The USDA recently gave suggestions to its employees for simple ways to reduce their environmental impact. One of the suggestions was trying out Meatless Monday, an attempt to avoid eating meat once a week. This provoked a full-on freakout from the beef industry and its Republican allies in Congress: “This move by USDA should be condemned by anyone who believes agriculture is fundamental to sustaining life on this planet,” hyperventilated National Cattlemen’s Beef Association President J.D. Alexander. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took to Twitter to express his outrage at the non-endorsement, promising to “eat more meat on Monday” and claiming that “My local steak house serves nothing but vegetarian bc cows are vegetarian.” Congressman Steve King (R-IA) called the internal guidance “heresy,” looking forward to “double rib-eye Mondays instead.”

The USDA bowed to the pressure, saying it “does not endorse Meatless Monday” and that the newsletter “was posted without proper clearance.” It shouldn’t have. Despite what the beef industry may tell you, Meatless Monday is a simple and nearly cost-free way to get healthier, fight global warming, and cease participating in brutal animal cruelty:

Skipping steak once a week would reduce an average four-person family’s carbon footprint by roughly the same amount as giving up driving for 3 months, according to an analysis by the Environmental Working Group. If each American were to give up meat and cheese once week, EWG estimated it would be the equivalent of “taking 7.6 million cars off the road.”

Amidst a growing childhood obesity problem and tightening budgets, schools around the country have found Meatless Monday to be a cost-effective way to improve student health.

Significant meat consumption is correlated with higher rates of obesity.

An extraordinary percentage of the cheap meat Americans buy come from factory farms, which are notorious for producing contaminated meat and keeping animals in utterly horrific conditions.

Indeed, Americans appear to be getting the message: meat consumption in the United States has decreased by 12.2 percent, a trend seemingly related to high public awareness of the Meatless Monday movement.

Most uninsured children will qualify for health coverage under Obamacare, but hundreds of thousands of children — about 6 percent of the total — could be denied coverage because of the government’s definition of “affordable” coverage, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Treasury Department’s proposed rule would make families ineligible for federal subsidies to help pay for health insurance if an employer offers them affordable coverage at work. Under this regulation, the Treasury considers an employer’s office to be affordable if the worker’s share is less than 9.5 percent of household income; however, the affordability is based on what a single employee would pay instead of the generally higher cost to cover an entire family. The GAO recommends that Treasury and IRS officials consider if an “alternative approach” could work:

“Under the proposed standard, an offer of affordable employer-sponsored health insurance to one family member could impede other family members’ access to affordable insurance—an outcome which would not further the broader goals of [the] PPACA,” the report says.

The GAO says the proposed standard could affect more than 460,000 children if states stop funding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beyond 2015. Under the health care law, CHIP is not funded beyond 2015, and even if federal funding is extended, states may opt to reduce or eliminate programs beginning in 2020, the report said.

Since the proposed rule was announced in 2011, groups have complained that it hurts families. “The proposed rule would mean that many spouses and dependents who are uninsured today because they can’t afford family coverage would remain uninsured in 2014,” Center for Budget Policy Priorities’ Judy Solomon wrote last year. And First Focus, a child advocacy group, accused the Obama administration of undermining the Affordable Care Act’s affordability standards because the interpretation “would disproportionately harm children and women.”

The Michigan state senate’s judiciary committee heard about an hour of testimony today before promptly passing onto the full Senate a restrictive and unclear anti-abortion measure — just 19 hours after announcing that the hearing would even be taking place.

One woman who testified, holding up two coupons with scribbled writing on the back, explained that she didn’t have time to prepare an official testimony, so those notes were all she had.

The law, if passed, would require doctors to ensure that they were not coercing women into an abortion. It is unclear how they might ascertain that information, but many medical professionals offered testimonies warning that the law was too broad and too unclear.

“This bill is a very complicated bill,” Dr. Tim Johnson, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan Health System, said. “All of us in this room ultimately care a lot about the safety of women.”

The legislation would also require women whose pregnancy is terminated, even those who miscarry, to cremate fetal remains, fill out a death certificate, and work with a funereal director to dispose of the fetus. It also requires clinics to be licensed as surgical facilities, andallows anyone who says they experience “emotional distress” because of incorrect fetal disposal to sue the person who disposes of the fetus.

Johnson urged the committee to take more time on the decision. He also took offense to the idea that doctors would do something that was not in the best interest of their patients, citing the Hippocratic oath and pointing out that “these aren’t abortion doctors, they’re gynecologists.” He also made an ominous warning: One day, one doctor will get shot because of the extreme anti-abortion actions that stigmatize doctors.

The warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears. State Sen. Rick Jones (R), who chairs the committee, proceeded to a vote after the hour of debate. The bill passed 3-1.

“I will not take another month to slow down this process when we have women being coerced in this state,” Jones said during the hearing. A request for comment from his office about why the process was so fast was not immediately returned.

While Congress struggles to push a Farm Bill through before the critical legislation expires, a new report by the California Public Interest Group (CALPIRG) highlights an underdiscussed problem with the way the law has been structured in the past: it’s making us unhealthy. CALPIRG researchers found that the crop subsidies in the Farm Bill overwhelmingly went to ingredients that fuel the junk food industry rather than fresh fruits and vegetables. As a result, the subsidies artificially driving down prices for the very foodstuffs fueling the nation’s obesity crisis:

Between 1995 and 2011, $18.2 billion in tax dollars subsidized four common junk food additives—corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and soy oils (which are processed further into hydrogenated vegetable oils).

Healthier agricultural products receive very little in federal subsidies. Since 1995, taxpayers spent only $637 million subsidizing apples, which is one of the few fresh fruits or vegetables that have a significant federal subsidy.

If subsidies for junk food ingredients went directly to taxpayers to allow them to purchase food, each of America’s 141 million taxpayers would receive $7.58 to spend on junk food and 27 cents to spend on apples each year—enough to buy 21 Twinkies but just half of one Red Delicious apple.

These numbers are particularly alarming in light of growing obesity rates. Since 1995, CALPIRG found that “childhood obesity had tripled…one in five kids aged 6 to 11 [is] now obese” and that “projections suggest that by 2030, half of Americans will be obese.” Further, the U.S. already spends $150 billion a year on “obesity and comorbidities,” a price tag that CALPIRG found would increase by an additional $66 billion per year if estimates about obesity rates were accurate. This obesity crisis disproportionately affects impoverished Americans largely because unhealthy food is so much cheaper and accessible than healthy alternatives. Americans are also significantly more obese on average than citizens of other developed nations.

Though some proposals for this year’s Farm Bill involve cutting the subsidies for soy and corn that CALPIRG highlights, they’re generating significant factional conflict between Republicans on the Hill. This fight is one of the key drivers behind the unprecedented inability to get this year’s Farm Bill through.

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) hinted that Republicans in the House would not introduce legislation thwarting a new rule requiring employers and insurers to offer contraception and other preventive services as part of their health insurance coverage, signaling a softer tone on the issue.

Throughout the month of February, the GOP charged that the requirement, part of the Affordable Care Act, is an attack on religious liberties. Boehner himself insisted that the “the federal government is violating a First Amendment right that has stood for more than two centuries.” “If the president does not reverse the [Health and Human Services] Department’s attack on religious freedom, then the Congress, acting on behalf of the American people and the Constitution we are sworn to uphold and defend, must,” he added, and explained that a bill would be moving through “appropriate legislative channels.”

But with the new rule scheduled to go into effect on August 1, the Speaker signaled an unwillingness on Thursday to take-up the fight:

REPORTER: Next week, the plan to require health care plans to include contraception, sterilization will go into effect. You said last year that you guys were going to introduce legislation to address that, it never came up. What are you guys planning on doing?

BOEHNER: We’re continuing to work with those groups around the country who believe that their religious liberties are being infringed to try to come to a resolution of this issue. Sometimes resolving this issue can be done other than legislative avenues. So we’re continuing to work with them on the best way forward.

Watch it:

Though Boehner is not pursuing a showy initiative, Republicans are advancing a provision to defund enforcement efforts for the contraceptive guarantee as part of the Labor, HHS, Education Appropriations bill, FY13.

Days before the birth of their first child, Caleb and Kate Medley went to a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colorado, that turned into the horrible massacre. Katie made it out without any serious injury, but Caleb wasn’t so lucky. He took a bullet to the eye and is in a medically induced coma, expected to take years to recover. Neither have insurance.

On Tuesday, their son Hugo was born, adding some joy to the tragedy but also more expenses.

While Caleb’s family is still raising money for his care, uninsured victims of the shooting at other hospitals are seeing some relief. Three of the five hospitals where victims are being treated announced Thursday that they will be limiting or eliminating their hospital costs:

Children’s Hospital Colorado announced it would use donations and its charity care fund to cover the medical expenses of the uninsured. For those who do have insurance, the hospital says it will waive all co-pays. [...]

HealthOne, which owns the Medical Center of Aurora and Swedish Medical Center, also says it will limit or eliminate charges based on the individual circumstances of the patients. Those hospitals have treated 22 shooting victims. However, the company cautioned its policy may not apply to all doctors working in its hospitals.

Denver Health Medical Center and University of Colorado Hospital, where Caleb and other victims are being treated, haven’t said what they’ll do, but the hospitals are Colorado’s top safety net hospitals in a state where 14 percent of residents are uninsured.

“We’re going to do everything that we can for these patients on a case by case basis,” said a representative of the Colorado hospital where Caleb is being treated. “The University Colorado Hospital provides $300 million in uncompensated care every year.”

Money donated from concerned citizens and the studio that released the movie The Dark Knight Rises has already totaled $2 million, the AP reported today. But that’s a drop in the bucket for victims who will leave the hospital with lifelong injuries and special needs.

Indeed, Caleb’s medical bills alone could add up to $2 million. So far, the family has raised one-quarter of the amount.

Republicans have long campaigned against the Affordable Care Act by calling it European-style health care. But French Minister of Health and Social Affairs Marisol Touraine said that wasn’t exactly true.

She explained that the Affordable Care Act creates a system that is very different from France’s more far-reaching universal health care system:

Among other differences, the U.S. system provides government-sponsored insurance coverage only to certain segments of the population. Historically, that’s been seniors, the disabled and the poor. Starting in 2014, the federal government will begin subsidizing private insurance for some low and middle-income Americans.

“This segmentation is quiet different than what we have,” said Ms. Touraine, given that France’s health coverage extends across age groups and income levels. Many French find it surprising that Americans would resist a system of near-universal health coverage, she said.

Similar to U.S. officials attempting to slow the growth of Medicare and Medicaid costs, France is trying to reign in health care spending. Because the French government pays for 75 percent of citizens’ health care, controlling the costs is part of the nation’s effort to limit spending while Europe tries to resolve the euro crisis.

Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC) successfully thwarted Republicans’ attempt to strip funding from the organization. Despite state legislators’ aim to effectively shut down its clinic in Durham, PPCNC received federal grant money that will not only allow the clinic to remain open, but will also help it expand.

This news comes after North Carolina legislators passed a budget bill earlier this month that “prohibits state contracts for family planning or pregnancy prevention services.” As the Huffington Post notes, the bill “effectively, but not explicitly,” singles out PPCNC, since Planned Parenthood is the only organization to fit the bill’s description.The bill cut $125,000 in funding for Planned Parenthood, enough that Durham clinic would have to close.

The PPCNC then filed to receive federal grant money through Title X, the nation’s family planning program, and was given $426,000. Now, with more than three times the amount of funding that would have been revoked by Republicans, the clinic can actually expand:

The Durham clinic expects to see a fourfold increase in patients, to about 2,000 a year, said Emily Adams, vice president of operations. Adams said the funding dispute was a close call [...]

The extra money will allow the clinic to expand its programs to help men and to educate teenagers to delay having sex or teach safeguards to those already having sex.

The Durham clinic doesn’t even provide abortions, it offers “subsidized preventive health care such as annual exams, birth control, cancer screening and STD detection and prevention to low-income women, men and teenagers who would otherwise have no care.”

– Nina Liss-Schultz

A powerful business lobby bankrolled by health insurance and pharmaceutical companies is running advertisements attacking Democrats for their support of the Affordable Care Act.

Pharmaceutical companies, like Merck and Eli Lilly, and insurance companies, including Aetna, Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth and Wellpoint, all donated money — to the tune of at least $100 million — to the Chamber of Commerce. Those donations are now being used for election advertising to try to take down Democrats who supported the Affordable Care Act:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will air new ads hitting five Democratic Senate candidates and incumbents, ABC’s Chris Good reports. Targeting votes on health care, energy, and regulations, the Chamber will go after Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, Rep. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Last week, the Chamber aired ads in New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada, and North Dakota. In Montana, for example, the ad says, “For Jon Tester, there’s no hiding from the truth. He sided with Washington time and time again. Take the health care law. The people didn’t want it, yet Senator Tester cast a deciding vote, forcing it on Montana…”

The Chamber has been known for some shady advertising tactics in the past; the Denver Post determined that one of their ads on health care “leans deceptive.” The group’s practices are so questionable, in fact, that New York’s attorney general is investigating them for illegal funding practices.

In the letter dated July 18, more than 100 GOP lawmakers asked House Speaker John Boehner (OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA) to stop “any legislation” from coming to the floor that would fund the implementation of the Affordable Care Act — potentially leading to a government shutdown. Congress must pass a funding measure before October 1 to keep the government running, yet a majority of Republicans are willing to risk a shutdown in order to take away coverage from more than 30 million Americans and increase the deficit by more than 100 billion.

Despite the possibility of a standoff with the Democrat-controlled Senate and a veto threat from President Obama, the Republicans called for defunding Obamacare while continuing attempts to repeal the heath care reform law:

Since much of the implementation of ObamaCare is a function of the discretionary appropriations process, and since most of the citizens we represent believe that ObamaCare should never go into effect, we urge you not to bring to the House floor in the 112th Congress any legislation that provides or allows funds to implement ObamaCare through the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, or any other federal entity. We also urge you to take legislative steps necessary to immediately rescind all ObamaCare-implementation funds.

According to Talking Points Memo, Boehner suggested on Tuesday that he would reject the proposal. “I expect we’ll have an agreement with the Senate on a CR,” he said. “But our goal would be to make sure the government is funded and any political talk of a government shutdown is put to rest.”

House Republicans so far have wasted $50 million trying and failing to repeal Obamacare 31 times. The latest Congressional Budget Office report shows that eliminating the Affordable Care Act would add $109 billion to the nation’s deficit.

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Two weeks ago, the House Republicans voted for the 31st time to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Today, the Congressional Budget Office released yet another reminder to the GOP that such a move would add even more unpaid-for spending to the nation’s deficit:

Assuming that [repeal] is enacted near the beginning of fiscal year 2013, CBO and JCT estimate that, on balance, the direct spending and revenue effects of enacting that legislation would cause a net increase in federal budget deficits of $109 billion over the 2013–2022 period. Specifically, we estimate that H.R. 6079 would reduce direct spending by $890 billion and reduce revenues by $1 trillion between 2013 and 2022, thus adding $109 billion to federal budget deficits over that period.

In other words, cutting the health care reform’s new spending — the subsidies for Americans shopping on the exchanges, the expansion of Medicaid, tax credits for small employers, etc. — will indeed yield budget savings. But those savings will be washed out by additional spending created by repealing the reform’s cuts Medicare spending, and by the revenue lost when policies like new taxes on high-income earners and the excise tax on high-value insurance plans are undone. The Republicans’ repeal bill would also strip health insurance coverage from 30 million non-elderly Americans who will receive it under the Affordable Care Act.

While estimates beyond the 2013-2022 period are highly uncertain, CBO also anticipates a repeal would continue adding to the deficit beyond 2022. Given their initial estimates anticipated the health care reform law would reduce deficit spending by something in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over its second decade, this makes sense.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has updated its analysis of the Affordable Care Act in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the constitutionality of the individual mandate, but ruling that the federal government cannot withhold federal funds from states that refuse to expand their Medicaid programs.

Since some states are refusing to open their Medicaid programs to their residents, the CBO concluded that costs to the federal government would drop by $84 billion over 11 years and 6 million fewer people will be covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Half of that population will find insurance in the state-based health insurance exchanges, while the remaining 3 million will likely remain uninsured:

– Federal spending during that period for Medicaid and CHIP is now projected to be $289 billion less than previously expected

– Estimated costs of tax credits and other subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through the exchanges (and related spending) have risen by $210 billion.

– The reductions in spending from lower Medicaid enrollment are expected to more than offset the increase in costs from greater participation in the exchanges.

– The number of additional people entering the exchanges as a result of the ruling is projected to be only about half the number who will not be obtaining Medicaid coverage, many of whom will be ineligible to participate in the exchanges.

– Two-thirds of the people previously estimated to become eligible for Medicaid as a result of the ACA will have income too low to qualify for exchange subsidies, and roughly one-third will have income high enough to be eligible for exchange subsidies.

– For the average person who does not enroll in Medicaid as a result of the Court’s decision and enrolls in an exchange instead, estimated federal spending will rise by roughly $3,000 in 2022—the difference between estimated additional exchange subsidies of about $9,000 and estimated Medicaid savings of roughly $6,000.

Below is a comparison of previous CBO estimates:

	Deficit	Uninsured	Medicaid	Exchanges
March 2010	– $138B over 2010–2019	-32M in 2019	+16M in 2019	+24M in 2019
March 2011	- $210B over 2012–2021	- 34M in 2021	+17M in 2021	+24M in 2021
March 2012	- $210B over 2012–2021	-33M in 2021	+17M in 2021	+23M in 2021
July 2012	-$109B over 2012–2022	-30M in 2021	+11M in 2021	+25M in 2021

When the HIV epidemic began in the U.S. in 1981, the cases appeared mainly in major coastal cities, like New York and San Francisco, among gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users. And interactive maps showing current HIV cases from AIDSvu at Emory University shows the geographic path of how the disease expanded through the U.S.:

Cases are still concentrated in population centers, so Los Angeles, for example, has a high rate of HIV infections even though the Southwest appears to have had less impact than other regions. And as NPR points out, one of the reddest sections of the map — showing the highest rate of adults living with HIV — stretches through the Southeast:

The Southeast has been hard hit by HIV, with infections concentrated along the I-95 corridor from Washington to Florida, and in the Mississippi Delta. Eight of the 10 U.S. states with the highest rates of new HIV infection are located here. High rates of poverty factor in as well, as does the region’s low ranking on many basic health measures. Nearly 50 percent of newly diagnosed U.S. AIDS cases each year are reported in the South.

The map also shows a large concentration of cases in New York along the Canadian border. These deep red counties house state and federal correctional facilities, and prisoners tend to have a higher rate of HIV infections. Prisons are also high risk environments for HIV transmission.

This week, activists and officials are meeting for the 19th International AIDS conference. To kick off the conference — meeting in the U.S. for the first time since 1990 — Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius laid out four new public-private initiatives to help people living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S., like research to help HIV/AIDS patients stay on their medications and a texting program to help them manage their health. This is in addition to nearly $80 million in grants ensure that low-income people living with HIV/AIDS have access to health care and medication.

At the peak in the mid-1980s, the United States saw about 130,000 new HIV infections. Now, roughly 50,000 new cases are added annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control. African Americans and Latinos are the most affected, and the HIV infection rate among African American gay and bisexual men is 50 percent higher than for white men who have sex with men.