Earlier this year, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney came out strongly against the Obama administration policy that will require health insurance plans to offer birth control coverage at no additional cost — one of the many important preventive health benefits women will receive as a result of Obamacare.

In particular, Romney denounced the fact that insurance plans would now be required to cover Plan B, a form of emergency contraception that he falsely referred to on numerous occasions as “abortive pills.” This is what Romney said in Colorado on February 6, 2012:

ROMNEY: This same administration said that the churches and the institutions they run, such as schools and let’s say adoption agencies, hospitals, that they have to provide for their employees free of charge, contraceptives, morning after pills, in other words abortive pills, and the like at no cost. Think what that does to people in faiths that do not share those views. This is a violation of conscience.

(Plan B works just like regular birth control pills and is not, in fact, an abortifacient.)

The Miami Herald’s Marc Caputo reports that next week the Romney campaign will be doing a major fundraising blitz across Florida, including an event “at the Star Island manse of pharmaceutical magnate Phil and Pat Frost where dinner costs $50,000.”

Who is Dr. Phil Frost? He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Teva Pharmaceuticals, a major manufacturer of contraceptives. Its North American website prominently advertises several forms of contraception, including Plan B One Step, which Romney previously denounced as an “abortive pill”:

This isn’t Romney’s first instance of hypocrisy on this issue.  Earlier this year, ThinkProgress revealed Romney’s hypocrisy, noting that he was financially invested in — and profiting from — the very products he was seeking to restrict affordable access to:

Romney’s Goldman Sachs 2002 Exchange Place Fund, valued at over a million dollars in 2010, brought in nearly $600,000 in gains in 2010 and is invested in:

- Watson Pharmaceuticals: manufacturer of nine forms of emergency contraception (which Romney incorrectly identifies as “abortifacients“).
- Johnson & Johnson: launched the first U.S. prescription birth control product in 1931 and produces various forms of birth control.
- Merck: produces various forms of birth control
- Mylan: produces birth control medication and filed the first application for a generic birth control pill last year.
- Pfizer: a contraception producer that recently had to recall about a million packs of birth-control pills that weren’t packaged correctly.

It appears that Mitt Romney strongly opposes emergency contraception, except when it’s of financial benefit to him or his campaign.

MOUNT PLEASANT, Wisconsin — At a town hall meeting last Friday, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was confronted by a constituent over his endorsement of “premium support,” a plan that would give future retirees a voucher with which to purchase coverage from private insurers or traditional Medicare. When asked whether he would alter the plan in light of experts “backing away” from it, Ryan claimed that prominent scholars – including Henry Aaron – still supported the general framework of his proposal:

CONSTITUENT: The two men that were your co-creators of your privatization of Medicare plan, Robert Reischauer and Henry Aaron, were on the hill last week. I think they spoke to the House Ways and Means Committee. [...] What’s interesting though, Brennan was on and they’re backing away from your plan, privatization of Medicare, basically because they’re saying it’s going to cost more and give us fewer services than the traditional plan. [...] Are you going to change your plan or how do you stand on that?

RYAN: Hank [sic] Aaron is an economist at Brookings Institute who has been in favor of a different version of what we call “premium support.” [...] Henry Aaron doesn’t agree with the way we’re doing it, but these other Democrats that have been working on the Medicare law for literally a couple of decades, would come to agreement on the best way to save and strengthen Medicare.

Watch it:

Ryan claims that his differences with Aaron are only in the implementation of the policy. In fact, Aaron has said that he no longer believes “premium support” is good policy at all. In testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 27, Aaron conceded that there is no strong evidence the plan would lower the growth of health care costs; in fact, he claimed, private “Medicare Advantage plans are more expensive than is traditional Medicare.” Last year, he also said that “gains from being able to choose among competing insurance plans have been exaggerated.” In an email to ThinkProgress, Aaron confirmed that he has totally backed off the plan.

Instead, Aaron now believes that the Affordable Care Act can do a better job reducing costs and protecting beneficiaries. As he told the Ways and Means Committee, “The passage of the Affordable Care Act means we have put in place a key element of the premium support idea for the rest of the population, namely health insurance exchanges.” Aaron noted that those exchanges are similar to what advocates of “premium support” want to see for Medicare, except these do not put “the burden of cost control on beneficiaries.”

ThinkProgress intern Zachary Bernstein contributed to this post.

Utah’s new law requiring a woman to wait 72 hours before having an abortion goes into effect today, forcing women to put off the procedure for three whole days. A similar law in South Dakota was struck down before it went into effect, but in Utah, Planned Parenthood officials said they will see how the new law affects women before they take legal action.

State Rep. Steve Eliason (R), who sponsored the bill, said the bill would give “women the chance to think about the ramifications of that decision,” but critics claim it will only make it more difficult for women, particularly those who live in rural areas, to access abortion services. “Women make good decisions and think about their decisions and the legislature telling them how long they need to think about their decision — it’s insulting,” said Karrie Galloway, CEO of Utah’s Planned Parenthood Association.

But why stop at only requiring a waiting period for abortions? Robert Kirby, a columnist for The Salt Lake Tribune, satirically questions why there’s not a waiting period before having sex or getting drunk:

Why shouldn’t you have to wait 72 hours before getting drunk or high? Lots of really bad decisions get made when you’re hammered, so it’s only fair that you sign a letter of intent, then sit in a room for three days before being served. [...]

If waiting 72 hours before resolving an unwanted pregnancy is a good idea, why not a 72-hour wait before getting pregnant on purpose? Given issues of overpopulation and increasing poverty, it’s only fair to the rest of us that you go through a cooling-off period.

Forcing women to sit on their medical discussion for a specified period of time puts the government between a woman and her doctor. Abortion is a safe, legal procedure, and women are fully capable of making their own medical choices without being forced to consider the “ramifications” for 72 hours. Similar to laws that force women to have an ultrasound before an abortion procedure, requiring women to wait only puts up additional hurdles that make it more difficult for them to access abortion care.

A new study shows that roughly 42 percent of all Americans are expected to be obese by 2030 if the nation’s obesity rate continues to rise at the same rate. But if the rate stays where it is instead of increasing by 33 percent, the U.S. would save $550 billion in health care costs over the next 20 years. Even a 1 percent decrease in the obesity rate would save $85 billion, according to the analysis released today at the Weight of the Nation conference. The Centers for Disesase Control and Prevention sponsored the conference and helped with the research that highlights the financial consequences of the obesity epidemic, according to NPR:

That rapidly growing group of severely obese people, who have the most medical problems and incur the highest health care costs, will rise from about 5 percent of the population now to 11 percent by 2030, researchers suggest.

The findings are meant to be a call to action, as experts gathered at the CDC conference consider how best to to combat obesity, a public health problem that affects about 78 million adults and 12.5 million children and adolescents.

Obesity already accounts for 21 percent of health care spending, and experts warn that the next generation may have a shorter life span because of how many Americans are considered obese. But this research proves that a small dent in the rising obesity rate could impact rising health care costs. Now if only House Republicans would stop trying to cut prevention initiatives to help improve people’s health.