With the release of Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) latest budget for the House GOP, a number of commentators are asking why the plan resurrects the idea of privatizing and imposing premium support on Medicare, even after the GOP just lost a presidential election in which that very proposal was a major sticking point.

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd brought up the matter Tuesday morning with Rep. Steve Daines (R-MT), and none other than Fox News’ Chris Wallace put the question to Ryan himself this past Sunday. Ryan’s response was basically that while he and Mitt Romney lost the general vote, they won the vote that actually matters:

CHRIS WALLACE: Now, you know, I don’t have to tell you, this was a big issue in the campaign, between Romney-Ryan versus Obama-Biden. They think they won and they think that’s one of the reasons they won. And there are, Congressman, a lot of independent strategists that say if you put this into effect, the net effect economists will be that seniors will end up having to pay more a share of their health care costs.

PAUL RYAN: Well, first of all, it’s not a voucher. It’s premium support. Those are very different. […]

And I would argue against your premise that we lost this issue in the campaign. We won the senior vote. I did dozens of Medicare town hall meetings in states like Florida, explaining how these are the best reforms to save the shrinking Medicare program and we are confidently this is the way to go.

Daines repeated that talking point to Todd: “Remember, the President did not carry seniors. Mitt Romney carried seniors 56 to 44. So seniors understand the issues here. [Medicare] needs to be reformed, so that their children and grandchildren have that safety net.”

Setting aside the issues with Ryan’s proposal to “preserve” Medicare in this fashion, there’s a more fundamental problem with this argument: It cites the wrong senior vote.

Apparently, according to Ryan and Daines, the fact that Ryan and Romney clinched the senior vote is more significant than the fact that they lost the general vote because seniors are the ones who are actually on Medicare, and are presumably best positioned to judge any changes to the program. But the seniors Ryan and Romney won are current seniors — and, for every one of his budgets, Ryan has explicitly stated that current seniors will not be moved into his premium support system. For those 55 and above, “no changes whatsoever in Medicare.” So by his own logic and his own policies, Ryan actually needed to win current voters under 55 to claim a mandate.

According to exit polling, the 2012 GOP presidential ticket won voters 65 years old and older by 56 percent to 44 percent — Daines’ number. And they won the 45-64 vote by 51 to 47. So they got at least a little bit of the under 55 crowd. But they lost voters 30-44 by 45 to 52, and they lost voters 18-29 by a whopping 37 to 60. Given who would actually be living with the reality of Ryan’s schemes, it’s hard to interpret those numbers as a mandate.

A new University of Cambridge study featuring input from doctors around the globe concludes that every person should get their mental health status checked just as regularly as they do their physical health status.

As the Detroit Free Press reports, doctors assert that making mental health checkups just as routine as physicals would spare patients from developing more disruptive and costly ailments in the future, and reduce the societal stigmas associated with receiving such care:

“Unfortunately, most people don’t address mental health issues until they are drastically interfering with their lives,” said Dr. Nizar El-Khalili, medical director of Alpine Clinic in Lafayette, Ind. “If they were just more aware of mental health from the start, problems could be avoided long before it complicates their lives and costs them thousands of dollars.”

Mental health screenings can be administered during most annual checkups. Some doctors always screen their patient’s mental health, but El-Khalili recommends that all patients, no matter their age or family medical history, ask for a screening during their checkup. [...]

Along with improving quality of life and saving money, health professionals say annual mental checkups would help reduce the stigma attached to mental illness.

The doctors’ calls for more regular mental health screenings echo that of mental health advocacy organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Vulnerable populations such as the poor and LGBT Americans are disproportionately affected by mental health problems, and the combined effects of stigmatizing mental health care and the high transaction costs of pursuing such care keeps the vast majority of Americans — including those with serious mental illnesses — from getting treatment.

Insurance benefits for physical and mental health issues technically have legal parity, thanks to the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. But the implementation of the law has been messy and poorly enforced, with many basic questions regarding its provisions left unanswered.

Like an unrequited suitor who just won’t take a hint, one GOP congressman is still searching for a way to convince Congress that, if they’re just given a 34th chance, Obamacare can be repealed.

Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK), who entered Congress this year after defeating former Rep. John Sullivan (R-OK) in last year’s GOP primary, told Mike Huckabee on his radio show today that he’s “hoping and praying” his Party will finally defund Obamacare.

Rather than going through the normal legislative process, Bridenstine proposed a more pernicious approach: making a government-funding bill contingent on Congress defunding Obamacare. “If they want to fund the government, they’ve got to defund Obamacare,” Bridenstine said. “I support that 100%.”

BRIDENSTINE: I’m hoping and praying that Republicans will tie the defunding of Obamacare — the Senate’s working on it right now — to the continuing resolution, which means it has teeth. If they want to fund the government, they’ve got to defund Obamacare. I support that 100%. If we can it to something like that or the next debt limit increase. We need to relitigate this now that all these rules and regulations have been promulgated and we can make the case.

Of course, Republicans have tried to defund Obamacare nearly three dozen times since taking control of the House in 2010. They challenged the law in court (and lost). They ran against President Obama in 2012 (and lost). One congressman is even trying to outlaw Obamacare via constitutional amendment. Despite all these maneuvers, Obamacare remains the law of the land.

If Congress were an awards show, the orchestra would have played its wrap-it-up music months ago.

The rising global demand for modern forms of contraception is outpacing women’s access to birth control, a new study finds. In fact, in just two years, an estimated 233 million women of reproductive age will lack access to the contraceptive services they would prefer to use — up from 221 million women in 2010.

Worldwide access to birth control has improved over the past two decades, and the percentage of women using at least one form of modern contraception with their regular sexual partner increased from 55 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in 2010. But according to new data published in The Lancet, there’s still a huge unmet need for family planning services in developing nations, partly because the demand for birth control services continues to rise. The researchers project that more than 80 percent of the unmet need will originate in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The international community recognizes that reproductive choice, and the ability to determine when and how to have a family, is a human right — particularly because family planning can save lives. An estimated 47,000 women die from unsafe abortions each year, and those deaths could be prevented by both expanded access to safe abortion services and wider availability of reliable contraception. But there’s still a long way to go before every woman around the world can realize her right to determine her own reproductive future.

Increased funding for international family planning programs is essential to continue delivering the preventative health resources that women need. But it’s also important to continue eliminating the pervasive societal stigma surrounding birth control, since some women are dissuaded from using contraception because their family or community doesn’t support it. That issue isn’t exclusive to the developing world, either. Here in the United States, enduring misinformation about certain types of contraception — particularly long-lasting forms of birth control and emergency contraception — also contributes to fewer numbers of women, and particularly young women, choosing the most effective forms of birth control.

In a sign of the GOP’s weakening knee-jerk opposition to Obamacare, Maine Governor Paul LePage may be the latest Republican who agrees to cooperate with health reform to extend coverage to 55,000 of his state’s uninsured residents. On Monday, LePage signaled for the first time he may expand Medicaid under the health care law.

According to the Portland Press Herald:

LePage signaled Monday that he’s open to participating in the federal health care law’s Medicaid expansion program, but will seek the “best deal for Mainers.” [...] Adrienne Bennett, LePage’s spokeswoman, said Monday that the administration will initiate discussions with the federal government over a Medicaid expansion. She said the governor will seek assurances that Maine is “getting a return on investment.”

Remember, LePage is the same vocal Obamacare critic who blasted the health law just a few months ago, saying, “Maine will not be complicit in the degradation of our nation’s premier health care system.” And the governor has historically favored contracting, not expanding, Maine’s Medicaid program. Thousands of Maine residents already lost their health coverage earlier this month because LePage dropped nearly 15,000 low-income residents from the Medicaid rolls — and he would have kicked more than twice that number off of the program if the Obama Administration hadn’t stopped him.

If LePage agrees to extend Medicaid coverage, he would join a surprising coalition of GOP governors in states like Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada.

Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey (R) landed in hot water earlier this year after he defended former Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) scientifically inaccurate claim that women can’t become pregnant from “legitimate rape.” Gingrey — a medical professional who is actually a co-chair of the GOP Doctor Caucus — said he thought Akin was “partially right” when he suggested “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

But now that Gingrey is considering a Senate run, he’s finally conceding that rape is rape, and women’s ability to conceive isn’t dependent on the different definitions invented by elected officials to classify sexual assault. According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, the GOP candidate has retracted his support for Akin:

In an attempt to clear the air before a possible Senate run, U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey on Monday said he no longer considers a ban on high-capacity magazines a useful method of curbing gun violence — and retracted his controversial defense of Todd Akin and statements about a woman’s inability to become pregnant as a result of rape.

The congressman called his initial statements on guns an emotional response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. As for his comments on rape and abortion, Gingrey referred to them as “stupid.”

“I made a very awkward attempt to explain the unexplainable,” he said, admitting the resulting political damage has been self-inflicted.

Gingrey is likely simply hoping to preserve his political solvency. In the 2012 elections, insensitive comments about rape cost anti-choice candidates their seats — and Republican politicians have so persistently belittled the serious crime of sexual assault that they have since enrolled in training programs to learn how to talk about rape. At a retreat for House Republicans at the beginning of this year, the GOP caucus was told to simply avoid any mentions of rape altogether.

Mike Ruffer, a Five Guys franchise owner who operates eight of the chain restaurants in the Durham, North Carolina area, has decided to join the restaurant industry’s war on health care reform, claiming that the additional costs of providing his workers with health care coverage will raise the prices of hot dogs and burgers for customers who patronize his establishments.

“Any added costs are going to have to be passed on,” Ruffer told the Examiner:

Ruffer was the star witness at a Monday Heritage Foundation seminar on the impact Obamacare will have on small businesses. He is typical of many: Because he has enough full time employees to activate the law, he faces either coughing up the money to provide health insurance or paying a fine of up to $3,000 per worker.

Ruffer initially thought he would escape the law because he created each restaurant as its own company. But the law doesn’t recognize that distinction, so now he’s trying to determine if he can fire enough workers, or cut enough hours, to slide out of the grasp of Obamacare.

As the Examiner explicitly states, Ruffer is actively trying to “escape” the health reform law, and has had his mind made up about it for a while. That’s become an increasingly common position among large employers — particularly in the service industry, where large restaurant chains have been threatening to cut workers’ benefits by shifting costs onto them, cut back on wages, cut back on hours, or raise their products’ prices. Ruffer has, by his own admission, considered every single one of those options. But that isn’t a reflection of the reform law itself — it’s a reflection of companies’ desire to protect their own bottom line by having their low-wage employees go uninsured or obtain coverage through Medicaid, rather than provide them with basic benefits.

To date, these employers’ efforts have not been met with much public enthusiasm, and have even resulted in massive PR backlashes. Employers who choose this route are also putting themselves at risk of driving away potential employees who would rather take jobs that offer more robust benefits, as the vast majority of employers plan to keep offering health coverage plans under Obamacare.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) new budget pledges to repeal the Affordable Care Act in at least five different places and specifically promises to eliminate “the health-care rationing board,” the new health care exchange subsidies, regulations, and Medicaid expansion.

But the House Budget Chairman, who campaigned against the law so vociferously and voted to rescind it more than once, doesn’t get rid of Obamacare in its entirety. Instead, he guts the law’s benefit while maintaining its savings and revenue increases, holding on to the $716 billion in Medicare savings and keeping a baseline that includes tax increases from the law. Doing so helps Ryan achieve balance in the 10 year window:

PAGE 40: “The budget calls for directing any potential Medicare savings in current law toward shoring up Medicare, not paying for new entitlements.”

PAGE 78: A table called ‘House Republican FY2014 Budget versus Current Policy’ shows that the GOP blueprint will not raise more revenue than “Current Policy.” Current policy includes more than $800 billion in revenue from the Affordable Care Act.

Here is the table:

Ryan has argued that the Affordable Care Act inappropriately redirects savings from Medicare to fund a new health care entitlement and has claimed that his blueprint will generate revenue growth to ensure a balanced budget. But Obama doesn’t raid Medicare to pay for coverage expansion any more than Ryan “raids” it to finance his tax cuts for the rich. What’s worse, he pays for the big tax breaks by simply assuming revenue level will be high enough to cover the reductions.

Mississippi — where about one in three adults is at least 30 pounds heavier than a healthy weight — isn’t on board with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s attempt to combat obesity rates by regulating large sugary drinks. In fact, lawmakers in Mississippi want to be absolutely certain their own local officials won’t implement the same kind of public health initiatives. A bill awaiting Gov. Phil Bryant’s (R) signature would prevent any Mississippi county from taking steps to address the obesity epidemic by regulating the food and beverage industries:

A bill now on the governor’s desk would bar counties and towns from enacting rules that require calorie counts to be posted, that cap portion sizes, or that keep toys out of kids’ meals. “The Anti-Bloomberg Bill” garnered wide bipartisan support in both chambers of the legislature in a state where one in three adults is obese, the highest rate in the nation.

The bill is expected to be signed by Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. It was the subject of intense lobbying by groups including the restaurant association, the small business and beverage group, and the chicken farmers’ lobby.

Mike Cashion, executive director the Mississippi Hospitality and Restaurant Association, says the bill is a direct reaction to Bloomberg-style government intervention in public health.

Despite the fact that a judge recently struck down Bloomberg’s soda initiative, preventing it from taking effect this week, public health experts still agree it was a good policy. Unlike other foods that can have some benefits if they’re consumed in moderation, sugary drinks have absolutely no nutritional value — and portion sizes have continued to spiral out of control anyway.

“There is really very clear evidence now that soft drinks are related to weight gain and obesity and, most certainly, diabetes,” Dr. Walter Willett, a nutrition expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, told NBC News. “We are in the midst of an epidemic of diabetes and obesity. The evidence is very clear that soda consumption has a role in the epidemic.”

Some proponents of Mississippi’s measure claim it’s simply an attempt to standardize nutrition policy across the state. Still, passing reactionary legislation to New York City’s attempt to address the obesity epidemic — which already accounts for 21 percent of national health care spending, a figure that’s likely to continue to rise since roughly 42 percent of Americans are projected to be obese by 2030 — is a step in the wrong direction.