A closer look at the iPhone 4s’ voice-activated assistant Siri revealed that “she” is currently unable to provide accurate or even any information for women in search of reproductive health services. Now, one crisis pregnancy center in Boise, Idaho is simply “thrilled by the recent discovery that Siri does not promote or provide abortion information or referrals”:

Brandi Swindell, Founder and President of Stanton Healthcare, states,

“We applaud Apple iPhone’s 4S Siri and are thrilled that Siri does not list or refer to abortion clinics. Numerous lives will be saved as a direct result. Siri is setting the standard for all organizations — no one should ever refer anyone to get an abortion. [...]

As a woman I’m delighted that Siri is embracing a position that promotes the dignity of women and upholds human rights in the womb.

“It is my hope that Apple remains steadfast and does not cave under any pressure brought by the abortion industry to start marketing abortion clinics.” Swindell states. “This is a huge win for women and a significant step in the right direction.”

It is important to note that Apple’s Siri is not necessarily “embracing” any position and that the search results simply reflect the woefully narrow ability of its answer-engine. NARAL Pro-Choice President Nancy Keenan sent a letter to Apple registering the organization’s disappointment that “a tool like Siri is missing the mark when it comes to providing information about such personal health issues” and re-directing woman to deceptive crisis pregnancy centers. “Although Siri is not the principal resource for women’s health care, I hope you agree that it is important that the women who are using this application not be misled about their pregnancy-related options,” she said.

Despite growing evidence — and video footage — that he has previously supported a national health insurance mandate, Newt Gingrich continues to characterize the Affordable Care Act as a government takeover of the health care system that he would repeal on his first day in office. But a closer look at Gingrich’s past health care proposals, his work at the Center for Health Transformation, and numerous books about health care reform, suggest that the law he seeks to repeal includes many aspects of his own health care philosophies and proposals.

As the table below demonstrates, the provisions included in President Obama’s health reform law are more progressive than Gingrich would have allowed, but they aim to expand coverage and lower health care costs in very similar ways:

Mitt Romney is running around the country promising conservatives that he will repeal the Affordable Care Act through executives orders (or waivers) that will allow states to opt out of implementing the health reform law. Critics — including some within the Republican party — have argued that a president does not have the authority to eliminate a law passed by Congress, and today, a report from the Congressional Research Service confirms that while Romney would be able to alter certain regulations, issuing waivers through executive authority would “likely conflict with an explicit congressional mandate and be viewed ‘incompatible with the express … will of Congress’”:

A President would not appear to be able to issue an executive order halting an agency from promulgating a rule that is statutorily required by PPACA, as such an action would conflict with an explicit congressional mandate…However, Presidents have issued executive orders on regulatory review that have increased the President’s involvement in agency rule making generally. [...]

A President would not appear to be able to issue an executive order halting statutorily-required programs or mandatory appropriations for a new grant or other program in PPACA, and there are a variety of different types of these programs…However, there may be instances where PPACA leaves discretion to the Secretary to take actions to implement a mandatory program, and…an executive order directing the Secretary to take particular actions may be analyzed as within or beyond the PResident’s powers to provide for the discretion of the executive branch.”

Romney admits that he won’t be able to eliminate the entire law through executive authority and save a Republican majority in the senate, has pledged to use the reconciliation process to undo the rest of the measure. But that too isn’t possible, since “budget reconciliation bill would have to apply only to the budget-related elements of the new law” and would leave many portions of the law intact. Romney would end up “creating a chaotic environment driven by enormous uncertainty over just which parts of the new health care law would be implemented–for consumers, health care providers, and insurers.”

Unfortunately, this reality hasn’t stopped the former Massachusetts governor from telling voters that he will easily repeal Obamacare on “day one.”

A new Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds that support for the Affordable Care Act increased since its lowest approval dip in October, but Americans are still unsure of the actual provisions included in President Obama’s health care reform law. For instance, while 44 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of reform, 50 percent want to expand or keep it in place, with only 37 percent supporting repeal. A majority also favor its most popular elements like easy-to-understand benefit summaries and tax credits for small businesses:

But a surprisingly high number of voters are unaware that these these provisions are actually part of the law, with a majority falsely believing the ACA includes a new public option. A third of respondents also “think the law allows a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare”:

Kaiser suggests that public disapproval of the law has less to do with the actual provisions in the law — voters either like them or don’t know about them — and more with the “general disillusionment with the state of the country and Washington politics” (and, I would add, the long drawn out and complicated process of actually passing reform). If that’s the case, then the Democrats have a real opportunity to build support for the measure by highlighting and campaigning on some of its best features, a task that will seem less daunting as a growing number of voters begin to actually benefit from the law.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) is a strong opponent of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, claiming that the “unconstitutional” law is full of “unfunded mandates” that could “overwhelm our health care system.” But a new report from a 24-member advisory council he appointed in 2010 finds that health reform would cut the number of uninsured Virginians in half and significantly reduce state expenditures on uncompensated care.

The council, which is tasked with developing recommendations for implementing the ACA in Virginia and advising the General Assembly on how to establish an exchange, is urging the state to create a quasi-government Health Benefit Exchange with a governing board, “so that Virginia policy makers will have maximum freedom to shape health insurance markets and health reform in Virginia.” As a result:

[R]oughly half of the uninsured in Virginia will gain coverage, a little more than 520,000 people, and that 420,000 of them will gain Medicaid coverage. A little over 100,000 Virginians would gain private coverage, and more than 60 percent of them will be in group as opposed to non-group markets…[A]lmost 400,000 of those who gain coverage are in households with incomes less than two times the federal poverty level, though 70,000 of the formerly uninsured earn more than three times poverty today.

Look:

According to modeling conducted for the council by the Urban Institute, uncompensated “care for the uninsured (and therefore implicit expense now borne by providers and public plus private payers) is expected to fall by over $800 million, the uninsured and demand for safety net care will not disappear from Virginia, though the scale of it should decline by roughly half.” The group also estimated that approximately 150,000 Virginians will receive federal subsidies to help them afford health insurance coverage.

McDonnell has forwarded the council’s report to the General Assembly, which must begin “planning the exchanges by 2013 so they can be operational in 2014.”

Gov. Rick Perry (R) — whose home state of Texas has the highest uninsurance rate in the nation — told a crowd in Saint Anselm College this afternoon that “everyone in the state of Texas has access to health care, everyone in America has access to health care,” adding, “from the stand point of all people in this country, our government requires that everyone is covered.” Watch it:

Perry is referring to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act or (EMTALA), a law Ronald Reagan signed, which requires hospitals that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding to treat patients for emergency medical conditions regardless of legal status or ability to pay. But EMTALA only applies to medical emergencies. “So, yes, if you’re actively giving birth, you can expect to receive care at an emergency room,” Austin Frakt and Aaron Carroll explain. “If you’re actively having a heart attack, you can also get emergency room care. If you’ve been seriously harmed in a car accident, you can go to the emergency room.”

Patients with chronic conditions that don’t require emergency interference, however — the millions of Americans with diabetes who need “regular access to medication to stay alive,” asthma patients, or women diagnosed with breast cancer — would not be able to find needed treatments under the Act and Perry himself would not have received the care or back surgery he needed under the “requirement.” Fortunately, he has benefited from years of tax payer funded health insurance coverage as governor and seems to believe that other Texans have as well.

Conservatives have been up in arms ever since the Obama administration announced that all health insurers will be required to cover birth control and other women’s health services without charging co-pays. GOP Rep. Steve King (IA) warned that free birth control would make America a “dying civilization,” while Fox contributors mused that it was a liberal conspiracy to “eradicate the poor,” and chided women who use it to just “stop having irresponsible sex.”

Now some Republicans and religious groups have adopted a new meme for attacking government subsidized birth control, claiming it’s religious persecution against Christians. The Catholic bishops, “one of this country’s largest and well funded lobby groups,” say that the birth control mandate violates Church teaching, and Fox News has gleefully picked up the argument. Fox hosts Steve Doocy and Neil Cavuto ran segments with titles like “Anti-Catholic Administration? Critics Complain About Admin’s Policies” — disguising conservatives’ assault on women’s rights as a matter of religious freedom.

That’s despite the fact that the administration included a “conscience clause” to the new rule — essentially a caveat allowing “religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraception services.” The provision mirrors the most common exemption in the 28 states that already require employers to offer contraceptive coverage if they cover other prescription drugs and devices.

It’s a bit hard to follow the logic of religious groups that say non-Church members using birth control somehow infringes on Christians’ rights or to believe that religious organizations are terribly oppressed in more than half of the nation. Providing access to safe, effective contraception is actually the best thing government could do to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions. But some Christian groups believe that birth control is tantamount to abortion and have been pushing to have it criminalized through “personhood” legislation.

Disappointingly, the Obama administration is considering caving to the demands of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and other far right religious groups that want him to significantly expand the exemption to include all religiously affiliated entities and potentially deny affordable contraception to the millions of women who are employed by these organizations.

An overwhelming majority of Americans — 78 percent — support government subsidized birth control and almost 99 percent of women rely on it (in fact, just 2 percent of sexually active Catholic women have not used some form of modern contraception). Yet the line of attack conservatives have chosen illustrates their habit of making themselves the victims of the story, instead of the people aggressively trying to impose their religious doctrine onto others and constrain women’s choices.

GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich insists that a national health insurance mandate is unconstitutional, claiming that if lawmakers can ask Americans to purchase health insurance coverage, then Congress “could compel you to do anything.” But the former speaker had in fact supported a national requirement as recently as 2007, and in 2005 made a strong case not just for the provision but also for a “transfer of finances” to help extend coverage to lower income Americans.

Below is an excerpt from a health care debate with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton:

GINGRICH: Some aspect of the working poor has to involve transfer of finances. To ask people in the lowest paying jobs to bear the full burden of their health insurance is just irrational, it’s not going to happen…One of my conclusions in the last six years, funding the Center for Health Transformation, and looking at what our system is, unless you have 100 percent coverage, you can’t have the right preventive care and you can’t have a rational system. [...]

If I see someone who’s earning over $50,000 a year, who has made the calculated decision not to buy health insurance. I’m looking at someone who’s absolutely as irresponsible as anybody who is ever on welfare….I’m actually in favor of saying, whatever the appropriate income is, you ought to either have health insurance, or you ought to post a bond. But we have no room in this society to have a free rider approach if you’re well off economically to say we’ll cheat our neighbors.

Watch it:

During an interview with the Union Leader last week, Gingrich said he “never focused on [the mandate] much on the federal level” and claimed, in direct contradiction of the above remarks, that his work at the Center for Health Transformation convinced him that a mandate wouldn’t work. “We finally concluded that you couldn’t do it, that it was too hard,” he said of the mandate. That too is inaccurate, since the Center’s website still says, “Anyone who earns more than $50,000 a year must purchase health insurance or post a bond.”

“What may I help you with?” So begins Siri — the unique voice-activated assistant of the iPhone 4s that promises to deliver accurate and tailored answers for your every need. Unless you’re a woman in search of health services like birth control, emergency contraception, abortion, or even mammogram tests. Then the interactive search wizard draws a blank.

As RH Reality Check notes today, Siri “appears to have a blind spot” when asked a few simple, even standard reproductive health questions like “Where can I go to get an abortion?” or “Where can I go for birth control?”:

Q: I am pregnant and do not want to be. Where can I go to get an abortion?

“I’m really sorry about this, but I can’t take any requests right now. Please try again in a little while.”

“Sorry, [my name], I can’t look for places in Tanzania.”

“I don’t see any abortion clinics. Sorry about that.”

Q: I had unprotected sex. Where can I go for emergency contraception?

“Sorry, I couldn’t find any adult retail stores.” This was repeated every time.

Q: I need birth control. Where can I go for birth control?

“I didn’t find any birth control clinics.” [This was repeated every time I asked about birth control, all three times. This is also the answer given when I asked, “What is birth control?”]

When ThinkProgress tried to independently verify Siri’s results on these questions, the responses were largely consistent with what other users reported. Searching for “abortion clinics near me” in D.C. yielded only two results — one “crisis pregnancy center” 24 miles away and another 74 miles away, in Pennsylvania. There are several clinics much closer that offer actual abortion services. Siri offered no results for “where can I find birth control?” or “women’s health clinic,” but she would locate Planned Parenthood centers if asked directly. More disturbingly, Siri would not respond to pleas for help for sexual assault or rape clinics, and services for emergency contraception.
Read more

A new report out today from the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers finds that while state budgets are slowly growing, Medicaid costs “continue to outpace the growth in tax revenue.” From the report:

Factors causing rapid growth in Medicaid costs for states include: increased enrollments (because of both the weak economy and expanded eligibility under health care reform); the elimination of federal funds associated with the enhanced matching rate of state costs from the Recovery Act; and per capita health care costs in general increasing faster than the economy. With Medicaid costs growing significantly and state revenue collections growing at a much slower pace, states are likely to face tight fiscal conditions for the foreseeable future.

Consequently, most states have already tried to contain Medicaid spending by restricting provider reimbursements or reducing certain Medicaid benefits, and are now looking to further expand “managed care and coordinated care options, using health homes for those with chronic conditions, pursuing dual eligible initiatives to provide managed care services for those eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.” For 2012, state budgets “call for a $19.4 billion increase in Medicaid spending, which already accounts for more than a fifth of total spending.”

Some Republicans, including Michele Bachmann, have begun attacking current GOP presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich on abortion, claiming that the former House Speaker is insufficiently conservative on the issue. Before Thanksgiving, Bachmann accused Gingrich of failing to “uphold a consistently pro-life stance throughout his career in public life” and “stem the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood.”

If anything, Bachmann’s attacks are an indication of how far the Republican party has shifted, that there is now room on the right to attack Gingrich’s anti-abortion record. As the Des Moines Register’s Jennifer Jacobs notes, the places where Gingrich has fallen short have been mainstream GOP policy positions for decades:

– On abortion: The New York Times on April 10, 1995, reported, “House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday supported the availability of federally financed abortions for poor women who are victims of rape or incest and expressed opposition to organized school prayer, positions that are at odds with many conservatives in his party.” Also asked that year on CBS’s “Face the Nation” whether he agrees with Republicans who oppose federal abortion payments in cases of rape or incest or to protect the life of the mother, Gingrich answered: “No. First of all, I think you should have funding in the case of rape or incest or life of the mother, which is the first step.

– On partial birth abortion: Gingrich addressed the RNC meeting on Jan. 16, 1998, calling for tolerance of candidates who support partial-birth abortion, saying he would campaign for them: “It’s the voters of America who have a right — in some places they’re going to pick people who are to my right, some places they’re going to pick people who are to my left and in both cases, if they’re the Republican nominee, I am going to actively campaign for them.”

– On stem-cell research: On ABC News’ “This Week” on July 8, 2001, Sam Donaldson asked: “So he should approve stem cell research on embryos?” Gingrich answered: “On embryonic cells that, that are pre-fetal.”

Recall that even President George W. Bush — no friend to the pro-choice movement — supported abortion in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother and his father had been an outspoken proponent of family planning earlier in his career. As a congressman, the elder Bush advocated for family planning services to be available to every woman, calling it a “public health matter,” championed Title X funding, lobbied President Richard Nixon to enact the program, and described family planning as an effort “that help[s] further work of such worldwide importance, something for which this country can be justly proud.” In 1967, Governor Ronald Reagan even signed “one of the nation’s most liberal abortion laws, which permitted abortion in cases of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life.”

The Washington Posts’ Jennifer Rubin is attributing the failure of the super committee to Democrats’ refusal to accept partial Medicare privatization and any cuts to the Affordable Care Act. It’s a meme first advanced by super committee co-chairman Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and echoed by conservatives like James Capretta:

In this regard, nearly all of the mainstream reporting has taken for granted that ObamaCare is off limits from budget cutters. Reporters and the left punditocracy have declined to even recognize that the real “intransigence” was not on the part of Republicans (who offered up more revenue) but on the part of Democrats who insisted that ObamaCare remain pristine (despite the serial revelations that the plan is not unfolding as anticipated) and who refused respond with a serious counteroffer on tax reform.

The second issue revolves around Medicare. The Republicans last spring presented Rep. Paul Ryan’s premium support plan. Then in the supercommittee they offered the Rivlin-Domenici plan that would have allowed seniors to opt for traditional Medicare. But, as Capretta points out, the Democrats’ answer is to keep traditional Medicare and simply limit fees to providers, a recipe for shortages and denial of care.

First, it’s unclear why unwinding the Affordable Care Act — which reduces the deficit by billions of dollars — would make for good policy if you’re truly interesting in lowering the federal debt. That kind of thing would only be of use to partisans seeking to squash the President Obama’s signature accomplishment during an election year. Anyone truly interested in reducing health care spending should be looking for ways to ratchet up the cost savings already included in the law, rather than tear them down. (As is, the ACA is “projected to reduce aggregate spending by 6 percent over the 10 year period.”)

And as for the Medicare privatization plan, if Rubin or Capretta can explain how the ever-depreciating premium support proposal isn’t a cost shift to beneficiaries, I’d like to hear it. For the time being, Democrats — who themselves offered billions in Medicare and Medicaid cuts — are fighting with Republicans to preserve the sequestration process in the the Budget Control Act. The triggers will apply to any mandatory spending not specifically exempted, meaning that health reform provisions like grants to states for establishing exchanges, the public health prevention fund, and mandatory funding for community health centers could all be vulnerable to reductions. How is that for “off limits”?

Today, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is announcing the creation of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science, “an effort aimed at converting basic discoveries into new cancer therapies.” The Institute is so significant that Gov. Rick Perry — who regularly praises Texas’ state-of-the-art cancer center and medical research facilities — is taking time off the campaign trail to appear at the announcement.

Interestingly, the center — as well as the University of Texas — is the beneficiary of millions of dollars in federal grants and funding — all of which Perry staunchly opposes and regularly condemns as symptoms of government largess. For instance, the Cancer Center received $1.2 million in state and federal grants in 2010 and $500,000 in fiscal year 2011, including $633,206 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The University of Texas also benefited from funding included in the Affordable Care Act.

Texas itself has also benefited greatly from health care reform, accepting more than $380 million in early grants and other aid from the federal health law and is currently “waiting for final approval of a new waiver from federal Medicaid rules that could allow the state to draw down an additional $12 billion in funds from the federal government.”