Greedy Breastfeeding Mothers Featured on NPR

I whipped up this letter in response to a really terrible NPR piece on breast pumps.

Dear Mr. Siegel and Ms. Chace,
I'm amazed that this piece was deemed good enough to air on NPR.  You portray breastfeeding mothers as greedy people trying to get a luxury good for free.  Your economist's opinions were promoted over actual information by breastfeeding and health experts.
 "CHACE: But our economist, Katherine Baicker, isn't so sure that eliminating the cost of the breast pumps really induces much extra breastfeeding. Rather, she thinks most of the money spent will go towards people who would have been breastfeeding anyway."
What is the evidence she has for this?
"BAICKER: So the question is whether the value that those people get from the breast pumps is worth the cost in terms of increased health spending and increased premiums."
Actually, that's not the question.  The question is, is a breastpump, which allows a mother to give her baby the healthiest food possible, full of antibodies and cancer-fighting cells, as important as other aspects of the baby’s medical care?  Of course it is.

"CHACE: For the record, Baicker thinks there are better ways to get more people to breastfeed, cheaper ways that don't include encouraging women who already have a working breast pump to go out and get a second one for example. The details of the new provision are still to come, like which pumps, the expensive gold-plated versions, accessories? Which ones?"
Why aren't Chace and NPR sharing those “better ways” with us?  They seem more interested in the fatal flaw they've found among breastfeeding mothers: their greediness.
What a misguided, offensive piece.  I am a working mother of two who has pumped for both children at work.  The breastpump allows me to maintain my supply so I can breastfeed when I'm with my kids.  A breast pump is not a luxury good.