Kansas Senate President Steve Morris (R) effectively killed an anti-abortion bill by sending it back to a Senate committee that is unlikely to bring it up for a vote before the legislative session ends today. “It is prudent for the Senate to have more time to consider the proposal,” he said.

In a last-ditch effort, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lance Kinzer (R) said the bill’s supporters are trying to pull the bill from committee onto the floor, but they would need 24 votes in the 40-member Senate and it is unclear if they would succeed.

The far-reaching legislation, which the House had passed and governor had promised to sign, would have defined a fetus as a human being, required women to hear the fetal heartbeat prior to undergoing an abortion, forced doctors to warn women that abortions cause breast cancer — even though scientific studies have disputed the claim. Morris said he was concerned about a provision in the 69-page bill that would have affected the accreditation of the University of Kansas Medical Center because it would have banned state employees, including residents who need the training, from performing abortions.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to rescind $110 billion in mandated cuts to the Pentagon’s budget by pushing these reductions onto domestic programs like Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and other mandatory social programs, which are already facing substantial budget cuts.

Led by House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Republicans approved the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012, with 16 Republicans defecting on the issue. The new measure further advances the GOP’s contentious revision of billions in cuts to military spending, which were mandated after the congressional debt commission’s super committee failed to agree on where to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal budget. The Republican bill would shift the cuts away from defense instead:

The Republican bill now would leave these $12 billion in cuts from mandatory programs in place — with the exception of defense. And the real focus of the rewrite is on the appropriations side of the ledger, where the Pentagon faces a $55 billion, or 10 percent, cut.

The House plan would shield the Pentagon from any reduction and, in fact, holds out the promise of an $8 billion increase for defense above the caps set last summer. Domestic programs would also share in some of the protection, but given the cuts already ordered under Ryan’s plan, the sums at stake are far less.

While the measure completely exempts defense cuts, it includes provisions to repeal the Affordable Care Act and takes away about $36 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which the association said would eliminate benefits to about 2 million Americans. Undoubtedly, low-income Americans would be hit the hardest, specifically the long-term unemployed, single-mother households and working-class immigrant families.

Given that the Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act is expected to die in the Senate, the measure is nothing more than a declaration of partisan principle. It raises the question of precisely what the GOP hopes to gain in the face of this potential legislative deadlock by pushing a budget destined to go no where.

– Fatima Najiy

Thanks to a provision of the Affordable Care Act, 16 million consumers and businesses are expected to receive about $1.3 billion in rebates from health insurance companies, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The medical loss ratio rule requires insurers to spend at least 80 to 85 percent of premiums on patient care; if not, then the companies owe rebates to their customers. As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains, “We want to know that most of what we are paying for is for health care, not advertising, executive bonuses or overhead. It’s pretty simple: we want to get a good value for our premium dollars.”

The Kaiser estimates show that rebates add up to $541 million in the large employer market, $377 million in the small business market, and $426 million for those buying insurance on their own. Roughly one-third of people nationally who bought individual insurance plans can expect a rebate, but the percent of consumers expecting rebates ranges from almost zero in some states to 86 percent in Oklahoma and 92 percent in Texas. “This study shows that asking insurance companies to put more of their premium dollar towards patient care rather than administration and profits is not only popular but also effective,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.

Insurance brokers unsuccessfully tried to block this regulation, and Florida officials asked the federal government for less stringent requirements that would have likely reduced the rebate amounts in that state. But if this rule had gone into place in 2010, 15 million people would have seen $2 billion in rebates that year.

The Girl Scouts of USA have withstood an arrant assualt from conservative legislators this year, having been both characterized as a “radicalized organization” that supports abortions and the homosexual agenda, and accused of partnering with the recently oft-beleaguered Planned Parenthood by GOP lawmakers. Now, the Scouts are being attacked by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their “offensive” program materials and alleged association with groups that conflict with Catholic teaching.

Coinciding with the Scouts’ 100th anniversary celebrations, U.S. Catholic bishops have launched an official inquiry:

The new inquiry will be conducted by the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It will look into the Scouts’ “possible problematic relationships with other organizations’’ and various “problematic’’ program materials, according to a letter sent by the committee chairman, Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne, Ind., to his fellow bishops. [...]

Girl Scout leaders hope the bishops’ apprehensions will be eased once they gather information. But there’s frustration within the iconic youth organization — known for its inclusiveness and cookie sales — that it has become such an ideological target, with the girls sometimes caught in the political crossfire.

And the Catholic leaders are also attacking the organization for its supposed connection to Planned Parenthood. The Scouts have consistently and unequivocally denied this accusation, which still has yet to be proven true. The supposed connection between the groups stems from a Girl Scout workshop at a 2010 United Nations event in which an International Planned Parenthood brochure was made available to girls in attendance. The brochure was aimed at young people with HIV and contained pertinent information on how to safely lead active sex lives. Spokespersons for the Scouts maintain that the organization possessed no advance knowledge of the brochure, and thus played no role in distributing it.

The smears against the Girl Scouts, like the Planned Parenthood claim, are a manufactured controversy from right-wing publications. “It’s been hard to get the message out there as to what is true when distortions get repeated over and over,’’ said Gladys Padro-Soler, the Girl Scouts’ director of inclusive membership strategies. The Scouts have addressed most if not all of their critics’ concerns on their official website.

The Scouts also maintain that they do not take a position or develop materials on issues in relation to human sexuality, birth control, abortion, and that “parents or guardians make all decisions regarding program participation that may be of a sensitive nature.”

At least one quarter of the organization’s 2.3. million members are reported to be Catholic, so officials worry that an attack from the Catholic church could further drive down participation in the organization. “For us, there’s an overarching sadness to it,’’ said Girl Scouts’ spokeswoman, Michelle Tompkins. “We’re just trying to further girls’ leadership.’’

–Fatima Naijy

President Obama came out in support of marriage equality on Wednesday, saying that it was important to him to “go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.” His position is also good for public health. Studies have shown that legalizing same-sex marriage helps improve mental health. In one Massachusetts study, it led to fewer visits to health clinics, and all gay men saw benefits, according to the Los Angeles Times:

A study published in February by the American Journal of Public Health found that gay men in Massachusetts were in better physical and mental health after that state became the first to recognize same-sex marriage in 2003. Researchers examined the medical records of 1,211 gay and bisexual men who went to “a large, community-based health clinic” in a “large metropolitan city” and compared the patients’ use of medical services before and after the law went into effect. [...]

Overall, the number of visits to the clinic fell by 13% after gay marriage was legalized – and both partnered and single gay men benefited, the researchers found. “One mechanism that may explain these findings is a reduction in the amount and frequency of status-based stressors that sexual minority men experience when institutionalized forms of stigma are eliminated,” they wrote.

Researchers in California found that married gay men were more relaxed and less depressed than gay men in domestic partnerships. And legally married same-sex couples rely on welfare less than single people, according to another Massachusetts study. “Marriage appears to confer a number of benefits, psychological and otherwise,” Letitia Anne Peplau, a social psychologist at UCLA, told Science. “There isn’t anything in the scientific literature that suggests that gay or lesbian people would benefit less or differently than heterosexual people from access to the institution of marriage.”