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Health

Big Tobacco Goes High-Tech To Convince You Smoking Is Cool

A Terrible Attack On Women's Health In Ohio

How College Activists Sparked A National Movement Against Rape Culture

NEWS FLASH

Report: Elderly Americans Are Living Longer, Healthier | According to a government report about the well-being of older Americans, today’s 65-year-olds can expect to live longer — to age 85, compared to 79 in 1980 — and healthier than previous generations. Deaths from heart disease and stroke have dropped almost 50 percent, which has helped to increase the average life expectancy for Americans. But a dozen developed nations had longer life expectancies than America’s. Even though the U.S. and Japan had about equal life expectancies 30 years ago, Japanese citizens live about four years longer — to 89 — on average than Americans.

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Aug 21, 2012 at 5:37 pm

NEWS FLASH

Moody’s: Budget Cuts Hurt State Finances More Than Health Care Reform | Several state governors say they’ll reject Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion because the program will be too expensive for the states, but federal budget cuts could do more harm to state finances than the Medicaid expansion included in the Affordable Care Act, according to Moody’s Investors Service. States’ credit ratings will likely not be affected by whether or not they opt into the Medicaid expansion, Moddy’s explained. But if Congress excludes the military from the planned “sequestration” spending cuts, that could lead to more cuts in other programs, like Medicaid, and put more pressure on states. “Rising healthcare costs and an aging population will continue to increase Medicaid’s costs and challenge states’ finances, regardless of how federal healthcare reform is ultimately implemented,” one Moody’s official said.

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Aug 21, 2012 at 4:48 pm

NEWS FLASH

Rep. Steve King Says He’s Never Heard Of A Rape-Induced Pregnancy | Rep. Steve King (R-IA) is doubling down on behalf of his colleague Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) who said Sunday that it’s unlikely for a woman to get pregnant from “legitimate rape” because her body would “shut that whole thing down.” In an interview with Iowa’s KMEG-TV, King denied ever hearing about anyone getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest, saying: “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way, and I’d be open to discussion about that subject matter.” King is one of Akin’s very few remaining defenders as Republican politicians try to distance themselves from the controversy. Just a few weeks ago, King claimed that it’s perfectly legal to rape and kidnap a young girl and then transport her across state lines to force her to get an abortion to “eradicate the evidence of his crime.”

Justice

Todd Akin Isn’t The Only Tea Party Senate Candidate Who Thinks Medicare Is Unconstitutional

By Ian Millhiser posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Aug 21, 2012 at 12:30 pm

Rep. Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin (R-MO) does not just have an unusually weak understanding of human biology, he also has a similar inability to understand the Constitution. Akin doubts the constitutionality of Medicare and other federal health care programs, in addition to believing that national school lunch programs violate the Constitution.

Akin is not alone. At least one other major Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate believes that Medicare and other essential federal programs are unconstitutional. At a Tea Party rally last May, Indiana U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock questioned the constitutionality of America’s social safety net for seniors:

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — I challenge you in Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. where those so-called enumerated powers are listed, I challenge you to find words that talk about “Medicare” or “Medicaid” or, yes, even “Social Security.”

Watch it:

For the record, the very first sentence of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which provides that “[t]he Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” is what allows the United States to create social welfare programs such as Medicare.

If Akin and Mourdock win their bids to become United States Senators, they will not be the only ones who share this belief that the Founding Fathers intended for seniors to be left to the wolves. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) have also indicated that they think Medicare is unconstitutional.

NEWS FLASH

Declining Rates Of Infant Circumcision Could Increase Health Costs | In a study published yesterday, researchers at Johns Hopkins University warn that the recent decline in the U.S.’s infant circumcision rates could lead to billions of dollars in additional medical costs when uncircumcised boys grow up to become sexually active men. The researchers estimated that every infant boy who does not undergo circumcision will incur increased lifetime medical expenses, particularly for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases they may be more likely to experience. According to the CDC, rates of infant circumcision in the U.S. has fallen from around 80 percent in the 1980s to less than 55 percent in 2010, partly due to the fact that Americans remain sharply divided on the issue of circumcision. But the decline may also be partially attributed to the fact that 18 states have eliminated Medicaid coverage for circumcision to save costs, since many physicians consider the procedure to be merely cosmetic. The senior author of the Johns Hopkins study disagrees, maintaining that “the federal Medicaid program should reclassify circumcision from an optional service to one all states should cover.”

STUDY: Women Seeking Abortions Are Seven Times More Likely To Be Victims Of Abuse

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Aug 21, 2012 at 9:00 am

In contrast to Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) offensive comments that “legitimate rape” doesn’t lead to pregnancy, a new study from the Guttmacher Institute finds that pregnant women who seek abortions are actually more likely to have experienced a traumatic event like sexual abuse. In fact, the findings suggest the number of women seeking to terminate a pregnancy who have experienced intimate partner violence — defined as sexual or physical abuse at the hands of a significant other — is seven times higher than the national average for domestic violence.

The study, released Monday, sought to investigate why low-income women are more likely to terminate a pregnancy than women at higher income levels. It found that poorer women experienced a greater number of “disruptive life events” — such as losing a job, ending a relationship, or suffering abuse — that contributed to their decision to seek an abortion. Fifty eight percent of respondents cited a disruptive life event within the year that preceded their abortion, including intimate partner violence that led to an unplanned pregnancy:

Seven percent of the women surveyed by Guttmacher after seeking an abortion reported that they had been physically or sexually abused by the man with whom they became pregnant. National surveys have found that slightly more than one percent of US women report abuse at the hands of their partners.

Poor women, meanwhile, were twice as likely to say they had been physically or sexually abused by the man who impregnated them than abortion-seekers with higher incomes (9.3 percent versus 4.4 percent).

Despite the fact that far-right lawmakers like Akin tout junk science to underscore the anti-choice viewpoint that women are never justified in seeking an abortion, suggesting that sexual assault somehow can’t result in unwanted pregnancies, the actual science says otherwise. However, even though women who seek abortions are vastly more likely to have suffered domestic abuse from the man who impregnated them, the official Republican party platform endorses a stringent anti-abortion amendment to the Constitution that does not include an exception in the cases of rape or incest.

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