With Congress engaged in a contentious fight over how to overhaul the nation’s broken immigration system, lawmakers from both parties — including President Obama — see eye-to-eye on at least one aspect of the debate: previously undocumented immigrants who achieve provisional legal or deferred action status should not be eligible for government health care benefits or insurance subsidies.

But according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) February tracking poll, Washington is out of touch with a strong majority of Americans, who believe that such immigrants should be able to access care with the help of government resources:

The survey finds that even Republicans are relatively split on providing Medicaid benefits to low-income immigrants with provisional legal status. KFF’s report goes on to underscore the largely-ignored reality that even lawfully present immigrants — including those who were never undocumented, and particularly those with low incomes — have to jump through hoops in order to gain coverage. KFF conducted a more thorough analysis on this exact issue earlier this month in order to highlight the discrepancies between naturalized citizens’ and low-income immigrants’ access to services:

The long waiting periods that low-income immigrants must endure in order to get Medicaid coverage are particularly troubling given the fact that poorer immigrants likely cannot afford private insurance on the individual market and usually work for employers that do not provide their workers with health coverage. That perfect storm of coverage gaps perpetuates a system in which poor immigrants are forced to pursue care at underground, cash-only local clinics with little public oversight, such as Los Angeles’ ubiquitous neighborhood “bodega clinicas.”

Eliminating these barriers to health coverage by eliminating the Medicaid waiting period for low-income legal immigrants and allowing DREAMers and other immigrants who achieve provisional legal status — assuming comprehensive immigration reform passes, that is — to access Medicaid and Obamacare’s insurance subsidies would actually strengthen America’s health care system, as more people would be able to afford their care and receive cost-saving preventative services. Such reform policies are clearly supported by the factual evidence — and also, as it turns out, by the American people.

The news broke today that the soft-core porn company Girls Gone Wild will file for bankruptcy. The company’s decision was largely related to a debt owed to the casino Wynn Las Vegas thanks to the actions of founder Joseph Francis.

But that’s not the only legal trouble that Francis and the company have found themselves in recently. GGW has faced a whole slew of lawsuits for exploiting women, which have substantially contributed to Francis’s financial troubles.

In their bankruptcy filings, GGW cites another debt owed to Tamara Favazza, a woman who sued the company for putting her on film against her will. She won the suit, along with $5.8 million from Francis:

Favazza sued Francis in 2008, claiming someone exposed her breasts while filming in a bar in St. Louis for the “Girls Gone Wild Sorority Orgy” DVD series, according to court documents.

Favazza, a St. Louis resident, won a $5.8 million judgment and then sued Francis, GGW Brands and Mantra Films last year in federal court in Missouri to collect.

GGW Brands called Favazza’s claim a “trade debt” in its Chapter 11 petition. In bankruptcy, trade debts are owed to suppliers, vendors and other service providers.

Favazza is far from alone in demanding remuneration from GGW.

Take, for example, Lindsey Boyd. Now 26, Boyd originally sued the company in 2004 for running video of her as a 14-year-old flashing a cameraman for beads. The case was ultimately decided in November of 2012 — and Boyd lost not because her claim was inaccurate, but because her home state of Georgia had no law in place that protected her photo from being used for commercial use against her consent. In the year 2008, a total of four women sued Francis collectively with similar claims of emotional damages from being filmed underage. Because the company had waivers for them, their cases were also tossed.

Francis has openly admitted to the exploitation that seemed integral to his company’s business model. In 2006, he plead guilty to exploiting minors and paid a fine of $500,000 after admitting that he didn’t keep track of the identities and ages of the women (or girls) captured in his videos. He similarly plead “no contest,” and served a year in jail, for charges of child abuse and prostitution. He was required to post a $1.5 million bond, which likely added to his financial woes.

Ultimately, GGW may blame Wynn, a man, for bringing its empire to the ground. But it’s Favazza’s role in GGW’s bankruptcy that is the most important symbolic victory. Her case speaks for countless women who will be glad to see the company go down, even if the unhinged man at its helm insists it can continue to operate.

Although teen birth rates are dropping, the United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world. Particularly since American teens are often shamed about their sexual choices, rather than receiving the actual resources they need, the country has a long way to go when it comes to the way it approaches teen sexuality. The results from a new study underline the point that although abstinence education programs don’t work, a different focus on youth services can effectively lower the rate of teen pregnancies.

Researchers from University of Minnesota found that teenage girls at high risk for unintended pregnancy were more likely to take steps to lower their risk of becoming pregnant, like regularly using condoms and birth control pills, after receiving additional support from a youth-focused program. Over the course of their study, over 250 sexually active girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were split into two groups — about half were placed in a “Prime Time program” designed to help mitigate risky sexual behaviors by providing personal case management and youth leadership opportunities, while the rest of the teens didn’t receive any special counseling or support. Significant differences emerged in the teens’ sexual behavior:

All of the participants completed a survey two years after enrolling in the study. This was six months after the girls in the Prime Time intervention completed the program.

The girls in the Prime Time program reported “significantly more consistent” use of condoms, birth control pills or a combination of both types of contraception than those in the control group, the researchers found.

The girls in the Prime Time program also reported increases in family connectedness and self-confidence to refuse unwanted sex, as well as reductions in the perceived importance of having sex, the study authors noted in a journal news release.

Ultimately, as the study’s authors concluded, “health services grounded in a youth development framework can lead to long-term reductions in sexual risk among vulnerable youth.” But those health services may not be widely available across the country — particularly in rural areas that tend to have conservative attitudes about sex, where teens may not feel comfortable seeking out the resources they need.

In particular, the 26 states that require health classes to push ineffective abstinence-only curricula — a misguided approach to sexual education that teaches adolescents to be ashamed of their bodies, rather than equipping young people with the tools they need to safeguard their health — would actually be better served by investing money in support programs for at-risk youth. If the U.S. reoriented its approach to teen sexuality, including acknowledging the fact that young men also have a role to play in preventing unintended pregnancies, the country could continue taking steps toward improving its relatively poor sexual health.