Like Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann found no irony in calling for the repeal legislation that would extend health insurance coverage to 32 million Americans (and already insured 2.5 million young adults) at a “pro-life” event last night, saying, “the number one way we’ll advance the cause of life is through the 100 percent repeal of Obamacare.” Speaking at the premiere of The Gift of Life, an anti-abortion movie, Bachmann also criticized the administration for denying greater access to the morning after pill, despite agreeing with the decision. She warned that if re-elected, the administration would surely make Plan B available “on the grocery store aisles next to bubble gums and next to M&Ms.” Watch it:

Of course the morning after pill will never be available in candy aisles. Currently, the medication can only be purchased behind the counter by 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.

Meanwhile, all available data — both in Massachusetts and around the world — shows that women contemplating an abortion are far less likely to seek one if they can afford health insurance for themselves, and feel confident they can provide quality medical care to their newborn children. Therefore, repealing health reform would not only violate the general concept of supporting human life, it would also destroy the “life” of the fetuses that conservatives talk so much about protecting.

At a pro-life event in Iowa yesterday, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (R) spoke out against new data showing that 2.5 million young adults now have health coverage as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Ignoring the good news, Santorum insisted that health care reform had “failed miserably” by not doing more to bring down costs and said that insurance was “too expensive” to cover young adults.

Asked if he saw any contradiction between attending an event that celebrated life and criticizing the health law for extending health coverage to living people, Santorum replied that he didn’t:

KEYES: Could we get your reaction to the new study that the Affordable Care Act extended coverage to 2.5 million young adults in this country?

SANTORUM: How about the same reaction that’s also caused a dramatic increase in the price of health insurance? In fact, a substantial increase in the cost of health insurance to millions of Americans. It has failed miserably in the one area the president suggested it would have the most impact, which is decreasing the cost of health care in the country. [...]

KEYES: But if we’re at an event though celebrating life, shouldn’t we be pushing to cover more young adults like the Affordable Care Act is doing?

SANTORUM: No. Again, if government had unlimited amounts of money we could cover everybody with all the coverage in the world, but of course we don’t. The objective President Obama sold to the American public was that this would reduce health care costs, make it more affordable, save the government and people money, and thereby expand insurance. It is not doing it in that fashion. It is simply spending more money and wasting more money.

KEYES: So it’s just too expensive to cover the kids?

SANTORUM: It’s too expensive, number one. Number two, it’s the wrong approach in solving health care, which is government-run, top-down and that’s why it’s wasteful and inexpensive.

Watch it:

Despite Santorum’s claims, the government is not financing the coverage expansion; the ACA allows families to keep young adults on their existing health plans until they turn 26. The provision has added more young people to health care risk pools and has had a negligible effect on premiums.

The fact that Santorum dismissed this achievement at a pro-life event demonstrates just how much Republicans are willing to let their dislike for President Obama’s policies shade their judgment of policy outcomes. For years, the Republican Party has fought the perception that they care more about pre-birth fetuses than post-birth humans who are struggling to make ends meet. Santorum’s remarks Wednesday did little to shed that reputation.

LifeWay Christian Bookstores is “one of the world’s largest providers of Christian products and services” including church literature, music, video recordings, church supplies, and of course bibles in hopes of “providing biblical solutions for life.” But one Bible didn’t meet their “biblical” standard and was subsequently pulled from the shelves. Why? Because it helped raise money for breast cancer programs.

For every copy of this particular Bible that was sold, $1 dollar from the sale went to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, a breast cancer charity well-known for organizing “Race for the Cure.” The foundation, in turn, donates some of its funds to breast cancer health programs sponsored by Planned Parenthood. Because the religious right views Planned Parenthood as the pinnacle of abortion evil, LifeWay immediately said they had “made a mistake” in selling the Bible and pulled it from the shelves:

“When our leadership discovered the overwhelming concern that some of Komen’s affiliates were giving funds to Planned Parenthood, we began the arduous process of withdrawing this Bible from the market,” stated a release by Thom S. Rainer, president and CEO of LifeWay. “Though we have assurances that Komen’s funds are used only for breast cancer screening and awareness, it is not in keeping with LifeWay’s core values to have even an indirect relationship with Planned Parenthood.”

The Susan G. Komen Foundation explicitly states that “Komen funding is used exclusively to provide breast cancer programs” and that “under no circumstances are Komen funds used to fund abortions or other non-breast services.” The goal is to help provide breast health education and breast screenings to thousands of low-income, uninsured, and under-served women through nearly 2,000 local organizations, of which only 19 are Planned Parenthood programs. What’s more, the majority of the services Planned Parenthood clinics provide surrounds cancer screenings and STD testing. Not all clinics even provide abortions. After all, only three percent of Planned Parenthood’s services deal with abortion.

Regardless of reality, the fact that Susan G. Komen is in any way affiliated with the number one enemy of anti-choice activists casts the foundation as unholy. Indeed, Ohio’s Catholic Bishops banned parishes and Catholic schools from donating to the foundation because it is a “contributor to Planned Parenthood.” As such, all donations were banned “to avoid even the possibility of cooperation in morally unacceptable activities.”

Newt Gingrich, — who famously proclaimed that he would like to see Medicare “wither on the vine” and has supported plans to privatize Medicare since at least 1995 — praised the bipartisan Medicare premium support proposal unveiled today by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) this morning. The plan would provide seniors with pre-determined premium support vouchers to purchase benefits through an exchange of private plans or the existing fee-for-service program. The government subsidy would “rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies,” but could still shift costs for some seniors and push beneficiaries into private insurance.

During an interview with the Des Moines Register this morning, Gingrich had this to say:

GINGRICH: We have today a very important breakthrough in that there is a Wyden/Ryan Medicare reform bill. It represents Senator Wyden, the Democrat from Oregon, Congressman Paul Ryan from Wisconsin. It is a bipartisan effort to really come to grips with one of the major entitlement challenges we face and to have that bill introduced and have them publicly together talking about this is really a healthy, maybe it’s the beginning of breaking up the log jam and starting to get Democrats and Republicans to talk with each other. And I think that Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden deserve some of the credit. I mean this is a very courageous thing for each of them to do. To reach out, come together and offer a genuinely bipartisan bill, given the atmosphere you have in Washington.

Watch it:

Gingrich has said that he would have voted for Ryan’s original plan to end traditional Medicare and even proposed kick-starting premium support “this year“: “I would offer on a voluntary basis, a supplement plan, a voucher—I wouldn’t call it a voucher—but some kind of support plan this year,” Gingrich told conservatives.

For more analysis on the Wyden/Ryan plan, click here.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) will unveil a new Medicare premium support plan during an event at the Bipartisan Policy Center this morning that is a stark departure from the Budet Committee Chairman’s proposal to end the traditional Medicare program that most Republicans voted for.

Under the new bipartisan plan, beginning in 2022, seniors will receive a pre-determined premium support voucher to purchase benefits through an exchange of private plans or the existing fee-for-service program. The government subsidy would be determined by the “second-least expensive approved plan or fee-for-service Medicare, whichever is least expensive” and “rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget.” Ryan’s budget grows the government’s contribution substantially slower than actual health care costs, shifting health care costs to beneficiaries. The plan maintains the Affordable Care Act’s cap on spending at Gross Domestic Product growth plus 1 percent and would also “add catastrophic coverage with a cap on out-of-pocket costs.”

The proposal is similar to the Rivlin/Domenici plan and it shares some of its problems. Connecting the premium support credits to the second lowest plan in any given geographic area would shift lest costs to seniors than determining the credits independent of the actual bids (via indexing), but in high cost Medicare areas, the second lowest plan will be cheaper than coverage available through traditional Medicare. Thus, seniors who chose to stay in the fee-for-service could still experience a cost-shift: they would be responsible for the difference between the amount of the premium credit and the actual cost of the policy (conversely, if a “senior chose a plan that cost less than the benchmark, he or she would be given a rebate for the difference”). Lower-income residents would receive additional assistance.

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