Sen. Mark Udall won’t say if he supports over-the-counter birth control

Udall’s response was painful to hear.

Just as with Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes’ attempts Thursday to avoid giving Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a soundbite saying she voted for Obama, Udall appears to not want to provide a soundbite of him agreeing with his opponent, so he offered up some boilerplate rhetoric instead.

Gardner asked Udall directly whether he opposed making over-the-counter birth control available, to which Udall responded by posing a question of his own. But Gardner didn’t let him finish.

“I asked you the question,” Gardner said.

Rather than saying whether he agreed or not, Udall then said that the way Gardner proposed access to over-the counter coverage was “the wrong way to proceed.”

Asked two more times if he did then support coverage, Udall just repeated: “The wrong way to proceed.”

Asked how he would proceed, Udall said he wouldn’t remove the current birth control coverage included in Obamacare — namely that women with health insurance have no co-pay for generic forms of birth control.

Asked yet again if he supported over-the-counter contraception, Udall just stared at the audience and smiled.

After being asked once more if he supported the measure, Udall said: “I answered your question.”

“No you didn’t,” Gardner said.

Under Obamacare, a select group of women receive birth control that is fully covered by insurance — those that already have health insurance and are on a generic form of contraception. Of course, that “free” birth control comes with higher premiums for everyone, but still.

Offering the pill over the counter would actually increase access for millions of uninsured women. And as for claims that it would mean contraception would be too expensive for those women if it were over the counter — remember when the allergy medication Claritin was offered over the counter, the cost didn’t explode.