In an interview with KWQC-TV6 today, Ann Romney refused to comment on the issues stemming from the ongoing War on Women, declining to address whether she believes women should have access to contraception through their employer-based insurance plans. Such questions are irrelevant, Romney said, because this election is not going to be about birth control:

KWQC TV6: Do you believe that employer-provided health insurance should be required to cover birth control?

ANN ROMNEY: Again, you’re asking me questions that are not about what this election is going to be about. This election is going to be about the economy and jobs.

KWQC TV6: Well, a Pew research poll shows those issues are very important to women, ranking them either “important” or “very important. [...]

ANN ROMNEY: Listen, I’ve been across this country, I’ve been for a year-and-a-half on the campaign trail. I’ve spoken with thousands of women and they are telling me, they’re telling me a couple of things, one they say they’re praying for me which is really wonderful, and then they’re saying, ‘please help, please help. We are so worried about our jobs.’ So really if you want to try to pull me off of the other messages it’s not going to work because I know because I’ve been out there. [...]

I’m going to talk to you about the economy and about job creation and about how my husband is the right person for the right time. This is going to be an election that is very important for women, and we are going to make sure that their economic prosperity is more certain under a President Romney.

Despite Romney’s attempt to pivot to the economy, her claim that birth control is “off message” ignores the real economic situation of women across America. In fact, access to reproductive health services is inextricably linked to the economic issues that countless women face. For example, the Obamacare provision that requires employer-based coverage for contraception — which Ann Romney sidestepped after the interviewer brought it up twice — attempts to address the fact that one in three American women report having struggled to afford birth control at some point in their lives. And when women risk pregnancy without reliable access to contraception, they strain their own finances with the expensive addition of a dependent, as well as incur millions in taxpayer costs for medical care.

In some U.S. cities, the HIV infection rate is equivalent to rates in sub-Saharan African nations, and the virus disproportionately impacts low-income and minority communities. The Centers for Disease Control has experimented with different strategies to help combat HIV rates — including providing HIV tests at pharmacies in low-income areas and launching a “Let’s Stop HIV Together” campaign — but local advocacy groups are also taking matters into their own hands.

The Do One Thing, Change Everything campaign in Philadelphia, where nearly 20,000 people are infected with HIV, is knocking on doors in the poorest neighborhoods in the city to offer free HIV tests. Since the city’s rates of infection are concentrated among black residents in low-income neighborhoods who have limited access to health care services, the group aims to fill in the gaps with volunteers who will bring the health services to them:

“About 40 to 50 neighborhoods account for about half of the United States’ infections,” said Amy Nunn, founder of Philadelphia’s Do One Thing, Change Everything Campaign. “In Philadelphia, a few neighborhoods have very high rates of infection, and those few neighborhoods are driving the overwhelming share of infections.”

To change that, Nunn and her team enlisted volunteers to go to those neighborhoods, knock on doors, get people tested and, if HIV positive, get them free treatment.

While many volunteers get a “no thank you,” they have tested more than 160 people since the program started in July.

The door-to-door campaign also hopes to help eliminate the lingering anti-gay stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS. “A lot of people, even in 2012, think this is a gay disease,” Nunn pointed out. “But that’s not the case, especially in Philadelphia.”

The CDC estimates that about 20 percent of the 1.1 million HIV-positive Americans don’t realize they are infected with the virus. HIV testing may be covered under Obamacare as soon as next year, which could help spur low-income Americans to get tested when cost is no longer an issue. Until then, initiatives like Nunn’s will attempt to keep chipping away at the HIV epidemic’s economic and racial divides.

Earlier this week, the Nation uncovered the fact that Paul Ryan — who has voted with his party to repeal President Obama’s health care law over 30 times — requested Obamacare funds for his Wisconsin district in 2010. However, after the news broke that Ryan sought to fund a new community health center with federal money provided through health care reform, his campaign was quick to retort that grant program has nothing to do with supporting Obamacare because it was created under former President George W. Bush.

Bush did support federal grant programs for community health centers during his presidency. But the specific grant requested by Ryan is funded through Obamacare, which provides $11 billion to expand community health centers. When Ryan requested the funds in 2010, they represented money that Obama approved — under a law that Ryan has referred to as “Washington’s reckless spending spree.”

As the Huffington Post points out, it’s difficult to understand the distinction between Ryan’s support for Bush’s health care spending and his opposition to the exact same health care spending under Obamacare:

But the response from Ryan’s spokesman [Brendan Buck] also raises a question about the candidate’s philosophy on federal spending on health care: Why would he consider dollars approved by Bush to be a good use of money, but funds approved by Obama to be bad?

“Don’t dumb things down,” Buck suggested to HuffPost. “You think he’s opposed to all federal spending on health care? Health care spending makes up a significant portion of his budget.”

On the specific program in question, related to community health centers, Buck said Ryan was merely supporting a constituent. “It’s casework,” he said. “As a general principle he’s not going to turn away his constituents who come to him for help based on his own views of a program.”

Ryan is not alone in his hypocrisy. A laundry list of Republican lawmakers have suggested scrapping Obamacare only to replace it with the exact same health reform measures. When health care reform is acceptable under Republicans but unconstitutional under Obama, GOPers expose themselves as putting partisanship over policy.