America’s largest breast cancer organization the Susan G. Komen Foundation is sustaining serious blowback from its decision to sever ties with Planned Parenthood. Though the foundation insists its a non-partisan non-profit, its new rule only targets Planned Parenthood based on the politically-motivated agenda of anti-choice Republican lawmakers has certainly jeopardized its neutrality.

Today on MSNBC, host Andrea Mitchell — herself a breast cancer survivor — also pointed out to Komen’s founder and former George W. Bush Ambassador Nancy Brinker that the move is pummeling the foundation’s brand. Brinker, however, insisted that the responses the foundation received were nothing but “very, very favorable”:

MITCHELL: What do you do about the fact that donors are pulling back. Some people would say that the anger that’s being expressed is going to hit you in the pocketbook. You have worked so hard to create a bipartisan organization. Look at your Facebook page. Your Facebook page has people cutting pink ribbons in half. Your branding is at stake.

BRINKER: Andrea, all I can tell you is that the responses we are getting are very, very favorable. People who have bothered to read the material, who have bothered to understand the issues — again we work for a mission, everyday of our lives.

Watch it:

A brief survey of the actual responses indicates that “favorable” must be Brinker’s coded way of saying “overwhelmingly negative.” As Mitchell noted, the Komen foundation’s Facebook page is riddled with disgust over the decision and promises to cease donations to the charity. “Shame shame shame,” reads one of the thousands of negative comments. Indeed numerous donors — including Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) — have pulled their support.

Even Komen’s own state affiliates are rebelling. The board president of Komen Connecticut promised to continue offering grants to Planned Parenthood and the executive director of the Los Angeles County chapter is resigning. In fact, the national foundation’s own top public health official resigned immediately after learning of the decision in December.

And now, 22 Democratic U.S. senators are sending a strongly worded letter urging Komen to reverse its “troubling decision” that “threatens to reduce access to necessary, life-saving services.” “It would be tragic if any woman — let alone thousands of women — lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack,” the letter states.

The Affordable Care Act has produced $2.1 billion in prescription drug savings for nearly 4 million seniors and people with disabilities who were enrolled in Medicare Part D in 2011, a new Obama administration report finds. The savings are the result of a provision in the health care law that provides a 50 percent discount for brand-name drugs and 14 percent discount for generic brands to Medicare beneficiaries in the so-called “doughnut hole.” Seniors can expect greater savings as the law completely closes the coverage gap over time.

The average Medicare enrollee will save approximately $4,181 from 2011 to 2021, while those with high prescription drug costs could save as much as $15,710 over the same period. Those with low drug costs should save roughly $2,964:

The report identifies three other sources of savings for Medicare recipients: 1) premiums for Part B physician and certain other services are expected to increase at a slower rate, 2) beneficiary copayments and coinsurance under Part A and B will increase more slowly because the Affordable Care Act slows the rate of growth in payments to hospitals and other providers, and 3) offer seniors preventive services at no additional cost.

Yesterday, the administration announced that a growing number of seniors are enrolling in Medicare Advantage plans and are paying lower premiums as compared to last year.

– Fatima Najiy

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation caved to right-wing pressure and cut ties with Planned Parenthood. Their rationale was simple: Komen had new rules preventing it from funding any organization under investigation, so a spurious congressional investigation into Planned Parenthood led by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) prohibited Komen from continuing to fund breast exams through Planned Parenthood for women who otherwise wouldn’t receive them.

But now, new reporting from the Atlantic reveals that Komen adopted the new guidelines to cut off Planned Parenthood. That effort was led by Komen President Elizabeth Thompson, who knew that Planned Parenthood was the only group that would be affected by the rule, and Karen Handel, Komen’s new senior vice president for public policy.

Handel, who came on board in April, is a former secretary of state in Georgia and a Republican activist who describes herself as a “pro-life Christian.” Handel ran for governor of Georgia on an anti-abortion platform, and was endorsed by Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. She wrote during her failed gubernatorial campaign that “since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

In December, Komen made the decision to stop supporting Planned Parenthood even though Komen’s professional staff recommended that the foundation continue to fund the organization. The decision caused an “uproar” at Komen, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg reports:

[T]he organization’s top public health official, Mollie Williams, resigned in protest immediately following the Komen board’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood. Williams, who served as the managing director of community health programs, was responsible for directing the distribution of $93 million in annual grants. [...]

But John Hammarley, who until recently served as Komen’s senior communications adviser and who was charged with managing the public relations aspects of Komen’s Planned Parenthood grant, said that Williams believed she could not honorably serve in her position once Komen had caved to pressure from the anti-abortion right. “Mollie is one of the most highly-respected and ethical people inside the organization, and she felt she couldn’t continue under these conditions,” Hammarley said. “The Komen board of directors are very politically savvy folks, and I think over time they thought if they gave in to the very aggressive propaganda machine of the anti-abortion groups, that the issue would go away. It seemed very short-sighted to me.”

Hammarley, who was laid off from Komen last year, said that for about a year, a small group within Komen began discussing the ramifications of cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood. “As we looked at the ramifications of ceasing all funding, we felt it would be worse from a practical standpoint, from a public relations standpoint and from a mission standpoint. The mission standpoint is, ‘How could we abandon our commitment to the screening work done by Planned Parenthood?’” he said.

Komen’s grants to Planned Parenthood totaled $680,000 in 2011 and $580,000 in 2010, going to at least 19 affiliates of Planned Parenthood to fund breast-cancer screenings and other breast-health services. Since the two organizations partnered in 2005, Komen’s grants have paid for roughly 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammogram referrals. But right-wing anti-choice organizations have targeted the partnership since 2005 because Planned Parenthood also provides abortions. In December, the Southern Baptist Convention recalled pink Bibles that it sold to raise money for breast cancer research, citing an “unacceptable link” between Komen and Planned Parenthood.

Conservatives cheered Komen’s decision, while others have found it awfully convenient that the grants to Planned Parenthood were stopped after the hiring of an anti-abortion activist.

The House GOP’s vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s long-term care program isn’t sitting well with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), who is out with an op-ed in Politico this morning, criticizing Republicans for failing to offer any meaningful solution for financing long-term care services. “They view repealing CLASS as a tactical step toward undermining health care reform – without putting forward any real alternatives for families who have nowhere to turn,” he writes:

Repealing CLASS won’t do anything to solve our nation’s long-term care crisis. Legislation rarely starts out perfectly – indeed, the Republicans’ own Medicare prescription drug bill left a huge coverage gap, forcing seniors to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket. It is only because Democrats rejected the ‘throw out the baby with the bathwater’ approach to legislating, and figured out a solution, that this gap will finally be closed and seniors can save millions on prescription drugs.

Lawmakers had designed CLASS to take the strain off of Medicaid — which finances more than half of long-term care — and allow individuals to establish a cash benefit during their working years that would be available if they become disabled. As Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) explained during a Energy & Commerce health subcommittee hearing, “It was very much a notion of personal responsibility and not relying on the government.” But since the administration decided that Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did not have the necessary authority to bring the program in compliance with the health care law’s sustainability provision, the GOP chose to repeal the measure rather than act like lawmakers and actually work to ensure its longevity. The move is calculated to hurt Obama, but will do nothing to address the long-term care time-bomb:

Medicare dollars spent on long-term care	$0 after 90 days
Medicaid costs are ballooning	Finances 43 percent of all long-term care, 15 million will need long-term services by 2020
Private long-term care market is dysfunctional	2.8 percent of Americans currently have a policy
Percent of people turning 65 today who will need long-term care	70 percent
Number of long-term care recipients 18-64 year olds	40 percent
Cost of long-term care	$6,500 a month, $70,000 to $80,000 a year
Savings to Medicaid from CLASS	$2 billion

Religious organizations are suing the Obama administration over new regulations requiring insurers and employers to offer reproductive health care services — including contraception — without additional cost sharing. The rule, the result of a provision included in the Affordable Care Act, exempts houses of worship and other religious nonprofits that primarily employ and serve people of the same faith, but two religious colleges are already challenging the rule in court, arguing that the conscience protection is too narrow. The powerful Conference of Catholic Bishops is also preparing legal action.

Women’s advocacy groups have enthusiastically backed the new requirement and Planned Parenthood has unveiled a new ad campaign touting the rule. The commercial, which will air in Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, praises President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for standing up to pressure from religious groups to widen the conscience protection and notes that doing so would have deprived hundreds of thousands of women working for religiously-affiliated groups of birth control. Watch the ad:

Religiously-affiliated employers who do not qualify for the exemption and are not currently offering contraceptive coverage may apply for transitional relief for a one-year period to give them time to determine how to comply with the rule, the Obama administration decided. Twenty-eight states already require employers, including most religiously affiliated institutions, to cover contraception in their health plans. The only change is that now they must cover the full cost. In fact, the administration will be expanding conscience protections in eight states, where all religious institutions are required to offer birth control coverage.