Our guest blogger is Jessica Arons, director of the Women’s Health and Rights Program at American Progress.

In a stunning decision, the Health and Human Services Department has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to deny an application to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step available over the counter without a prescription to women of all ages. Currently, Plan B One-Step and the generic brand Next Choice are available behind the counter to women 17 and older — meaning that they do not need a prescription but they have to ask a pharmacist for the drug. Those 16 and younger need a prescription in order to obtain it.

The FDA was set to remove the age restriction, based on the scientific data before it, but HHS intervened to stop it. From FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg:

I reviewed and thoughtfully considered the data, clinical information, and analysis provided by [the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research], and I agree with the Center that there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential.

However, this morning I received a memorandum from the Secretary of Health and Human Services invoking her authority under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to execute its provisions and stating that she does not agree with the Agency’s decision to allow the marketing of Plan B One-Step nonprescription for all females of child-bearing potential. Because of her disagreement with FDA’s determination, the Secretary has directed me to issue a complete response letter, which means that the supplement for nonprescription use in females under the age of 17 is not approved.

What should have been a routine decision based on sound scientific and medical evidence just got hijacked by politics – again. Some may recall that the Bush administration dragged its feet for years on whether to make emergency contraception available over the counter without a prescription. The political compromise it struck was to require a prescription for adolescents only.

That has led to barriers not just for teens but for adults as well. Women do not always know where to find emergency contraception, are embarrassed to ask for it, are told they need a prescription by pharmacists who do not understand the law, or are turned away by pharmacists who disapproved of it.

With emergency contraception, time is of the essence. A woman who fears she might become pregnant needs fast access, not delays at the pharmacy counter.

Mitt Romney clarified his plan to partially privatize the Medicare program during an interview with the Washington Examiner’s editorial board Wednesday morning, suggesting that he would allow Congress to vote on the amount of “premium support” credits (or vouchers) seniors receive to buy health care coverage every year. Broadly speaking, like Paul Ryan, Romney seeks to gradually privatize the Medicare program for future enrollees by shifting seniors into private coverage and issuing everyone a “voucher” with which to purchase insurance. The plan also preserves the traditional Medicare option — known as fee-for-service — and seniors would be given a choice between using their vouchers towards the existing Medicare program or private insurance.

“[L]ower income seniors will receive more generous support to ensure that they can afford coverage,” but the government’s vouchers won’t keep up with premium increases and as a result, seniors who cannot afford to pay anything above the government contribution may be stuck in cheaper and perhaps lower quality health plans that contract with lower quality providers or cover fewer expensive tests and procedures. During today’s interview, Romney reiterated that the voucher would not grow with health care spending and hinted that Congress would be responsible for approving voucher increases annually:

KLEIN: Exactly. You know now, obviously a key question that’s going to determine whether this plan puts Medicare in a sustainable fiscal trajectory is the rate of growth of those support payments. Would the value — under your plan would the value of those subsidies grow at the standard measure of consumer inflation, or the rate of medical inflation?

ROMNEY: [...] One is Congressional action — deciding as Hoover, Heritage and Brooking said a few years ago, we just have a budget. And every year don’t call this an entitlement. Every year pass a budget for how much the total subsidy is going to be. And that would then set the limit of how much each person is going to receive. Obviously, I’ve mentioned that people of lower income would get a higher subsidy than people of higher income. [...]

KLEIN: So you are saying, just to clarify, you would leave it up to Congress to determine it each year or that’s one idea that –

ROMNEY: That’s one, that’s one principle. I think the key principle is this: It’s not going to grow at an open-ended rate driven only by medical inflation.

Congress already appropriates funding for Medicare, but since the program has long-term implications for our country, that spending is classified as mandatory, meaning that lawmakers do not vote for it every year. Here, Romney is proposing placing federal funding for seniors’ health care at the whims of what many see as a dysfunctional body, creating great uncertainty for America’s neediest and most vulnerable population.

Sarah Kliff has this very interesting piece arguing that employers who dump coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act may increase health care costs for their employees, many of whom would have to pay more for insurance in the new exchanges:

For the employer, dropping coverage is a pretty decent deal: A company would see its health care costs reduced by over 40 percent. They don’t drop to zero, however, since the employer would still be on the hook for the fines that come along with not offering coverage.

But for the employee, it’s a pretty lousy deal. Lockton ran the numbers, using data on how much employers pay for health insurance now and how much health insurance on the exchanges is projected to cost.They found that employers foot a significantly larger chunk of the insurance bill than the federal government would, even with the new subsidies they’d receive. The firm predicts their premiums would increase anywhere from 79 to 125 percent if they lose employer coverage and have to go to the exchange. There’s such a big variation because exchange subsidies vary by income: Those who earn less are eligible for a larger subsidy.

Look at the blue section:

So what does this tell us about how employers will react and whether they’ll be more or less likely to drop health insurance coverage? Well, I’d argue that employers are far less likely to do something that leaves their employees — particularly their most valuable better-paid employees — worse off, particularly since the talent can walk across the street to a competitor’s firm. In fact, even if employers were to offset some of the increases with higher wages, the employees would have to pay taxes on those amounts and would still experience a net loss.

Speaking in Le Mars, Iowa on Monday, Rick Santorum promised to significantly reduce federal funding for food stamps, arguing that the nation’s increasing obesity rates render the program unnecessary:

Santorum told the group he would cut the food stamp program, describing it as one of the fastest growing programs in Washington, D.C.

Forty-eight million people are on food stamps in a country with 300-million people, said Santorum.

“If hunger is a problem in America, then why do we have an obesity problem among the people who we say have a hunger program?” Santorum asked.

The cost of the food stamp program — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — has jumped because more Americans are out of work and wages are down, not because of obesity rates. Recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that nearly “70 percent households that relied on food stamps last year had no earned income,” although many households did benefit from Social Security benefits and other government programs. But a whopping 20 percent of households had no cash income at all last year.

Food prices have also gone up, adding additional costs. In fact, the food stamp program has been critical for reducing poverty and pumping money into local economies during the down economy, so cutting it now would not only take food out of peoples’ mouths (regardless of whether they are obese or not) and could slow down the recovery.

The New York state Senate is dragging its feet in implementing the Affordable Care Act’s state exchange, but a new survey from HealthPass finds that New York’s small businesses strongly support the measure and say they may be “more likely to offer health insurance if such a health insurance exchange were available”:

The survey found that more than eight in ten (84%) respondents describe health insurance exchanges as a “good idea” after reading a description of the proposed New York State SHOP (small business) Exchange. Additionally, more than three-fourths of respondents (76%) would consider using such a health insurance exchange when enrolling their employees in a health benefits program. Even more striking, among businesses that do not currently provide health insurance to their employees, 60% said they would be more likely to offer coverage if an exchange was available.

Look:

Interestingly, despite increasing health care costs, small businesses say they would consider providing health insurance in the future, with 75 percent of respondents agreeing “that offering health care benefits helps them attract and retain quality employees.”

The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 29 states “are making significant progress in creating Affordable Insurance Exchanges.”