Super Bowl viewers in 40 cities across the country will see graphic ads featuring images of bloody, aborted fetuses. The ads are being paid for by fringe anti-abortion candidate Randall Terry:

Anti-abortion ads showing graphic images of aborted fetuses covered in blood and surrounded by religious icons will air during the Super Bowl in February, courtesy of Democratic Presidential candidate Randall Terry.

Terry, who has spent a year in jail and been arrested 50 times for his anti-abortion efforts, is using a Federal Election Commission loophole that ensures ads for political candidates cannot be prohibited within 45 days of an election. Apparently, primaries count, so Terry will be running ads on local stations during Super Bowl XLVI February 5.

The Colorado paper the Greeley Gazette notes that Terry has already run political ads with images of aborted fetuses in New Hampshire. The ads attacked President Obama for supporting “child killing.”

TV stations have typically rejected ads with graphic content, especially during events like the Super Bowl that have a large audience. But by exploiting a loophole that requires stations to air ads by political candidates within 45 days of an election, Terry has managed to circumvent those standards.

“This means that primary states that fall within the 45 day window will have to run the graphic ads during the Super Bowl if he purchases the slots,” the Gazette says.

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis finds that raising the Medicare eligibility age (MEA), a popular conservative entitlement reform proposal that has also received limited support from President Obama and Democrats in Congress, could reduce Medicare spending by about 5 percent over the long-term:

CBO expects that most people affected by the change would obtain health insurance from other sources, primarily employers or other government programs, although some would have no health insurance. Federal spending on those other programs would increase, partially offsetting the Medicare savings. Many of the people who would otherwise have enrolled in Medicare would face higher premiums for health insurance, higher out-of-pocket costs for health care, or both.

CBO estimates that raising the MEA would reduce Medicare outlays, net of premiums and other offsetting receipts, by $148 billion from 2012 through 2021. By 2035, Medicare’s net spending would be about 5 percent below what it otherwise would be—4.7 percent of GDP rather than 5.0 percent under current law. A rise in the MEA would cut by a larger percentage the number of years during which the average person would receive Medicare benefits, but the percentage reduction in outlays would be smaller because the people affected would be the youngest beneficiaries, who tend to be the healthiest and thus to require the least costly health care.

But this is just one small part of the cost picture. CBO isn’t calculating how raising the age would actually increase overall system spending “by shifting costs to most of the 65- and 66-year-olds who would lose Medicare coverage, to employers that provide health coverage for their retirees, to Medicare beneficiaries, to younger people who buy insurance through the new health insurance exchanges, and to states.” As the Center On Budget and Policy Priorities’ (CBPP) Paul N. Van de Water has concluded, that estimated increase in costs could “total $11.4 billion — twice the net savings to the federal government” in 2014 alone.

And then of course there is the human cost of essentially privatizing Medicare for the youngest beneficiaries (those between the ages of 65 to 67). As the CBO’s own brief concedes, “Some people would end up without health insurance. People without health insurance are likely to receive lower quality care and pay more than insured people do.” Much more on that point here.

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is not a shining example of consistency or clarity, particularly when it comes to reproductive rights. Having taken both sides of the abortion issue during his political career, Romney is trying to avoid giving any definitive answers on current anti-choice efforts including an effective ban on birth control. Last fall, Romney deftly ducked support of an outright ban and even called such efforts “silly” in last Saturday’s New Hampshire debate. “I can’t imagine a state banning contraception…I would totally and completely oppose any effort to ban contraception,” he said.

But as the Huffington Post’s Lauren Basset reports, Romney was much more clear about his views on contraception several years ago. As Massachusetts governor, he vetoed a “widely supported bill” making the morning-after pill available over the counter and requiring hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims:

[A]s governor of Massachusetts in 2005, Romney took a harder line on contraception, vetoing a widely supported bill that would make the morning-after pill available over the counter in that state and require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims.

His surprising veto did not stand. The Massachusetts state Senate voted unanimously to overrule it, and the state House voted 139-16 to do the same.

Romney tried to explain his controversial act by arguing in a Boston Globe op-ed that he did it in order to keep a campaign promise not to change Massachusetts’ abortion laws. But the scientific community and longstanding federal policy agree that the morning-after pill cannot end a pregnancy once it has begun.

Romney has also pledged to eliminate the Title X program which provides “reproductive health services like birth control” to millions of women. And despite his recent dodge in New Hampshire, Romney did previously voice “absolute” support for “personhood” efforts that could enforce a ban on contraception and even flirted with anti-birth control positions to court the conservative vote in Iowa. Indeed, he promised a South Carolina audience that he would expand the Bush-era rule allowing doctors to deny women access to common forms of birth control, including the pill.

As NARAL President Nancy Keenan noted, “Maybe Gov. Romney ‘can’t imagine a state banning contraception.’ But he should know that his own positions would put birth control out of reach for millions of American women.”

Yesterday, I offered some context to Mitt Romney’s “I like being able to fire people” comment, arguing that his call for a greater reliance on individual health insurance plans would increase costs for many Americans, particularly beneficiaries who suffer from pre-existing conditions. The Incidental Economist’s Aaron Carroll also pinpoints why Romney’s belief that people can just fire health insurers is problematic:

First of all, let’s unpack the idea that if individuals have their own insurance, the “insurance company will have an incentive to keep [them] healthy”. That’s totally backwards. The idea that people might fire their insurance companies is exactly why they don’t have an incentive to keep you healthy. Insurance companies preferentially cover healthy people, and they want those who are ill to leave, or, better yet, not enroll in the first place. Captive populations, like those in the VA, or maybe plans with long-term contracts through big employers might have the right incentive, but the types of plans Gov. Romney seems to have in mind don’t do the very thing he is saying they do. Insurance companies have a vested interest in keeping you healthy when you can’t or won’t leave.

But that’s the least of his problems. The real issue, unfortunately, is that very, very few people have the luxury that Gov. Romney is endorsing. Let’s say that you are self-employed, and lucky enough to have found a company to provide you with health insurance. Then, let’s say you develop cancer. You suddenly find out that your insurance company stinks. So you fire them, right?

Of course not. You’re screwed. Now you have a pre-existing condition. There’s not an insurance company out there that wants to cover you. So you don’t fire them. You scream, and curse, and cry, but you’re stuck. Only healthy people have the luxury of picking and choosing.

The other piece of “incentive to keep [them] healthy” has to do with investing in prevention and increasing access to preventive benefits — the kind of services that many people in high deductible plans tend to skip altogether. In other words, as Jonathan Cohen points out, “deregulating the insurance market would make coverage cheaper for healthy people” as long as they don’t become sick or use too much care, but would also make it “less accessible for sicker people.”

An uninsured voter pressed Mitt Romney on his opposition to universal health care as he was leaving a town hall event in Bedford, New Hampshire on Monday. The former Massachusetts governor has defended his state’s health care reform law, but promises to repeal the Affordable Care Act and allow states to develop their own health care policies.

At the event, Romney asked the woman if she had insurance, and when she said she did not, he appeared to blame President Obama’s health reform law for her status:

“When you signed into law Romneycare, I was excited,” the woman said, her hands firmly clasped between Romney’s. “You seemed proud to do that. And then when the country copied you, it just seemed like there was hope for people like me.”

“How have you done since then?” Romney responded, repeating himself and drawing closer as the woman continued to speak.

“I don’t have health care, sir, and I’m scared,” the woman, who claimed to be a small business owner, continued.

“That tells you something doesn’t it?” Romney said. “Tells you something.”

“It hasn’t gone into effect yet,” she answered, while Romney moved on to meet less combative people.

Watch it:

Indeed, the coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act do not go into effect until 2014. But Romney — displaying no more regard for the uninsured — has proposed repealing the law in its entirety and promoting individual high deductible plans with higher cost sharing that would (theoretically) encourage everyone to use less health care services. Older people with pre-existing conditions will have a harder time finding affordable coverage if Romney implements his proposal to further deregulate the health insurance industry.