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Health

GOP Senate Candidate Says Businesses Should Be Allowed To Deny Health Insurance To Cancer Patients

By Scott Keyes on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:40 pm

Republican Senate nominee Richard Mourdock

Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party favorite who ousted Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) in Indiana’s Republican Senate primary last month, told a local Indiana newspaper that, contra Obamacare’s protections, employers ought to be able to deny health insurance to people with cancer.

During a freewheeling interview with the News and Tribune, Mourdock said health care will be the “biggest issue” this election. The Indiana Republican, who opposes the Affordable Care Act, argued that businesses should be permitted to deny coverage to employees with cancer “if they want to keep their health care costs down.” “Does that employer have the right to do it?” Mourdock asked. “I would say yes they do”

From the interview:

Of particular interest to the candidate is a mandate that requires an employer to pay for certain services they may be morally opposed to — such as birth control — which Mourdock said he opposes.

Mourdock’s example was an employer who decided to cover everything but cancer.

“Does that employer have the right to do it? I would say yes they do if they want to keep their health care costs down but it also means it’s less likely you’re going to want to work here. If that employer wants to get the best employees coming in the door he’s going to offer the best insurance possible.”

Among Obamacare’s most popular provisions are protections for people who are sick or have pre-existing conditions to make sure they can’t be denied health insurance (beginning in 2014). In Mourdock’s America, businesses would continue to have the right to deny insurance for 1 in 7 Americans because of a pre-existing condition.

If Mourdock ultimately wins his election in November, don’t expect him to compromise on his opposition to businesses being required to insure cancer patients. The day after Mourdock won the Republican nomination, he announced on MSNBC that “bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”

Update

The Mourdock campaign has issued a clarification to TPM: “Simply put, Richard was making the point that a company that discontinued insurance coverage of life-threatening ailments would immediately become an unattractive place to work. In no way, shape or form does Richard support companies discontinuing such insurance coverage, and any attempt to say otherwise is a complete falsehood.”

Culture

Marijuana Decriminalization Makes It Onto Texas Democratic Platform

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:38 pm

Texas Democrats believe that marijuana should be decriminalized — so strongly, in fact, that decriminalization made it onto their party platform this year.

Texas Democrats affirmed their commitment to sound drug policy while simultaneously denouncing the erroneously titled “War on Drugs,” which has led to high incarceration rates but very little in the way of reducing drug use. “Since the war on drugs began, 85% of the arrests for marijuana have been for possession only,” the platform says:

Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Recent polls show over 50% of Americans believe marijuana should be decriminalized. While arrests for marijuana since 1965 have been over 20 million citizens, marijuana is more prevalent than ever before.

There is no evidence that marijuana is a “gateway” drug leading to the use of more lethal drugs. 75% of citizens arrested for marijuana are under 30. Minorities account for a majority of those arrested for marijuana. Criminal conviction permanently scars a young citizen for life.

Texas Democrats urge the President, the Attorney General and the Congress to support the passage of legislation to decriminalize the possession of marijuana and regulate it’s use, production and sale as is done with tobacco and alcohol.

We further urge the immediate decriminalization of the possession and use of medical marijuana.

Drug policy is changing across the country as support for decriminalization and medical marijuana grows. Seven states may legalize medicinal marijuana in 2012. Meanwhile, governments and prominent political figures have come out in favor of decriminalization in various forms.

(HT: Huffington Post)

Alyssa

An Open Letter to the Guys Who Told Me They Want to See Lara Croft Get Raped

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:36 pm

In last week’s conversation about the fact that Lara Croft will be threatened with sexual assault in the latest release of Tomb Raider, commenter Yitzhak Ben-Moshe wondered “One wonders how many sick puppies will let it go and watch the rape happen. Disgusting.” No sooner had he said that than two people showed up in the feed to validate his fears. “As long as you get to watch Lara Croft get raped uncensored, I’ll pre-order the special edition right now,” wrote Jordan Cunningham. “I been wanting to see that foe nearly a decade.” And Eric Ericsson chimed in “Rape in my tomb raider? Oh boy, I cannot wait to raid her tomb.” This letter is to them.

Dear Jordan and Eric,

I have a lot of questions for both of you, but let’s start with this one: why do you want to see Lara Croft get raped?

I ask because I’d be willing to bet it’s something you hadn’t considered much before Ron Rosenberg and company laid out the scenario (one they’re now walking back) for the new Tomb Raider game that will give Lara Croft a backstory. And once you heard that Lara Croft was going to be at risk of rape in the new game, you jumped on the idea. But I still want to know why. It’d be one thing if you wanted to see the character have fairly explicit consensual sex—Lara Croft has been marketed to us as a hot, adventurous woman for years, and all manner of non-exploitative fantasies can come out of the way she’s been sold in-game and on-screen. But no, what Jordan wants is to see her get “raped uncensored,” and Eric wants the chance to do it himself.

So, in all seriousness, why do you want to see Lara Croft get raped?

Do you think she has an obligation to be sexually available, if not to you in real life, to someone else in-game, and if she violates that obligation, that it should be enforced upon her? One of the hard, immutable truths of adulthood is that no one owes you, and there is no mechanism to guarantee that everyone gets some mysteriously-allotted fair share of happiness and sexual satisfaction. I get that there’s this fantasy of a time before feminism when women were more broadly sexually available to men, when some men think they would have experienced less of that pain of loneliness and that fear of rejection that is baked into modern life. But I’d bet if you think about it carefully, you’ll acknowledge to yourself that it’s not really true, that participation in that fantasy was limited to certain very powerful and wealthy men, that it probably wouldn’t have served you as well as you think it would, that then, as now, you would have been required to exercise persuasion and charm and negotiation to get what you wanted. This fantasy of yours, it’s a fantasy. And nothing, not pretending you’re owed something, not seeing a video game character get raped, is ever going to bring it back.

So if it’s not that, is it entertaining to you to see this powerful woman reduced in some way, made vulnerable to something whether you’re the person enforcing her powerlessness or not? Because if that’s the case, really, what are you so frightened of? Lara Croft is not some sort of proof that men have been replaced as adventurers, or that men are unnecessary. To paraphrase Orson Scott Card’s Piggies talking about their desire to participate in the full life of the universe alongside humanity, feminism is not about being there first, about rendering men irrelevant. It’s about being there, too. I’d think that needing to see Lara Croft, or any other strong woman, made vulnerable isn’t pushback against misandry, the unicorn of oppressions. It’s evidence of fear, proof of John Scalzi’s theory that relying on patriarchy is really playing the game of life on the easiest setting rather than being willing to collaborate, and in some cases compete. If that’s what you really want, to be spared the presence of women in your lives because you find us threatening and upsetting, you may be able to find a way to do that, for a little while longer. But I don’t think it’s going to last. You can’t put all of us in whatever it is you perceive to be our places. There are too many of us. And whether you want to acknowledge it or not, there are a lot of men who will tell you that having women is a value add to their lives, not a painful surrendering of territory. You can fight for whatever barren rock you want to make your last stand on. But why not check out what men and women are building together? If you like what you see, then welcome.
Read more

Security

Report: Military Can Provide Female Troops With Better Health Care

By Guest Blogger on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:34 pm

By Nina Liss-Schultz

Photo: Sgt. Jennifer Jones/USMC

The presence of women in the last decade of war has been significant: 275,000 women have been deployed — 13,000 to Afghanistan so far this year alone. At least 130 women have lost their lives during service since 9/11. And in February, the Pentagon eased the ban on women serving in combat roles. But despite the growing number of women serving, and in light of female service members’ growing combat roles, an Army task force on women’s health concluded that U.S. armed forces are ill-prepared to provide female soldiers with adequate health care “that’s both equal in quality to that of their male counterparts, and that also accounts for the medical issues unique to a female population.”

According to the report, which was covered first by USA Today, none of the health problems described by the task force — such as urinary or vaginal infections — would bar women from “serving in combat but instead create unnecessary physical discomfort.” Instead, the task force recommended creating a simple kit that allows women to self-test for these kinds of infections without having to approach a company medic, often a man, about symptoms. Results from those tests can then allow them to obtain proper medication.

The task force also issued other recommendations to address women’s health care:

• Build body armor and physical exercise uniforms that fit women. The Army says it is testing better-fitting body armor for women in August.

• Provide better security for tent lodging and bathrooms to lessen the risk of sexual assaults.

• Urge the Army, Marines and Air Force to conform with a Navy provision allowing 12 months for new mothers to spend with newborns to take full advantage of the health benefits of breast-feeding.

• Sponsor more research into better understanding of the mental health issues that develop when mothers separate from families to go to war.

Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) told USA Today that “it’s disturbing that after a decade at war, women servicemembers do not have access to some of the simple, common-sense solutions in this report.” A key finding of the report is that the military fails to educate women about how to stay healthy. Because the military currently lacks health tutorials specific to women, female servicemembers often do not know, for instance, that contraceptives can mitigate the increased unpleasantness of menstrual cycles due to combat stress — an issue that was widely reported to the task force.

NEWS FLASH

Ohio Has Thrown 40,000 Children Off Key Social Safety Net Program Since 2011 | The Nation’s Greg Kaufman reports that “since January 2011, Ohio has thrown nearly 70,000 people — including 40,000 children — off of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance program, called Ohio Works First (OWF).” This amounts to nearly 25 percent of the state’s caseload, and is more that the total TANF roll in 39 other states. “You can imagine if someone announced they were going to throw all the children in Virginia off of cash assistance it would be national news. But that many get thrown off in Ohio and it’s barely even local news,” said Jack Frech, director of the Athens County [Ohio] Department of Job and Family Services,

NEWS FLASH

Republican Congressman Will Introduce Legislation To Undo Obama’s Immigration Order | Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) is circulating a dear colleague letter asking members of Congress to support legislation that would “strip the Secretary of Homeland Security of the ability to defer deportation” of young people and undermine the Obama administration’s effort to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. “It is time the Administration stopped the political pandering and enforced our immigration laws,” Schweikert writes, describing Obama’s directive as “an abdication of duty to the American people who are struggling in this economy.”

LGBT

Mormon Ex-Gay Therapists Attack Family Acceptance Literature

By Zack Ford on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Last week, the Family Acceptance Project released new literature encouraging Mormons to be more accepting of LGBT youth. The 25-page booklet, part of the “Supportive Families, Healthy Children” series, blends aspects of the Mormon faith with research about how best to support the mental and physical health of young people questioning their sexuality or gender identity. Unfortunately, the LDS-run Deseret News couldn’t resist inviting ex-gay therapists Ty Mansfield and Laurie Campbell to critique the guide:

MANSFIELD: The pamphlet’s assumption of a predetermined and rubber-stamped ‘LGBT’ identity is problematic… Those who take their religion seriously also understand the sacred responsibility of nurturing values and identities that are more in harmony with the deeply held spiritual beliefs from which they arise – and they’ll continue to look for guidance primarily from church leaders as opposed to ‘LGBT’ research institutes to help them in that regard.

CAMPBELL: What about those LDS youth who are attracted to the same gender yet do not want to identify as gay and hope there might be an opposite-sex relationship for them later in life? To label them as ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ can be harmful… They may have a deep, spiritual sense that their attractions do not define them, but are confused by what the world has to say. If LDS parents depart from gospel truths and rush to define attractions as being a permanent ‘orientation’ when that is not necessarily the case, it can worsen the child’s distress and confusion.

These comments reflect a growing new approach to opposing LGBT identities that tries to distinguish itself from ex-gay therapy. Rather than telling young gay people to not be gay, these anti-gay therapists are simply telling them not to act on their gay identity. The distinction between self-identification and whether a person allows that identity to be an authentic part of their lives is negligible.

Campbell’s comments are the most telling — and flagrantly wrong. The obvious implication of promoting an opposite-sex relationship “later in life” is to convey that a same-sex relationship is inferior or wrong. What’s harmful to young people is discouraging them from identifying with their actual sexual orientation or communicating in any way that their family would be less accepting if they did. That’s the overarching point of the new guide.

The misguided way these therapists responded echoes the controversy over the unique case of Josh Weed, the “happily married” gay Mormon who may be advocating similar approaches in his own work as a therapist. If anti-gay activists continue to embrace this artificial distinction between orientation and identity, it must be called out as the harmful ex-gay repression that it is.

Justice

Alabama Departments Fail To Provide Voter Registration Materials When Required By Law

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:10 pm

Conservative officials are disenfranchising voters across the country through voter ID laws that could prevent up to 3 million voters from casting a ballot and Florida’s voter purge that continues even though Justice Department officials say it is illegal. Now another state is stopping voters by not providing voter registration information.

According to national voting rights and civil rights groups, Alabama agencies are failing to follow a federal law requiring that state offices provide voter registration materials to residents who seek government assistance.The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 states that all applicants for public assistance must be given voter registration applications, but a coalition including Demos, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Project Vote said their investigation and interviews found that state Department of Human Resources (DHR) and Medicaid offices are not complying with this law.

A DHR spokeswoman said it was the department’s policy to provide voter registration, but in a letter to Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman (R), the coalition outlines how this policy is not being followed:

“According to U.S. Election Assistance Commission data, the number of voter registration applications submitted at Alabama public assistance offices decreased by more than 75 percent from its peak in 1995-1996 to the most recent reporting period of 2009-2010,” the group wrote in its letter to Chapman.

“This drop in voter registrations is particularly significant given that the number of initial food stamp applications in Alabama during the same time frame increased by 60 percent.”

The letter also describes visits to DHR offices in 20 counties by investigators who found half the offices did not have applications available and could not provide them when requested. Three-quarters of the offices provided information only when clients asked. In one case an investigator was told to go to the courthouse to register and another office told an investigator it hadn’t done voter registration in seven to 10 years.

The groups asked Chapman to explain how the state would fix this problem and comply with federal law. If a plan has not been developed in 90 days, they say they will sue the state.

Climate Progress

PV For All: Low-Income Housing Residents Going Solar

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jun 18, 2012 at 3:04 pm

by Paul Schwabe, via the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Until recently, the low-income housing community has been a tough nut for the solar industry to crack.

Low-income housing developments have historically avoided going solar due to the obvious difficulties of incorporating high-cost, discretionary photovoltaic (PV) systems into affordable housing. However, a unique mix of local, utility, and federal support combined with a little financial creativity allowed a community in Colorado to demonstrate the application of PV into a low-income housing program.

Here’s how it worked.

Low Income Housing Denver

Figure 1. Solar PV and a low-income housing development in Denver, Colorado [1]

It Takes a Village

In northeast Denver, Colorado, a partnership of community stakeholders came together to pilot the first U.S. low-income housing project to take on solar. The partnership itself was a large and diverse collaboration of various interests groups. No less than six organizations were involved in the effort, including:

Read more

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Governor Flooded With Emails About Anti-Contraception Bill | Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has received over 5,000 messages from his constituents about the state’s proposed health insurance legislation, which would allow employers to deny access to birth control if they have a religious or moral opposition to contraception. Missouri’s bill, modeled after the failed Blunt Amendment that would have enacted the same restrictions on a national level, has already passed the state’s House and Senate. The bill will take effect in mid-July unless the governor vetoes it. Nixon has not yet indicated whether he plans to sign the bill.

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