Austin Frakt over at The Incidental Economist points out that the cost of brand name prescription drugs has skyrocketed relative to the price of their generic counterparts:

While this doesn’t pose a significant problem for seniors on Medicare — surveys have shown that close to 90 percent of seniors are satisfied with their Medicare plans, largely thanks to the fact that Obamacare helps save seniors money on their prescription drugs by closing the program’s “donut hole” coverage gap — it is a concerning trend for those with private insurance plans whose benefits might not be as generous.

The rise in brand name prescription drug costs mirrors the general trend for health care costs, which have been skyrocketing over the last three decades. As private insurers hike their premium rates in response to the price of care, Americans with extensive drug needs may see the cost of their treatments slip into unaffordable territory.

Furthermore, the upward trajectory in brand name drug prices poses a significant hurdle for Americans suffering from rarer disorders. These consumers require a more complex cocktail of drugs to meet their medical needs — needs that likely cannot be met by existing generic drugs.

As leaders from both parties jockey for position in the ongoing debate over the fiscal cliff, Republicans have sought to label their Democratic counterparts as unwilling to compromise, disinterested in anything other than raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and on the whole not serious about tackling the nation’s long-term entitlement spending.

“I’m disappointed in where we are, and disappointed in what’s happened over the last couple weeks,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters. “And I would hope the White House would get serious as well.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he “burst out laughing” after seeing President Obama’s proposal and insisted that he should detail specific cuts to entitlements.

If Republicans want specifics, they know where to look. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner laid forth a detailed plan on Thursday containing proposals long held by the administration to both raise $1.6 trillion in additional revenue over the next 10 years and cut billions from Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. On top of the $716 billion in savings included in the Affordable Care Act, in February, the administration detailed an estimated $360 billion in reductions by cutting back excessive provider reimbursements, securing more favorable drug rebates, and eliminating waste, redundancies, and inefficiencies. Obama has repeatedly claimed that those reductions are now on the table. Here is the detailed breakdown of that plan:

While the administration’s proposed cuts are designed to weed out inefficiencies within the health care system without impacting beneficiaries, the GOP’s plan — to the extent that it resembles Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposal — would to transform Medicare into a voucher program and shift the cost of health care to beneficiaries without lowering overall health care costs.

Even though the increased numbers of young women using effective forms of birth control have contributed to a steady decline in the teen birth rate over the past decade, Mississippi has retained the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the nation. At an event this week to address the issue of unintended pregnancy in the state, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) told reporters he believes that although most adolescents do know how to obtain and use contraception, “the problem is teenagers do not care enough” about using birth control.

The GOP governor cited an education campaign that his administration sponsored this year as an example of the steps he’s taking to address the problem:

Bryant appointed a group earlier this year to study ways to reduce teenage pregnancy, and it has also sponsored town-hall meetings in Jackson and Lexington. The group has posted several billboards around the state with a photo of a pregnant belly, complete with stretch marks, next to the slogan: “Scars may fade. A baby is FOREVER.” [...]

Bryant told The Daily Leader that town-hall meetings to discuss teen pregnancy are important. “The road to success is in having an open, frank discussion and saying we need to stop this,” Bryant said.

Bryant has said repeatedly that he believes abstinence-only is the best approach to teaching young people about sex. It’s the approach that’s been used for years by the school districts that already were teaching optional classes about sex education.

In fact, Bryant’s approach to reducing the number of unintended pregnancies in his state is directly contradictory. Even though he claims Mississippi’s high teen pregnancy rate is not due to a lack of education about birth control, and rather a disregard for using it, the reality is that many teens choose to forgo contraception because they are grossly misinformed about how effective it is. According to the Centers for Disease Control, about one third of teen mothers decided not to use birth control when they became sexually active because they just didn’t believe they could get pregnant.

And that lack of education about effective contraception is a direct result of the abstinence-only education programs that Bryant supports. Studies have confirmed that when students aren’t given comprehensive, medically accurate information about how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, they end up with serious gaps in their sexual education.

A 2011 Mississippi state law requires that some kind of gender-separated sexual education must be offered in public schools, but the school districts are split between providing abstinence-only education classes and “abstinence plus” classes that — while still primarily pushing shame-based abstinence messages — include some mention about some forms of contraception. Even though Bryant’s billboards may be trying to tell teenagers that babies are “forever,” young adults won’t start getting the message about effectively preventing unintended pregnancy until they receive medically accurate information about it.

The Republican party has been fighting against President Obama’s landmark health reform law since it was first introduced, but some GOPers are finally conceding that it may not be in their best interest to resist Obamacare altogether — especially because, as former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) has pointed out, some important Obamacare provisions actually originated as “Republican ideas.” Frist has urged states to set up health insurance exchanges under Obamacare, since that actually gives state officials more control over their own insurance markets; otherwise, the federal government will simply step in to set up one for them as Obamacare’s implementation marches forward.

But even though GOP officials in deeply conservative states agree with Frist, some intransigent members of the Republican party continue to resist every aspect of Obamacare as a purely political statement. Meet five GOP officials who have been clashing with their fellow Republicans over implementing Obamacare in their states:

Mike Cheney – Mississippi

For the past year, Mississippi’s insurance commissioner has worked under the radar to prepare for a state-level insurance exchange, but his efforts have been thwarted by the rest of his party at every turn. Chaney agreed to cease his work until after the election after mounting pressure from other conservatives. After Obama secured re-election and ensured his health law won’t be repealed, and Chaney informed HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he plans to oversee the creation of a state-run exchange, Gov. Phil Bryant (R) went to Sebelius to express his objections to Chaney’s decision. According to Chaney — who maintains that implementing Obamacare is “not about politics,” but about following the law — the governor told him that opposing Obamacare is somewhat of a political pact. “He said, ‘We — some of the Republican governors — should not give in to the Obama administration on this, because they will change the rules and control everything. You cannot trust them,” Chaney recounted to Politico.

Gov. Rick Snyder – Michigan

Michigan’s Republican governor wanted to set up a state-run exchange so that his own state officials would have more control over the insurance market. But Republican legislators in his state repeatedly voted to block him from moving forward with plans for implementing an exchange. By the end of August, Snyder conceded he was left with no other options, acknowledging that federal officials would have to step in to set up the exchange since his fellow Republicans prevented him from doing it himself. “He would have preferred a state-based exchange so Michigan can control its own destination instead of the feds being in driver’s seat,” the governor’s spokesperson told the Detroit News.

Sandy Praeger – Kansas

Kansas’ insurance commissioner spent two years working on plans for a state-run health exchange market in her state. But earlier this month, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) announced that Kansas would not be participating in a state exchange, bringing Praeger’s plans to a screeching halt. Praeger told Politico that she doesn’t believe the governor’s position is motivated by a real understanding about what’s best for the state’s insurance marketplace. “I think it’s about politics,” she said. “There’s still a feeling with some conservative governors around the country that somehow not participating will cause this program to fail.”

Don Hughes – Arizona

Arizona’s director of healthcare policy was planning for a state-run exchange before Gov. Jan Brewer (R) announced her intentions for the insurance market in the state. Before the election, Hughes told Reuters that even though Arizona is a very conservative state that remains opposed to Obamacare — it was one of the states that filed a joint lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act — he felt that state officials should still work toward setting up their own exchange. “If we have to have one, I think our preference would be to have a state-based exchange rather than defer to a federal exchange,” he said. Nevertheless, Brewer rejected a state-run exchange earlier this week.

Gov. Bill Haslam – Tennessee

To the dismay of state lawmakers, Tennessee’s Republican governor has been weighing a state-run health exchange. Politico reports that Haslam’s spokesperson explains the governor is carefully weighing all his options to determine what is best for Tennessee, but Republicans in the state have already pledged to block legislation that would work toward setting up an exchange. One Republican representative said he was “flummoxed” by the fact that Haslam might be considering implementing Obamacare — and since Republicans will hold 26 of the 33 seats in the state Senate by next year, they will reject any health exchange plans that Haslam brings to them.

After surviving a Supreme Court challenge and a presidential election, Obamacare is truly here to stay. But the federal government, states, and health care providers now have their work cut out for them as they begin implementing the biggest overhaul of the American health care system since the establishment of Medicare.

One of the biggest challenges will be making sure that Americans have accurate information about their health coverage options so they can successfully enroll in the health plan that’s right for them in 2014. Between states and the federal government instituting health insurance exchanges, expanding Medicaid pools, and issuing insurance subsidies to qualifying Americans, that’s a whole lot of change in a relatively small period of time — and it’s ripe for confusion and misinformation.

Luckily, some health insurers — who were once the most vocal opponents of Obamacare — are accepting health reform’s reality and teaming up with the nonprofit group Enroll America to make sure that the law is enacted properly and that Americans have the right information about which plans and subsidies they qualify for. As Bloomberg reports, the move has as much to do with health insurers’ rational self-interest as it does with the looking out for the American people’s well-being:

Enroll America, a nonprofit created two years ago, has gathered support from the insurers that opposed the law and consumer organizations such as Washington-based Families USA that supported it. The new organization plans a broad-based educational campaign to make uninsured people aware of the health-care law’s benefits and help them sign up, said Ron Pollack, Enroll America’s chairman.

The group will reach out to the 43 million uninsured whose participation will help strengthen the funding formula that holds the 2010 Affordable Care Act together. The new customers are expected to help offset added costs for the insurers from new regulations and taxes included in the law.

“Business people in the end have to be pragmatic,” Robert Laszewski, a health insurance industry consultant based in Alexandria, Virginia, said of the companies’ efforts to help the law succeed. “The industry has gotten over it.” [...]

“You want to mimic the success of employer plans, in which everyone is enrolled when they take a job,” said Sara Collins, a vice president at the Commonwealth Fund in New York, in a telephone interview. “It will be essential that everyone comes in to get the coverage that they’re eligible for.”

Since Obamacare ensures that insurers will no longer be able to partake in odious practices like denying Americans coverage based on a pre-existing condition, those firms now have a very real financial stake in making sure that Americans are insured and able to pay for their medical services. Otherwise, insurers run the risk of not having enough healthy Americans participating in their risk pools and helping to mitigate the costs of insuring the sicker Americans that they must now cover. The partnership between Enroll America and health insurance providers is one that will benefit insurance companies and the uninsured alike.

In advance of this year’s World AIDS Day on Saturday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined a blueprint to continue advancing recent gains in HIV education and treatment, eventually leading to a future AIDS-free generation.

Clinton cited the dramatically dropping number of new infections across the globe, the growing numbers of HIV-positive individuals gaining access to treatment, and the continued advances in scientific research as reasons to be optimistic about eventually eradicating new cases of AIDS for future generations:

CLINTON: Now, make no mistake about it: HIV may well be with us into the future. But the disease that it causes need not be. We can reach a point where virtually no children are born with the virus, and as these children become teenagers and adults, they are at a far lower risk of becoming infected than they are today. And if they do acquire HIV, they have access to treatment that helps prevent them from not only from developing AIDS, but from and passing the virus on to others.

Clinton also pointed out that some communities at risk for contracting HIV — such as drug users, men who have sex with men, and sex workers — are often driven “into the shadows” by societal stigma, shame, and discrimination, and global efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic must work to correct that. Recent research has confirmed that anti-gay stigma helps maintain the HIV epidemic by hampering the effectiveness of HIV advocacy programs, and homophobia continues to impede gay men’s access to HIV services.

Public health officials maintain that early detection of the HIV virus is one of the most important methods of containing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, so treatment can begin early and the virus can hopefully be contained. Earlier this month, a government-backed health panel endorsed regular HIV screening for everyone between the ages of 15 and 65, ensuring that HIV testing will now be covered under Obamacare.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) announced today that his state will participate in the optional expansion of the Medicaid program under Obamacare, one of the crucial methods that the health care reform law uses to extend coverage to previously uninsured Americans. An estimated 33,000 Missouri residents will be able to access health insurance thanks to Nixon’s decision to expand Medicaid.

“As Chief Executive for the state, I take my financial responsibilities very seriously,” Nixon said in the statement. “I trust that as others scrutinize the numbers, as I have, they will come to the same conclusion: that we can do the smart thing and the right thing for the people of Missouri.”

Republican governors across the country have been digging in their heels against implementing Obamacare in their states, claiming that covering more of their low-income residents under Medicaid would impose too much of a strain on their budgets — despite significant evidence to the contrary. But a statement from Nixon’s office noted that expanding Medicaid represents a “fiscally responsible move” for his state because the federal government will contribute 100 percent of the costs of expansion for the first three years, and 90 percent or more in the years after that. And on top of that, a report from earlier this week found that the additional funding from the federal government will help spur the local economy by creating 24,000 new jobs in the state in 2014 alone.

Nixon’s decision will help move his state toward implementing the Affordable Care Act after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature has repeatedly attempted to block Obamacare’s implementation altogether. In September, Missouri lawmakers voted to give employers the right to deny their employees coverage for contraceptive services — a method of circumventing Obamacare’s contraception mandate, which requires employer-based insurance plans to cover birth control without a co-pay. And on November 6, Missouri voters passed a meaningless anti-Obamacare ballot initiative to prevent their governor from moving forward with a state-based health exchange, another one of the health law’s tactics for lowering the uninsurance rate. Instead of preventing Obamacare’s implementation in Missouri, that vote actually left Nixon with no choice but to cede to the federal government, which will now step in and set up a health exchange for the state.

The news that Missouri will move forward with expanding Medicaid is especially good news for the state’s hospitals, which stood to lose about $400 million in funding without the Medicaid expansion. Some estimates projected that, if Missouri decided against expanding Medicaid, as many as 40 to 50 percent of rural hospitals in the state could have been forced to close.

Superstorm Sandy tore through the East Coast at the end of October, leaving significant damage and serious public threats in its wake — and now, a month and a presidential election later, some Americans still aren’t completely out of danger even though the news cycle has largely moved on.

The New York City Health Department is warning medical providers that although power has been restored in the city, thousands of New Yorkers are still living without heat in their homes, resulting in a soaring number of recent hypothermia cases. In the weeks after Sandy hit, cold exposure sent three times as many people to the emergency room compared to the same period in November between 2008 and 2011. And public health officials are worried that the problem will worsen in the upcoming winter months:

The department warned health care providers that residents living in unheated homes faced “a significant risk of serious illness and death from multiple causes.” [...]

And as temperatures dip, health officials said the cold could lead to other health problems, including a worsening of heart and lung diseases and an increase in anxiety and depression.

“My bigger concern is what happens in the future as we get closer to winter in the next four weeks,” Dr. Thomas A. Farley, the city’s health commissioner, said in an interview. “There are probably about 12,000 people living in unheated apartments right now.”

Some people still living without heat are turning to ovens or gas-fueled space heaters, but public health officials advise against those temporary solutions because of the increased risk of fire and carbon monoxide poisoning. Without proper ventilation, back-up generators can cause unsafe levels of carbon monoxide in the air — and sure enough, in the week after Sandy, the number of cases of potentially fatal carbon monoxide exposure was more than 10 times higher than average, and 6 times as high the following week. The city’s health department also reported that calls to New York City’s poison center have increased over the past month.

New Yorkers’ increased risk of health dangers is especially problematic because the city’s hospital system is not yet operating at full capacity after the superstorm seriously damaged several medical facilities, forcing some hospitals that flooded and lost power to evacuate their patients to different locations. The director of trauma at Bellevue Hospital — New York’s flagship public hospital, which had to spread its staff and patients across other buildings after Sandy devastated its own facilities — told ProPublica that even though hospital staff has been holding it together so far to continue caring for their patients, the “current status of care in Manhattan is not sustainable for any length of time.”

Nevertheless, health care workers have been vigilant in working overtime to care for their patients, even in the compromised conditions brought about by Hurricane Sandy. With the fall months fading into winter, their work may not be done quite yet.

According to a study compiled by Oregon public health officials, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Americans are susceptible to a host of sexual and mental health issues at significantly higher rates than heterosexuals.

In addition to facing higher levels of food insecurity and poverty, the study finds that LGB adults are less likely to have access to health insurance and more likely to face sexual and emotional abuse than their fellow heterosexuals. As per the Oregonian, here are some of the report’s findings:

• Nearly twice as many LGB adults report frequent mental distress as hetero adults. One in five LGBQ youth report a suicide attempt in the previous 12 months compared with one in 25 heterosexual youth.
• More than one in three LGB adults report ever being sexually assaulted compared with one in eight heterosexual adults.
• Twice as many LGB adults reporting ever being hit, slapped, pushed, kicked or physically hurt by an intimate partner in their lifetimes as is reported among hetero adults.
• LGB adults are less likely than heterosexuals to have medical insurance.

Other studies have also confirmed that this segment of the American population encounters significant hurdles when it comes to insurance coverage and maintaining proper mental health.

The Los Angeles Times reports that several major health insurers — including Anthem Blue Cross and Aetna — are seeking to increase the premiums they charge individual policyholders in California by double digits.

The move by Anthem and its fellow insurers has drawn ire from consumers and watchdog groups from across the state, especially in light of the fact that medical inflation has been at historic lows over the past several years:

Anthem customer Ellie Podway, 55, of Pasadena said she and her husband received a letter the day before Thanksgiving informing them of a 14% rate increase to $881 a month, effective in February. Since 2010, Anthem has boosted the couple’s monthly premium 81%, she said.

“This is out of control,” Podway said. “You feel like you’re being sucker punched over and over.”

Anthem, a unit of Indianapolis insurance giant WellPoint Inc., isn’t alone in levying double-digit rate hikes.

Aetna, the nation’s third-largest health insurer, wants to boost premiums 19%, on average, for nearly 70,000 individual customers in California, effective in April. Woodland Hills insurer Health Net raised rates last month 14%, on average, for more than 30,000 individual policyholders and their dependents statewide. Blue Shield of California is expected to file for rate increases for individual customers next week.

Industrywide, health insurers have been helped by historically low increases in medical costs the last few years as consumers postponed doctor’s visits and other care to avoid out-of-pocket expenses in a sluggish economy. U.S. healthcare spending has grown less than 4% annually the last three years, according to government figures, the lowest rates in more than 50 years.

Anthem claims that the premium increases are necessary due to the rising cost of insuring health benefits, and claims the group will not rake in significant profits from the rate hikes. By contrast, however, California employers say that their health benefit costs only rose by about 5.5 percent, and the nonprofit Kaiser Permanente is seeking a far more modest 8 percent increase in its rates — suggesting that such drastic hikes aren’t actually essential.

It’s difficult to keep health insurers in check in an era of rising medical costs, particularly on the individual policyholder market, although the health reform law does include important consumer protections to help safeguard Americans from predatory practices. Come 2014, Obamacare hopes to drive premium costs down by forcing insurers to compete with one another on statewide insurance exchanges, giving Americans on the individual and small business markets increased bargaining power. The health law also contains a “medical loss ratio” provision — dubbed the “80/20 rule” — that requires insurers to spend 80 cents of every premium dollar they charge on actual health care services rather than their own overhead or profits.

This week, one of Ohio’s top lawmakers announced that the state Senate will not attempt to push through two pieces of restrictive abortion legislation during this session, including a “heartbeat” bill that would have represented the most stringent abortion ban in the nation. Arizona’s 20-week abortion ban currently earns the dubious distinction of being the country’s toughest abortion restriction, but Ohio’s bill would have moved the goalposts even further by seeking to outlaw the procedure as soon as a fetal heartbeat can be detected — which can occur as early as 6 weeks, before many women even realize they’re pregnant.

Ohio Senate Speaker Tom Niehaus (R) acknowledged on Tuesday that the heartbeat measure is too controversial to reach consensus even among anti-choice groups, and he wants to hold off on a vote this year so that abortion opponents can come to an agreement on the bill. But that’s not good enough for some of the right-wing activists in the state, who are still demanding that Republicans find a way to jam the legislation through:

Janet Folger Porter, president of the conservative action group Faith2Action, said she’ll work to collect 17 Republican signatures on a discharge petition, which can be used to force the so-called “heartbeat bill” out of a committee.

“Unless pro-lifers want to hold signs and march for 40 more years, they should pick up the phone and call every Republican senator and demand a floor vote for the Heartbeat Bill before their inaction kills it,” Porter said in a statement. “These Republicans have the power to bring the Heartbeat Bill to a vote before it dies.”

Even though Republicans haven’t seen much recent success with radical abortion initiatives — voters largely rejected anti-choice legislation on November 6, as well as the anti-choice candidates who sparked controversy with their campaigns’ focuses on restricting abortion access — Faith2Action isn’t the only far-right group clinging to a failing agenda.

Anti-abortion groups like Personhood USA and the Susan B. Anthony List are still busy pressuring lawmakers to continue supporting legislation to limit women’s reproductive access, and conservative lawmakers in states like Arkansas are already gearing up to advance that type of agenda next year. And when former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently suggested that Republicans might want to reconsider their focus on limiting abortion rights in order to build a broader coalition, spokespeople for the two groups harshly criticized him for betraying the party’s mission.

A new study from University of Southern California researchers finds that children exposed to more air pollution had higher rates of autism. Though there is no conclusive answer about whether pollution can cause autism, the lead author says “it may be a risk factor for autism. Autism is a complex disorder and it’s likely there are many factors contributing.”

Studying 500 children California cities, the researchers found those likely exposed to the most pollution — estimated based on traffic, vehicle emissions, wind patterns, and regional data — are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with the disorder. Some children may be more susceptible because of genetics.

TIME describes the growing body of research that links autism to pollution:

Even so, the latest study findings suggest that air pollution may be one of the best characterized environmental risk factors for autism. In an earlier study published in 2010, Volk and colleagues showed that kids with autism were much more likely than kids without the disorder to have been born to mothers living within 1,000 feet of a freeway. Other researchers have shown that kids with autism are also unusually likely to have exposure to high levels of diesel exhaust particles and metals (mercury, cadmium, and nickel) and to other air-pollutant chemicals, such as those used to make rubber, plastics, and dyes.

These associations continued to remain strong even after researchers adjusted for other characteristics, like poverty, that may also be connected to pollution. Unlike asthma, for example, autism rates are not consistently higher among lower income populations. In Volk’s study, the links between air pollution and autism risk were virtually unchanged after accounting for parents’ race and ethnicity, educational attainment, and smoking status, as well as for the area’s population density.

Some questions do remain, such as why autism diagnoses have increased since 2006 to 1 in 88 children without any major changes in pollution. Although scientists need to further examine that link, outdoor pollutants are already a known trigger in asthma, which has also become more common in recent years.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization — the only abortion clinic in the entire state of Mississippi — has been fighting to remain open after Republican legislators, aiming to force the clinic to close, passed a restrictive regulation requiring its doctors to secure hospital admitting privileges. A Bush-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked the measure in July to give the clinic’s doctors more time to apply for privileges at area hospitals, but that order expires in early January. And so far, all seven hospitals in the area have denied privileges to the doctors.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a motion Wednesday asking a judge to stop the law from being implemented — and forcing the clinic to stop providing abortion care — before January 6, 2013. If it closes, women in Mississippi will no longer have access to abortion in the state:

“This unconstitutional law has essentially handed over the fate of Mississippi women’s reproductive health care to hospital administrators,” said Michelle Movahed, staff attorney at the Center [for Reproductive Rights].

Betty Thompson, a spokesperson for the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, told The Huffington Post that the clinic’s staffers are “on pins and needles” waiting for the court’s decision. She said the clinic served about 2,000 patients in 2011 and that the majority of its clients are low-income and teenage women. The next nearest clinic for Mississippi residents is approximately three hours away and over the state line, and most neighboring states require women to make a second visit to the abortion clinic after a 24-hour waiting period in order to receive services.

“Mississippi women have the same constitutional rights as any other women in the United States,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “They deserve far better than to be forced to travel hundreds of miles to another state to get a safe, legal medical procedure.”

Hospitals reportedly denied privileges to clinic doctors because the fact that they provide abortion services “is inconsistent with this Hospital’s policies and practices as concerns abortion and, in particular, elective abortions.” Mississippi has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation, as well as the lowest abortion rate.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has gotten in hot water with anti-choice groups for his comment this Sunday that Republicans should stop focusing on abortion if the GOP wants to appeal to broader group of Americans. The Susan B. Anthony list and Personhood USA, two leading anti-choice groups, both issued statements strongly condemning McCain’s suggestion:

“He should figure out why he decided to take that position [to oppose abortion rights] in the first place,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser. “The folks that have taken the stand on this issue have taken it because we’re talking about defending vulnerable human life. If it’s not about that, it’s not about anything.” …

Personhood USA took a more direct tact in an earlier statement, calling on the GOP to “drop” its former presidential candidate over his desire for a de facto truce on abortion. “We will never be successful if we compromise,” said Jennifer Mason, the group’s communications director.

These groups appear to be speaking for anti-choice advocates across the country — lawmakers in multiple states began a renewed push to enact harsh abortion legislation in the weeks right after the election, despite the fact that voters decisively rejected that agenda on November 6.

Personhood USA’s campaign in particular has been extremely unpopular with the public. The group endorses legislation to redefine legal personhood as beginning at conception — hence criminalizing abortion without exception, and potentially several forms of contraception as well — and that ambition has been frustrated at every turn, as every personhood initiative to come to a final vote has been defeated. In the most recent example, Virginia Republicans conceded earlier this week that they don’t have the votes in their own party to advance personhood legislation beyond committee.

McCain himself, however, doesn’t fit the typical profile of the politicians who anti-choice advocates usually target, since he remains staunchly opposed to abortion rights. As the New Republic’s Sarah Blustain reported in 2008, “There is no ‘latitude’ in McCain’s position on abortion. Interviews with dozens of people who have dealt with him on the issue–pro-choice and pro-life activists, Hill staffers, McCain confidants, pollsters, and staffers — along with a two-and-a-half-decade-long perfectly anti-abortion voting record, make that clear.”

Young people between the ages of 13 and 24 aren’t getting regularly tested for the HIV virus, even though rates of infection are growing among that demographic, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control finds.

Even though recent gains in HIV treatment and prevention, both here in the U.S. and around the world, have made huge strides in combating the global HIV/AIDS epidemic — so much so that United Nations officials recently declared they believe an end to the epidemic is in sight — the CDC warns that young Americans still need to be more aware of their risk. Young people from 13 to 24 years old contribute to more than a quarter of the country’s new HIV infections each year, but half of HIV-positive individuals between 13 and 24 years old aren’t even aware they have the virus:

Despite a shift in public health messaging to emphasize that early detection and treatment can help HIV-positive individuals stay healthy and reduce the spread of the virus, young Americans aren’t getting the message.

The CDC found that only about a third of those ages 17 to 24 had been tested for HIV in 2010, while just 13 percent of high school students were tested in 2011. That lack of testing is part of the reason those younger than 25 are less likely to seek treatment for HIV, which can also reduce the risk that they transmit it.

“Too few young people are getting tested for HIV,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden said on a conference call with reporters outlining the findings before World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.

CDC officials also confirmed that the HIV epidemic continues to be stratified along racial lines, since African-American males are still at the greatest risk for contracting the virus. The rate of HIV infection among black Americans is nearly eight times than the rate for white Americans, and black youth account for nearly 60 percent of all new infections among Americans between 13 and 24.

The CDC report recommends increasing education programs for youth that emphasize HIV prevention, a discrepancy that is currently furthered by abstinence-only curricula in schools across the country. Just 20 states mandate that public schools must provide both HIV education and sexual education in their health classes, and only 12 states have standards in place to require medically accurate information about HIV in the classrooms.