Following up on last week’s contraception hearing, the House Judiciary Committee held another hearing yesterday afternoon on the subject, which featured the rantings of Rep. Steve King (R-IA). In a lengthy screed against the Obama administration’s contraception rule, King scoffed at the progress made in women’s rights over the passed 60 years and suggested that Connecticut had a right to ban contraception in the landmark Griswold v. Connecticut:

KING: Why should I care about the conclusions that have been brought forward by the Supreme Court if we can race from 1965, Connecticut having a Tenth Amendment right to establish a policy, a Supreme Court that creates a right to privacy that’s the foundation for mandated abortion, and here were are discussing whether we’re going to mandate everybody in America fund and provide that contraceptives. … Why should I care?

Watch it:

The Griswold decision overturned a law in Connecticut that prohibited the use of birth control, even for married couples, but King apparently thinks the state had a right to enforce that ban.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos raised this very issue during a GOP presidential debate in January and was roundly pilloried by conservatives. “George, this is an unusual question you’re asking,” Mitt Romney replied and suggested that nobody was seriously considering outlawing contraceptives. King’s answer, however, would suggest otherwise.

While most states are considering measures that curtail women’s access to abortion, in the state of California, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurse midwives may soon be permitted to perform routine abortions in a woman’s first trimester of pregnancy if a bill authored by state Sen. Christine Kehoe (D) passes in the Senate. Bill SB1501 would make aspiration abortions — the most common method for terminating early pregnancies — more accessible and more affordable, especially for women who live in rural areas (where 97 percent of rural counties have no abortion provider).

Most nurse practitioners and physical assistants are skilled at administering a wide range of routine gynelogical care to women — including Pap smears, IUD insertions, prenatal care, and labor and delivery assistance and in California, non-physician professionals are allowed to provide medication that causes an abortion under a doctor’s supervision. Bill SB1501 would only expand the law to include aspiration abortions:

“We believe it will give many California women access to earlier, safer procedures in the first trimester of their pregnancy,” Kehoe said at a news conference in Sacramento on Tuesday.

Abortion rights proponents celebrated Kehoe’s measure as one that bucks the national trend of restricting access to the procedure. The Alan Guttmacher Institute, which tracks reproductive health issues, found that legislators across the country proposed a record number of laws limiting abortion last year and that 135 became law.

California isn’t alone in expanding women’s access to abortion, however. Washington state is currently considering a measure that would require all health insurers who cover maternity care to also insure abortions, so that women “continue to have easy access to abortions once changes in federal health-care laws take effect in 2014.” According to the Guttmacher Institute, New York is the only other state considering similar legislation.

– Fatima Najiy

Yesterday, ModernHealthcare reported that Mike Leavitt, a top adviser to Mitt Romney, believes that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can move the health care system in the right direction. The comments fly in the face of Romney’s pledge to repeal the measure, but fail to capture the full scope of Leavitt’s support for key elements of the law.

While the former Health and Human Services Secretary has generally called for greater state flexibility and argued that the ACA transfers too much power to his successor, Kathleen Sebelius, Leavitt has consistently argued that government must play a role in regulating the health care system. For instance, during a speech at the Hudson Institute on September 15, 2011, Leavitt maintained:

LEAVITT: I argue routinely that government ought not to be playing a large role here. But I need to acknowledge, and I believe we all do, many of these things given the circumstances will require government. [...]

I’m here to argue that government’s got to play a role, it’d be far better to have it organizing an efficient system than to owning it. And I think the incumbent situation that we’re moving toward now in the Affordable Care Act is clearly about government operating the system, and we need to move more toward — and Medicare ought to be in the lead. Now, you didn’t ask all that but I enjoyed saying it. Thank you for — (laughter).

Consequently, Leavitt’s consulting firm, Leavitt Partners, is heavily invested in the law’s state-based exchanges and “has been advising companies and state legislatures on how to create exchanges.” The group hired two former government officials who helped build the Utah exchange soon after the federal health law passed” and its websites brags about its abilities to help clients implement the measure:

The release goes on to say, “Our team now has policy expertise and information system and process expertise as it relates to all of the detailed components of setting up an exchange. We offer clients our knowledge of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act and the technical know-how to create a successful health insurance exchange.”

The site even includes a separate “Health Insurance Exchange Intelligence Team” page:

A spokesperson for Leavitt did not dispute that the consulting firm has been helping states implement the law, but told ThinkProgress, “Gov. Leavitt supports the repeal of the ACA. His firm has advised states to prepare for every alternative as it relates to the ongoing implementation or repeal of the law.”

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) came out today against a piece of legislation her fellow Republicans are advancing to stop the Obama administration’s new birth control rule. The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), would go much farther the Obama rule and allow any employer to deny coverage for contraceptives and other preventative health care services to their employees. The measure puts “your boss in your bedroom and in between you and your doctor,” as ThinkProgress’ Josh Dorner noted, and could endanger millions of women’s insurance coverage for preventive health care.

Republican lawmakers have rallied around Blunt’s amendment. A vote is scheduled for tomorrow, attached to an unrelated transportation bill. But Snowe — who announced her retirement yesterday — said on MSNBC today that the Blunt Amendment goes too far:

SNOWE: With respect to the Blunt amendment, I think it’s much broader than I could support. I think we should focus on the issue of contraceptives and whether or not it should be included in a health insurance plan and what requirements there should be.

Watch it:

 

 

Fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins joined Snowe in breaking ranks with the GOP to support Obama’s contraception rule, after he made an accommodation to religious organizations. So far, Collins is undecided on the Blunt amendment and others may oppose it too.

Sixty-seven percent of voters oppose legislation like Blunt’s, a recent poll found.

Lawmakers in at least four states are considering legislation requiring women to view an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion, but the most extreme and far reaching bill may be in Pennsylvania, where technicians would be required to provide women with “personalized copies of the results.” Elizabeth Nash, policy analyst at the Guttmacher Institute, “explains“:

In addition to mandating the much-maligned transvaginal ultrasound requirements since rejected by the state of Virginia, Pennsylvania legislators proposed strongly encouraging women to view and listen to the ultrasounds, forcing technicians to give the women personalized copies of the results and mandating how long before any abortion the ultrasound much be performed — and that’s just for starters. [...]

“This bill definitely suffers the legislators-playing-doctor problem. … There are a number of requirements in this bill that are medically unnecessary,” Nash said, pointing out that so many requirements packed into the 22-page bill could make it logistically difficult for abortion providers to comply with them. “This bill is something that would be unacceptable to most women seeking an abortion.”

Additionally, Nash points out that the length of the legislation hides bizarre and unprecedented requirements, such as asking women who gets an ultrasound more than 14 days before her abortion to view a state-approved video on fetal gestation. The bill, unlike many other ultrasound requirements, does offer exceptions for victims of rape and incest; the bill does not require victims to have reported the incidents to the authorities.

The House Health Committee passed the bill, and the Pennsylvania House should vote on it in mid-March.

The bill’s sponsor state Rep. Kathy Rapp (R) defended the legislation by saying it’s a matter of women being well-informed. “As a woman, I believe when a woman makes a crucial decision about her health and her body, she should be fully informed,” Rapp said. And state Rep. Marcy Toepel (R), a co-sponsor of the legislation, said, “Getting an ultrasound is a good thing for pregnant women.” The bill even attracted 113 co-sponsors — enough for passage.

But studies have proven that viewing an ultrasound does not lead women to not have abortions. And while seven states already require doctors to give women the option of an ultrasound before an abortion procedure, Pennsylvania’s bill goes well beyond simply making sure that women have enough information.

Mike Leavitt, President George W. Bush’s former Secretary of Health and Human Services and a senior adviser to Mitt Romney, says the Affordable Care Act could help reduce health care costs and transform America’s existing fee-for-service health care model. In an apparent break from Romney’s pledge to “easily” repeal the law, Leavitt told ModernHealthcare that the measure could help move the nation in the right direction:

Mike Leavitt, the former secretary of HHS under President George W. Bush and current Romney adviser, said the federal government’s historic $15 trillion debt will drive “hard” changes in healthcare system to reduce its costs. Those changes, including moving across healthcare from a fee-for-service model to outcomes based payment, may be facilitated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Romney has repeatedly urged repeal and replacement of the law.

The law “gives the secretary authority to do certain things that are clearly aimed at trying to move us in this direction,” he said in a brief interview after addressing a Washington gathering of the Cancer Action Network. “A lot of it will depend on how aggressively the secretary chooses to use the authorities in the law to move us in that direction.”

Leavitt’s consulting firm, Leavitt Partners, is also heavily invested in the health law’s exchanges and “has been advising companies and state legislatures” on how to build the new marketplaces. He has also said that companies and states will likely implement the measure despite the GOP’s efforts to unravel the law, arguing that “they recognize that individual insurance shoppers and small businesses have long been at a disadvantage, lacking the negotiating power of large companies that can demand better prices.”