As Republicans remain hostile to Obamacare — GOP lawmakers have already wasted $50 million on dozens of failed attempts to repeal the law, and House Republicans have even threatened to shut down the government in order to block health care reform’s implementation — they often complain that Obamacare will translate into soaring costs for the health care industry. It’s true that health insurance rates are rising, but data from Connecticut suggests it has nothing to do with Obamacare.

Filings from Connecticut’s two largest health insurers, which both applied for double-digit rate increases this year, show that the insurance companies are not driving up their prices because Obamacare is leading them to do so. Rather, the rate increases are due to increasingly expensive health costs that are unaffected by the implementation of the health care law:

But the overwhelming reason for the rate increase requests is rising medical costs, the filings by Anthem, Aetna and ConnectiCare say. The companies say this is mainly because providers are raising their prices and patients are getting more care.

“People are accessing more services and hospitals, doctors and labs are charging us more,” Aetna spokeswoman Susan Millerick said.

The costs associated with the Affordable Care Act account for only a tiny fraction of the requested increases — less than 1 percent. These amounts cover the costs of the preventative women’s care benefits and the changes in cost sharing, said Paul Lombardo, the actuary for the state Insurance Department who reviews the rate increase requests.

While health care spending did rise at double the rate of inflation in 2010, a report by the Health Care Cost Institute confirms Connecticut’s findings and concludes the rising prices are due to the health costs that crept up during the recession. In fact, Obamacare will help address this very issue. The health care reform law represents part of the solution — not the problem, as Republicans claim — as it seeks to help make health insurance more affordable by reforming payment models, reducing payments to hospitals, and prioritizing quality of care.

Wheaton College was the first prominent evangelical school to join the conservative Catholic crusade against the Obamacare provision that requires employer-based insurers to cover birth control without co-pays. Despite the fact that Wheaton’s student health plan already covered contraception before the health care reform became law, the conservative college claimed the birth control requirement violated their religious liberty.

However, Wheaton’s case against Obamacare is entirely without merit. Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle threw out Wheaton’s case, citing the college’s lack of sufficient evidence that it had actually suffered religious discrimination under Obamacare — especially since the health care reform does not fully go into effect until 2013. This marks the third religious lawsuit against Obamacare that has been dismissed on these grounds.

“Wheaton only tilts at windmills when it protests that it will not be satisfied with whatever amendments defendants ultimately make,” Huvelle wrote, pointing out that Obamacare already provides an exemption for religious institutions that object to covering birth control.

Ultimately, the growing number of conservative Catholic and evangelical universities filing suit against Obamacare are all tilting at these windmills. Just like Wheaton, many large Catholic institutions like Georgetown University provided contraception coverage before Obamacare required them to do so, and are only now concerned about the implications of being compelled to provide birth control to their students or employees. Furthermore, the religious institutions objecting to birth control are in an increasingly small minority, even among people of faith. The majority of Catholics are not actually morally opposed to contraception.

Our guest blogger is Jack Jenkins, researcher for the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative at the Center for American Progress.

GOP Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) is banking on the support of Christian conservatives to help him weather his “legitimate rape” controversy, but it doesn’t look like the rest of America’s faithful are going to let him off that easy.

After refusing to bow out of the Missouri Senate race despite intense pressure from Democrats and Republicans alike, Akin has attempted to use the dispute as an opportunity to energize his longtime supporters — many of whom are anti-abortion Christian conservatives. His campaign launched a fundraising drive last week to “Help Todd Fight Back Against the Party Bosses”, and recently released an ad in which Akin apologized for his statements by saying, “I have a compassionate heart for the victims of sexual assault, and I pray for them.”

But while some conservative Christian groups and evangelical leaders like Mike Huckabee have come to Akin’s defense, dozens of Christian pastors, authors, and activists have published statements decrying Akin’s remarks. Here are just a few:

– Covenant Theological Seminary: Akin’s former seminary, which otherwise claims to be doggedly anti-choice, issued a press release rebuking Akin’s claims that a woman’s body can automatically prevent pregnancy in the event of a rape, noting “Covenant Theological Seminary has never taught, and in no way affirms, that the female body is capable of preventing pregnancy caused by rape.”

– Episcopal Women’s Caucus: The Episcopal Women’s Caucus expressed outrage at Akin’s comments in a press release last week, saying they were “appalled” by “the current political discourse regarding reproductive justice.”

– Rev. Harry Knox: The president and CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice accused Akin of misunderstanding scripture, saying, “[Akin] apparently doesn’t realize that true [Biblical] justice requires that a woman who has been raped have every resource available to her as she rebuilds her life after trauma. One of those resources must be the option to end a pregnancy caused by her rapist.”

– Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite: Thistlethwaite, former president of Chicago Theological Seminary and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, wrote in the Washington Post that she was unsettled by Rep. Akin’s remarks and unimpressed with his attempts at apology, saying “Theologically and politically, saying ‘I’m sorry’ has become a form of ‘cheap grace’ in our American public life. And in the case of Akin, it seems very cheap indeed.”

– Rose Marie Berger: Catholic peace activist and poet Rose Marie Berger wondered how the son of a minister “could debase himself in such a way that he has no qualms about putting his political agenda ahead of the truth and well being of women” and asked “As Christians, don’t we hold ourselves to a higher standard?”

– Rev. Joanna Harader: Harader, a Mennonite pastor who otherwise touts an anti-abortion stance, questioned Rep. Akin’s claim to spiritual authority, adding she is “appalled that, in the midst of these discussions, those expressing the most disrespectful attitudes toward women tend to do so in the name of God.”

Akin might be getting the forgiveness he’s hoping for from conservative Christian groups, but other believers don’t seem ready to let America forget about his comments anytime soon.

Our guest blogger is Dr. Laura Davies, a psychiatrist with a private practice dealing with forensic cases.

Doctors for America is taking our message of health care on the road. On Sunday, we kicked off the tour outside the RNC near Tropicana field. Although the RNC delayed their convention by a day, we are out in full force. On our very first stop, we had people crossing the street to ask doctors for medical information. We had passersby stopping and applauding. On of the major papers showed up and spoke with 5 local physicians, getting hometown perspective. This bodes well for our exciting and challenging journey. We will be holding a March for Health Reform on Thursday.

We are on a 12-day, seven-city tour, taking more than 50 doctors and patients from 17 states into the community. On Sunday, we brought the “Patients over Politics” blue bus out into Tropical Storm Isaac and spoke about the facts on reform and stories of patient — right outside Tropicana field where the RNC was kicking off with a party. We discussed our organization of 15,000 doctors committed to health care reform and to providing better care for our patients.

At many points along the way, we are explaining the impact of the Affordable Care Act on our patients. We have collected over 5,000 signed declarations of support for this bus tour from Deans of Medical Schools, patients, and health care professionals. Some of the stories include a grandmother who is concerned that her granddaughter cannot get the care she needs after intestinal surgery because her daughter was laid off.

Even when off duty, the “doctors are in.” At dinner last night, a former federal judge and his wife were curious about the bus, and we explained the impact of various policies on them as new retirees, which, even as well-educated seniors, they had not known. On the road, people are curious about the big blue bus and inadvertently become more educated about health care.

Health policy is not the only thing on the agenda. We are also performing blood pressure screenings, educating students about “dorm health,” and discussing women’s health issues.

As physicians, we see the terrible consequences when people do not have access to primary care. We want to help prevent illness, not treat catastrophic diseases. By going to both Presidential Conventions, we are urging all of our elected officials to put patients over politics, implement the ACA, and continue to push health reform forward.

In the aftermath of Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) offensive and medically inaccurate comments that “legitimate rape” doesn’t often lead to pregnancy, Republicans have been scrambling to distance themselves from Akin. However, in addition to pushing policies that are very much in line with Akin’s anti-choice views, some GOP candidates have similar ignorance about the nature of sexual assault.

Tom Smith, the Republican challenging Sen. Bob Casey’s (D-PA) seat, suggested that having a child out of wedlock was analogous to rape during an interview with a reporter at a press club this afternoon, claiming that it would have a “similar” effect on a father:

MARK SCOLFORO, ASSOCIATED PRESS: How would you tell a daughter or a granddaughter who, God forbid, would be the victim of a rape, to keep the child against her own will? Do you have a way to explain that?

SMITH: I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape.

SCOLFORO: Similar how?

SMITH: Uh, having a baby out of wedlock.

SCOLFORO: That’s similar to rape?

SMITH: No, no, no, but… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.

Listen:

After the reporter pressed Smith on his comments, he tried to backtrack by saying, “I didn’t say that” and reiterating that he doesn’t condone rape. Despite Smith’s condemnation of rape, however, his harmful comparison only serves to diminish the seriousness of rape’s impact on its victims. Clearly, it is impossible to equate women who have a child out wedlock from consensual sex with women who become impregnated by a rapist following a sexual assault. Smith’s paternalistic sentiment fails to recognize the weight of the crime of sexual assault, just as Akin’s outrageous comments did.

More than 25 percent of Texans — about 6.2 million residents in the Lone Star state — are uninsured. The Affordable Care Act’s expansion of the Medicaid program would give Texas federal funds to help address that coverage gap, but Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) has pledged to reject the Medicaid expansion, playing politics with the health of millions of his constituents who struggle to afford insurance.

County officials, however, won’t stand by as their governor refuses to take steps to improve Texas’ health care system, which is ranked as the worst in the nation. Frustrated with Perry’s authority to block funds that could positively impact county budgets as well as low-income Texans, they are discussing the possibility of circumventing the governor to set up their own Medicaid expansions in the the state’s largest counties:

George Hernandez Jr., CEO of University Health System in San Antonio, came up with the idea of the alternative, county-run Medicaid expansion, and said he has been discussing it with other officials in his county, Bexar. “They are all willing,” he said. He added that he has also been talking up the proposal with officials in other big counties, such as those including Houston and Dallas, and is optimistic they’ll support the idea. [...]

The county-led effort would require the consent of both the White House and the Texas legislature. Federal officials would have to waive requirements that states apply the same eligibility standards statewide.

Whatever the plan’s fate, it shows that frustrated local officials don’t necessarily want to give the governor the last word on whether to accept millions of federal health aid that could ease local burdens.

Texas’ Medicaid program is one of the most restrictive in the nation, requiring a family of three to bring in an annual income of less than $5,000 to qualify for assistance — far less than the federal poverty line. In order to compensate, Texas’ biggest counties currently offer free or low-cost health care for uninsured residences whose incomes far surpass the Medicaid cut-off, but those programs are costly. Local officials say that expanding Medicaid would shift some of the costs to federal government, take some burden off strained county budgets, and provide for local tax cuts. Hospital officials also warn that Texas’ existing county programs should not operate as a complete substitute for Medicaid, pointing out that patients’ quality of care would be better under Medicaid than in the stop-gap programs in the counties, which are often stretched too thin.

Perry has remained largely oblivious to his state’s insurance coverage issues, even going so far as to claim that “everyone in America has access to health care.” Unfortunately for Perry, that is especially untrue for Texans. Nevertheless, Perry continues to align himself with the other Republican governors who are committed to turning down Medicaid expansion in their states at the expense of their uninsured residents.

Governor Bob McDonnell (R-VA) today claimed the issue of a rape exception to abortion was a “detail” to be left up to states and Congress. On ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos confronted the Governor and Party Platform Chair with the absolutist anti-abortion language in the platform he led the development of. This was his response:

McDonnell: We’re affirming that we’re a pro-life party.The details certainly are left to Congress and, ultimately, to the states and the people on how they ratify such an amendment. More importantly, what they do at the state level.

Stephanapoulous: So is the party for a rape exception or not?

McDonnell: The party didn’t make any judgment on that. It’s a general proposition to say we support human life. The rest of the details are up to the states and the people respectively, George. That’s simply not covered.

Watch it:

McDonnell’s view of the plight of pregnant rape victims appears to be par for the course in the contemporary GOP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently referred to rape as simply one “method of conception.” Indeed, this may be because the Vice Presidential candidate and the broader Republican Party have consistently voted to limit access to abortion even for women who are victims of rape and incest.

Moreover, McDonnell’s interpretation of his platform language is misleading. As Stephanapoulous noted, the platform endorsed a Human Life Amendment “to make clear that the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to all unborn children.” As the 14th Amendment requires all persons receive equal protection under the law, the practical effect of the amendment would be to render any law that allowed for any abortion in any case unconstitutional. This includes state-level laws, which means McDonnell’s line that the rape exception would be left to Congress and/or the states is flatly false.

McDonnell may be working hard to minimize the absolutist character of his party platform for a reason – Presidential candidate Mitt Romney supports exceptions for rape and incest, putting him at odds with the longstanding position of the Republican party platform.

Just two weeks after a Romney spokesperson faced a barrage of conservative criticism for highlighting the success of the governor’s Massachusetts health care law, Romney himself bragged that the measure has expanded access to women’s health care services, including contraception. During an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Romney said he was “very proud” of Romneycare — which includes an individual mandate — for providing coverage to all women and men:

ROMNEY: With regards to women’s health care, look, I’m the guy that was about to get health care for all of the women and men in my state. They’re talking about it on the federal level, we actually did something. [...]

CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): So you’re saying, look at Romneycare?

ROMNEY: Well, absolutely. I am very proud of what we did, and the fact that we helped women and men and children in our state… And then with regard to contraceptives, of course Republicans, myself in particular, recognize that women have a right to use contraceptives. There is absolutely no validity whatsoever to the Obama effort to try and bring that up.

Watch it:

Indeed, almost all Massachusetts residents have complied with the law’s requirement to purchase health care coverage and women in the sate are now receiving a wide array of benefits, including family planning services.

But Romney would significantly reduce access to health care if he’s elected president. He has pledged to repeal Obamacare, characterized the law’s provision to expand coverage for contraception as an attack against religion, and has suggested that women should “vote for the other guy” if they expect improved access to birth control.

In the Fox interview, Romney also reiterated his desire to defund Planned Parenthood, arguing that taxpayer dollars should not fund abortion. Abortion constitutes only 3 percent of the organization’s services and it’s covered by private funds. 

Mitt Romney’s home state of Massachusetts — where Romney enacted a health care reform initiative that President Obama later drew on as inspiration for his own Obamacare policies — is somewhat of a test case for national health care reform, as researchers examine the impact that increased accessed to insurance has had on the state’s residents. And if Massachusetts is any indication, the Republicans who have already spent 89 hours and $51 million dollars attempting to repeal Obama’s health care law have been concentrating their efforts on rolling back pro-life policies.

A 2010 Harvard study on the first two years of Romneycare’s implementation found that as the numbers of insured residents went up between 2007 and 2009, the numbers of abortions in the state went down. And new data reveals that the abortion rate declined even more sharply after 2009, something the Harvard study couldn’t have predicted at the time:

In a recent interview with the Atlantic, the Harvard specialist who authored the 2010 study said he believes the improved health insurance services under Romneycare led to the continuing decrease in abortion rates after his study’s conclusion. “When women have more stable access to medical care, they’re more likely to see doctors, they’re more likely to have somebody inquiring about their sexual health,” he said. “The fact that you have somebody who cares about you results in people being healthier, and that includes not getting pregnant if they don’t want to be.”

Thanks to Obamacare’s unpopularity among Republicans, Romney doesn’t take credit for first implementing the health care policies that provided the foundation for Obama’s health care law. However, considering the fact that health reform helps prevent abortions — even Romney himself once rightfully described Massachusetts’ health reform as “the ultimate pro-life policy” — he might not want to keep pushing to reverse it.

In 2009, the World Health Organization reported that regular indoor tanning before age 30 increases the risk of melanoma — one of the fastest-growing rates of cancer by 75 percent. Facing criticism and increasing state restrictions on youth tanning, the $4.8 billion tanning industry is pursuing a misinformation strategy borrowed from the tobacco industry, according to a report from Bridget Huber at FairWarning.

The International Smart Tan Network has created a training video for salons with instructions to undermine medical consensus. The report chronicles the tanning industry’s campaign, which provides salon employees talking points that tanning is good for you:

At the heart of the industry’s message is the idea that tanning critics such as dermatologists, sunscreen manufacturers and even charities like the American Cancer Society are part of a profit-driven conspiracy. These critics are described as a “Sun Scare industry” that aims to frighten the public into avoiding all exposure to UV light. The tanning industry blames this group for causing what it calls a deadly epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, and tries to position itself as a more trustworthy source of information on tanning’s health effects.

Pointing to tanning as a solution to a “vitamin D deficiency epidemic,” the video echoes early tobacco company efforts to confuse the public on carcinogenic risks. Smart Tan’s misleading training video, bizarrely enough, actually casts health professionals in the same light as Big Tobacco — as villians “lying for money and killing people.”

This is the latest of the embattled tanning industry’s quiet efforts to draw in more business and prevent further regulation. As more states place age restrictions on tanning salons, the industry has stepped up its political efforts, by sending an increasing amount of campaign contributions to federal lawmakers, and employing lobbyists at the state level.

FORT GARLAND, Colorado — Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO) doesn’t have 99 problems, but the government allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health care plans is one.

In an interview after a town hall on Tuesday, ThinkProgress asked Tipton about specific protections in Obamacare, including that people with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage by insurance companies. Tipton, no fan of the landmark health care law, used the opportunity to criticize Obamacare’s protections for young adults that allows them to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they turn 26. “What business is it of the government?” Tipton asked:

KEYES: What about something like, one of the regulations in Obamacare says that people with pre-existing conditions can’t be denied coverage. For someone with leukemia, do you think it should be against the law for insurance companies to be able to deny them, or do you think that shouldn’t be a federal law?

TIPTON: Glad you brought that up. We actually have legislation ready to go. I visited with Congressman Price, a medical doctor, to be able to look at these state exchanges. You want to make sure it’s affordable as well, it’s competitive, we aren’t bankrupting somebody, to be able to address pre-existing conditions. If you want to be able to keep your children on your health care insurance policy, people are touting until age 26. My question is, what business is it of the government? If you want to keep your kids on until they’re 30, 40, what business is it of the government?

Contra Tipton’s assertions that families can “keep your kids on until they’re 30, 40,” most insurance companies only allowed parents to keep dependents on their plan until they turned around 22 prior to Obamacare’s passage. Keeping dependents on a plan until they’re 40 was (and is) not an option.

A new study found that in the two years since this provision of Obamacare was enacted, 6.6 million young adults now have health insurance through their parents’ plans. Unsurprisingly, the new protection is extremely popular, enjoying 71 percent support in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll.

ThinkProgress later pressed Tipton on whether he supported a federal law that would protect people with pre-existing conditions from being denied health insurance. He refused to say.

Two more evangelical schools — Biola University in California and Grace College in Indiana — just joined the growing number of conservative religious institutions filing lawsuits against the Obama administration over its contraception mandate. The birth control provision, which went into effect at the beginning of this month, provides contraceptive coverage without a co-pay to millions of women who need reproductive health care services. Although Obamacare includes a religious exemption that allows Catholic and evangelical institutions to opt out of paying for birth control if they object to it, right-wing groups claim the mandate still violates their religious liberty.

In preparation to sue over Obamacare, evangelical colleges are more closely examining their existing student health plans — only to discover that they actually already cover the contraceptive services they object to. In their lawsuit, Biola University officials admitted that they were covering birth control and emergency contraception right up until the point that the Obamacare mandate became politicized and they decided it must violate their liberty:

Like Wheaton College, Biola previously covered Plan B and ella in its insurance plans. Biola’s insurance plan covered FDA-approved contraceptives before April 1, the lawsuit states. “The prior inclusion of abortion-inducing drugs like ella and Plan B was neither knowing nor intentional.”

Working with several insurance companies for faculty and student plans, Biola did not look into the details of its coverage until the Obama administration’s mandate became an issue for the college, said Biola University President Barry H. Corey.

“Whether or not people were taking advantage of [ella or Plan B], that’s something we weren’t and couldn’t track,” Corey said. “We did realize at that point that our insurance companies should exclude those.”

Apparently emergency contraception — which Biola misleadingly refers to as “abortion-inducing,” in the ongoing misinformation campaign about the female reproductive system — was not a big enough threat to the university’s religious liberty before Obamacare to compel the administration to ensure that its plan didn’t cover it.

Wheaton and Biola aren’t the only institutions to suddenly realize that they are fighting against a health service they already provide. Some Catholic colleges and hospitals, such as Georgetown University, currently have insurance plans that cover birth control, and 28 states already require organizations to include contraception as part of their prescription insurance plans. The religious case against Obamacare is much more about a manufactured right-wing controversy than it is about liberty.

Vaccines don’t cause autism — the science on the question is clear. But Donald Trump evidently thinks he knows better than the entire scientific community and took to Twitter to suggest otherwise:

Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2012

…Spread shots out over long period and watch positive result.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2012

The number of people who share of Trump’s view — which, again, is entirely unsupported by the relevant science — could be already be having pernicious consequences. For example, the U.S. is facing the worst whooping cough epidemic in 50 years, a disease easily prevented by vaccine. While budget cuts to state-level health organizations have exacerbated the epidemic’s spread, there are concerns that fears about the mythical autism-vaccine link are helping to increase the number of whooping cough cases as some children are not vaccinated.

This isn’t the first time Trump has expounded nonsense on vaccines and autism. However, the timing is especially sensitive given that Trump has been given a special “suprise” role in the upcoming Republican convention in Tampa by its organizers.