in fact.

But just in case it does, or at least in format that retains the House version’s discrimination against women, there’s one thing everyone should know: Trumpcare encourages men to cheat on their wives. And that’s no joke. 

One of the highlights of Obamacare was its inclusion of prescription contraceptives as one of 10 “essential health benefits.” Women could receive Birth control with full insurance coverage, and no co-pay. (Same went for mammograms and cancer screenings.) Over 55 million American women used this benefit after it went into effect, too.

Trumpcare removes that guaranteed, no-cost coverage, though. And prior to Obamacare’s requirement, over 60 percent of insurance companies didn’t offer full coverage of birth control medication or other contraceptives, such as intrauterine devices (IUDs).

Perhaps the biggest insult in these changes is that, even though guaranteed coverage of birth control for women is now lost, insurance coverage of erectile dysfunction medication is still protected. That’s right – according to the Republican men who wrote this bill and pushed it through the House, it’s birth control: no, Viagra: yes.
​
The conservative argument for this is a moral one, they claim. Sex is only for procreation. Birth control prevents pregnancy, thus allowing sex for pleasure only, which is immoral. ED medications like Viagra and Cialis, though, are morally valid because they aid procreation. Religious leaders have long defended that claim, too. 

But there’s a flaw in that conservative argument. A major one, too. In fact, that argument leads to quite immoral circumstances.

Consider these facts:

• A huge majority of cases of ED (90 percent) occur to men in their 50s.
• Menopause, which eliminates a woman’s capability of pregnancy, occurs to women between 45 and 55 years of age.
• The average age difference between husband and wife in the U.S. is 2.3 years.

Thus, at the same time a man has erectile dysfunction, his wife can no longer become pregnant. He can’t get it up, but she can’t get knocked up. Procreation, then, can’t occur.

So the only way this conservative argument could work is if a middle-aged man took Viagra, then cheated on his wife with a younger woman, and then got that younger woman pregnant.
Thanks, conservative congressmen. You’re encouraging immoral extramarital affairs, and by using some “moral” argument of procreation.
​
(And by the way - even if the wife of a man with ED is still capable of pregnancy, he can still ejaculate without erection.)

There’s something else Republicans and Trumpcare need to learn, too. Birth control medications aren’t used for birth control alone. In fact, 58 percent of women using such prescription medicine do so for reasons other than, or not exclusively for, contraception.

Medications aren’t limited to one intended use, after all. Consider Chantix, the heavily-advertised drug to help people quit smoking. It’s also an antidepressant (and that’s what it was originally created for). Anticonvulsants are also prescribed to treat bipolar disorder.

And birth control medications are used to treat many other medical conditions, including anemia, migraines, endometriosis and even acne.

There’s more against women in Trumpcare, too. Insurance companies will also be allowed to return to discriminatory costs, charging women much more than men for basic coverage (about four times more, in fact), and allowing things like sexual abuse to return to “pre-existing conditions” that can deny women health insurance. 

So if they push this plan through, or make any changes to the needed changes that Obamacare finally gave, Republicans will have a lot of explaining to do to women.