As many of you are probably aware, federal law (specifically, the “Hyde amendment“), does not allow federal funding for abortion. Less well known, perhaps, is Title X, which does provide federal funding for contraception. Comes now Jason Millman of The Washington Post, “who explains that public investment in family planning helped prevent 2.2 million unexpected pregnancies in 2010, saving taxpayers a total of $13.6 billion”(quoted from the WaPo, as is this):

By preventing these unintended pregnancies, Medicaid saved $15.2 billion in maternity and infant care and $409 million on miscarriage care. An additional $123 million was saved through testing for sexually transmitted infections and the HIV, and $23 million was saved through Pap and HPV testing and vaccines. According to the report, these savings translate into a $7.09 return on investment for every public dollar spent in 2010. The researchers estimate that there are more opportunities for improved health outcomes and savings as a result of the Affordable Care Act, which will likely increase patient visits to publicly-funded health centers.

Let’s look at that again: a $7 dollar return for every $1 invested. Seven dollars. Seven.

Damn, I am just not getting over that. This is the kind of return on investment free market folks love-except it’s not a product of a free market. It’s the product of a government policy which says “Hey, one of the reasons for the continued existence of poverty is unplanned childbearing. Let’s do something about that, and maybe poverty will decrease”. For those on the right, this represents thousands of welfare babies who were not born. Thousands of welfare moms who aren’t on welfare, or are using less welfare. For those on the left, it represents untold amounts of added opportunity for people who otherwise wouldn’t have had any, or would have had less. (I say “untold” here because it’s not clear to me that this little study is getting much airplay, what with OMG EBOLA WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE RUN FOR THE HILLS!!!1!)

This is real health policy in action; what policies can we put in place which will improve people’s lives, reduce the real costs paid by everyone, and do both of these things using the fewest of everyone’s dollars possible. Apparently paying for contraception is one of the places the money should be spent. There’s likely a point of reducing return, but I doubt very much we’ve reached it yet. I recommend we work harder to find where it is, and I further note that (from the above analysis) while we may describe it differently, this is a place where (some) conservatives and (some) liberals might be able to work together. Anyone ready?