Next Tuesday, Mississippians will go to the polls to decide on Initiative 26, a personhood amendment to the state constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Personhood amendments represent an extreme reach into a family’s privacy, essentially criminalizing abortion and potentially outlawing common forms of birth control.

Right-wing supporters of Mississippi’s personhood amendment, however, decry the fact that the bill will ban birth control as “scare tactics.” “It’s an outright lie that Initiative 26 would ban birth control pills,” said American Family Association Executive Director Brad Prewitt. “Stopping a pregnancy is not the issue; ending a pregnancy is.” Unfortunately for proponents, the Personhood movement spokesman Walter Hoye stated the opposite on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. As the Florida Independent reports, when asked if there were any restrictions on birth control in the amendment, Hoye answered “no…well, yes,” adding, “any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure,” including the pill:

HOYE: Any birth control that ends the life of a human being will be impacted by this measure.

REHM: So that would then include the IUD [intra-uterine device]. What about the birth control pill?

HOYE: If that falls into the same category, yes.

REHM: So you’re saying that the birth control pill could be considered as taking the life of a human being?

HOYE: I’m saying that once the egg and the oocyte come together and you have that single-celled embryo, at that point you have human life, you’ve got a human being and we’re taking the life of a human being with some forms of birth control and if birth control falls into that category, yes I am.

The “profoundly ambiguous” language of the amendment will affect more than just birth control. Because fertilization can be defined as either the sperm’s penetration of the egg or, as Hoye suggests, when the embryo is formed even before implantation in the uterus, the amendment could ban “forms of birth control, stem cell derivation and the destruction of embryos created though in vitro fertilization (IVF).”

Indeed, as Personhood USA President Keith Mason stated outright, “it would ban some current practices of IVF” because he sees it as “the creation of 30 or 60 embryos and then picking through them to see which ones are most likely boys or girls, or basically looking at the ones you want to give life to and destroying the rest.”

Be it an outright attack on a constitutionally protected procedure, on a woman’s personal right to prevent pregnancy, or even on a couples chance to have a child, supporters and opponents agree that Mississippi’s personhood amendment is a far-reaching blow to a woman’s — and family’s — reproductive rights.

Former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and former Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin are calling on the Super Committee to partially privatize the Medicare program for future retirees, the Hill’s Erik Wasson reports. The two budget hawks offered the proposal as part of the Bipartisan Policy Center last year, and are expected to tell the 12-member bipartisan deficit panel today that the plan is “the only reasonable, bipartisan plan to fundamentally reform that program, make it more efficient, and preserve it for future generations.” Here are the details:

The Rivlin-Domenici plan alters Medicare by giving future seniors the choice of private plans in addition to traditional Medicare. Those using the private plans would receive payments to help cover the costs of premiums. The plan differs from the controversial Medicare proposal approved in the House-passed 2012 budget which would end traditional Medicare.

Rivlin will testify that although the federal contribution would be capped at GDP growth plus one percent, “excess costs, if any, would result in an increased premium, but low and moderate income beneficiaries would be protected from these increased payments.”

The proposal is only a slight modification on Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) controversial privatization scheme and will shift costs to seniors rather than lower them. Domenici and Rivlin preserve traditional Medicare as an option for future retirees — seniors would have a choice between staying in traditional Medicare or spending their pre-determined government vouchers on private insurance coverage — but analysts who have studied similar plans argue that younger and healthier beneficiaries would have an incentive to leave the traditional program for managed care, creating a severe adverse selection spiral for seniors who remain in traditional Medicare. Seniors would also pay more for coverage because the government’s voucher would not keep up with increasing health care costs, while private insurers could theoretically design their plans in order to cherry pick the healthiest applicants out of traditional Medicare.

Henry Aaron — who developed the concept with Robert Reischauer in 1995 — has since walked away from the proposal and has said the Affordable Care Act may push Medicare to use its leverage to create much more substantial savings than the “competition” created within Medicare.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) received a chilly reaction from audience members at a listening session in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Friday, as multiple constituents challenged the House Budget Chairman on the specifics of his budget and how it would affect current and future retirees. One audience member argued that Ryan’s proposal to push seniors out of traditional Medicare and into more-expensive private coverage is tantamount to murder:

Kenosha resident David Drath, 53, told Ryan he is a kidney transplant patient who relies on support from Medicare and Social Security. “I could not survive on the proposals in your policy,” Drath said. “If they’re put in place, you might as well put a gun to my head.”

Drath, Ryan countered, would remain remain covered by traditional Medicare in spite of his age, as those already enrolled in the program would be exempt from the new system. Furthermore, Ryan said his proposal would prohibit private insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.

Watch it:

Ryan is correct in arguing that private insurers would be prohibited from denying coverage to sicker beneficiaries, but his answer carefully sidesteps the question of cost, which would increase under his proposal. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of Ryan’s proposal found that a “typical” 65-year old would be paying more under Ryan’s plan, regardless of income. “[A] typical beneficiary would spend more for health care…[because] private plans would cost more than traditional Medicare,” the budget office concluded. “[T]he government’s contribution would grow more slowly than health care costs, leaving more for beneficiaries to pay.”

Unfortunately, Republicans aren’t too concerned about how low-income beneficiary would afford more expensive care. Ryan himself has admitted that some seniors would pay more under his plan, and both Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann have said that they “prefer to see” health care “come from charitable organizations.” Bachmann recently told a woman in Winterset, Iowa that her son, who currently receives health insurance through Medicaid, could rely on charities to meet his health care needs.

Michele Bachmann reiterated her belief that uninsured Americans could receive health care through charitable organizations during two stops in Iowa last week, but added that the nation’s malpractice system is preventing providers from volunteering their services. Bachmann proposed establishing a “liability shield” to guard doctors from lawsuits:

Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman told a group of employees in Muscatine that doctors, nurses, drugmakers and others who once provided charity care are scared off today by the legal risks associated with it. The “liability shield” would allay those fears.

“Why not do that? Why not take care of poor people?” Bachmann said. “Why not make your lives cheaper and better so you don’t have to worry about health care?”

But as the Des Moines Register’s Jason Noble notes, in Iowa “something very similar to such a shield is already in place,” and it’s not driving providers to offer their services for free. “The Volunteer Health Care Provider Program in the state’s Department of Public Health is designed specifically to increase volunteerism by health professionals by providing legal protections against malpractice and other claims,” Noble explains. “Doctors who enter into a ‘protection agreement’ under the program receive legal defense and indemnification for care provided to uninsured and underinsured patients.”

Malpractice costs make up a small portion of overall health care spending, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded, estimating that reforms could save $54 billion over 10 years and “reduce total national health care spending by about 0.5 percent.” In fact, if Bachmann is wondering what effect tort reform can have on access to care, she should look no further than Texas, which has the nation’s highest uninsurance rate, despite enacting comprehensive malpractice reform in 2003.