Women’s health advocates expressed concern about HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent decision to overrule the scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and deny over-the-counter access to the morning after pill for women of all ages. But new research suggests that even women who can legally access the drug without a prescription — women over the age of 17 — may have a hard time obtaining it:

Although the researchers found the availability of emergency contraception did not differ based on neighborhood income, in 19 percent of calls the adolescent was told she could not obtain emergency contraception under any circumstance. This misinformation occurred more often (23.7 percent compared to 14.6 percent) among pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods.

When callers queried the age threshold for over-the-counter access, they were given the correct age less often by pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods (50.0 percent compared to 62.8 percent). In all but 11 calls, the incorrect age was stated as erroneously too high, potentially restricting access.

Existing laws offer conscience protections to medical providers, exempting doctors, nurses, and pharmacists from providing services that undermine their religious beliefs. Unfortunately, Republican lawmakers and presidential contenders have vowed to strengthen these regulations, which would have the effect of keeping contraception further out of reach of the women who need it.

This morning, PolitiFact announced that the Democrats’ charge that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) budget will end Medicare is the biggest lie of the year — even though it’s 100 percent true!

Here is why: Ryan’s plan ends traditional fee-for-service program and forces all future retirees to ultimately enroll in private coverage.

Under his proposal, beginning in 2022, people turning 65 will receive a pre-determined “premium support” payment to purchase private insurance. Insurers will offer a basic package of benefits, but traditional Medicare — the program that President Lyndon Johnson enacted in 1965 — will literally stop enrolling new beneficiaries. Rather than paying health care providers directly — and using its market clout to secure better bargains and other efficiencies for enrollees — the government would now pay multiple private health insurers pre-determined amounts per beneficiary to act as middle men between patients and providers.

It will no longer guarantee seniors a defined package of benefits, but will instead only offer a defined contribution towards their health care costs. As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of Ryan’s proposal explains, “the payment for 65-year-olds in 2022 is specified to be $8,000, on average, which is approximately the same dollar amount as projected net federal spending per capita for 65-year-olds in traditional Medicare.” However every subsequent year, as health care costs increase, the government’s contribution “would grow at a slower rate,” inflation, and the age of the enrollee. By 2030, under the proposal, the premium support would “only cover 32 percent of a typical 65-year-old’s total health care spending” and would decrease every subsequent year.

PolitiFact concedes that this is, in fact, “a huge change to the current program.” But it’s more than that. Capping costs to beneficiaries, closing the traditional fee-for-service program, and forcing seniors to enroll in new private coverage, ends Medicare by eliminating everything that has defined the program for the last 46 years.

Mitt Romney tried to convince Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly last night that the individual health care mandate is a conservative proposal, attributing the idea to the Heritage Foundation and Newt Gingrich — both of whom supported personal responsibility in health care as an alternative to Hillary Clinton’s 1993 health care reform plan:

ROMNEY: Actually, I think my record as governor was a conservative record.

O’REILLY: Yes but I mean, Romneycare is not — not a conservative thing and with all due respect. The thought behind it is the government should get involved with people’s health care. That’s not a conservative position.

ROMNEY: Actually, the idea as you know came from conservatives at the Heritage Foundation, Newt Gingrich and the idea was this we have today in this country an insistence — insistence that government does treat people. That people that don’t have insurance are given free care by government. That was what was going on in my state. And I said gosh, this is a problem. We’re — we’re giving to people based upon the premise that government owes these people health care for free. That doesn’t make sense. Personal responsibility makes more sense where people should take responsibility for getting their own insurance rather than showing up at the emergency room and expecting government to pay for them.

O’REILLY: Yes but correct me if I am wrong. Personal responsibility doesn’t have much though do with Romneycare because you forced everybody to buy the insurance. And if they didn’t buy it they where sanctioned by the state.

ROMNEY: They — what they got was a — a responsibility to pick up a portion of the cost of their health insurance and which — which in the past they were getting for free.

Watch it:

Indeed, Romney has previously described the mandate as the “ultimate conservative idea” because it encourages able bodied individuals and families to buy insurance that will pay for their own eventual health care expenses, rather than shifting those costs to other payers throughout the health care system. As he told Newsweek in December of 2007, “I’m proud of what we’ve done. If Massachusetts succeeds in implementing it, then that will be a model for the nation.”