Armey’s View Of Americans With Pre-Existing Conditions: Someone Who ‘Eats Like A Pig’ And Has Diabetes
Armey’s View Of Americans With Pre-Existing Conditions: Someone Who ‘Eats Like A Pig’ And Has Diabetes
Ensuring that insurers don’t reject any American for health coverage because of a pre-existing condition is a top priority of the public. Republicans have repeatedly said that they also want to make this change, but in the alternative legislation they released, Americans with pre-existing conditions would still be left out to dry.
Today on CNN, FreedomWorks head Dick Armey defended the industry’s discriminatory practices by saying that if you have diabetes because you “eat like a pig,” you don’t deserve coverage:
ARMEY: But now, they [government officials] come along and they say, irrespective of the fact they’ve gone 20, 30, 40 years of their adult life without ever having bought insurance prior to getting a liver inflammation due to their excessive drinking habits or diabetes because they eat like a pig, you must now insure them.
But at what point do we allow the government to order people that you must sell your product to this person or that person, irrespective of any good judgment? We saw what happened in housing when they ordered banks to make loans to people who weren’t qualified. Are we now going to have the same destructive influences in health care because we’re going to order doctors to provide services and so forth?
Watch it:
In reality, these pre-existing conditions that can disqualify people from receiving health insurance often have nothing to do with unhealthy lifestyle choices — and they disproportionately target women. Some pre-existing conditions are having a Caesarean-section pregnancy, being a victim of domestic violence, or being a victim of rape. Most individual health insurance markets don’t even cover maternity care. Other pre-existing conditions that insurers have used to either deny people outright or charge exorbitant fees for coverage include being an expectant father, having acne, or being a police officer.
Many Republicans, like Armey, seem unable to grasp that denial based on pre-existing conditions is discriminatory. Last week, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) said that insurers are justified in charging women more than men because we’re “all different.” He then compared a woman to a “smoker” and a man to a “non-smoker” to argue that insurers should be allowed to discriminate.
Armey also recently told the New York Times that the “largest empirical problem we have in health care today is too many people are too overinsured.” (He’s wrong.)
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Rep. Wasserman Schultz: Republicans Are Giving Women A ‘Back-Of-The-Hand Treatment’
Rep. Wasserman Schultz: Republicans Are Giving Women A ‘Back-Of-The-Hand Treatment’
This morning, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) participated on a conference call with the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Judy Feder to discuss Republican efforts to shut out women’s issues in the health reform debate. Feder noted that in 2006, nine Senate Republicans voted to explicitly kill a proposal that would have ensured that insurance companies cannot use domestic violence as a pretext for denying coverage to women. The two went on to discuss how, as the House vote drew near, Republican lawmakers’ disregard for the interests of women became more apparent.
In the House Rules Committee the Friday before the vote, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), who is also the chief recruiter for Republican House campaigns in 2010, justified the practice of insurance companies discriminating against women by comparing gender differences to smokers and non-smokers. The next day — on Saturday morning — Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and several of his GOP colleagues shouted down congresswomen making 1-minute speeches on the importance of health reform for women. Wasserman Schultz denounced the interruption tactics and Sessions’ comparison of women to smokers as the “Republicans’ back of the hand treatment to women”:
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I’m pleased to have an opportunity to express and underscore my concerns of essentially what amounts to the Republicans’ back of the hand treatment to women, issues that are important to women, particularly women’s health. We already have had a clear sense that Republicans were opposed to our efforts to advance women’s health interests. Now we know we know they’re opposed to letting women voice opinions on health care as well. [...] My colleague Pete Sessions actually compared women to smokers and suggested women, like smokers, have to pay more for insurance just by the accident of our ability to get pregnant.
Listen here:
Indeed, asked by a witness why should a woman pay more for a man for health insurance premiums, the supposedly pro-life Sessions scoffed:
SESSION: We’re all different. Why should a smoker pay more than a non-smoker.
Watch it:
Insurance companies employ a variety of discriminatory practices towards women. In many states, insurance companies consider rape, previous pregnancies, a c-section, and domestic violence as preexisting conditions. President Obama’s health reform proposals, including the bill passed by the House on Saturday, will end all denials of care based on preexisting conditions and ban gender discrimination for premiums.
Oklahomans rally at State Capitol to protest anti-choice law that would post abortion details online.
Oklahomans rally at State Capitol to protest anti-choice law that would post abortion details online.
Oklahoma recently passed a law (HR 1595) that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Critics of the legislation worry that the information could be used to identify individuals. Portions of the law were supposed to take effect on Nov. 1, but a judge delayed activation pending the outcome of a legal challenge. On Friday, approximately 100 people gathered at the State Capitol in Oklahoma to protest HR 1595, in an attempt to better inform Oklahoma residents about what’s going on:
Shagah Zakerion, one of the organizers of the rally to protest House Bill 1595, said many of her fellow students at the University of Oklahoma were unaware the measure had passed until it drew criticism in the national media.
“We didn’t even know the bill was going through our Legislature let alone that it had already passed,” said Zakerion, a senior from Tulsa, before the rally, which attracted about 100 people. “We need to stop this stuff before it turns into law, and we need to build a coalition of Oklahomans that are not only for reproductive justice but also for progressive issues.
“There are people here, and there are youth here who aren’t going to sit back and let legislation like this get passed again,” she said.
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Oklahoma state Rep. Jeannie McDaniel (D), an outspoken opponent of the legislation, lamented the anti-woman atmosphere in the state legislature. “Each of the successive five years, there has been a bill introduced in the Oklahoma legislature regarding women’s reproductive rights,” she said, adding, “Each year, it creeps a little more toward taking away women’s freedoms, more restrictions between the doctors.”
Anti-choice activists attempt to subvert eBay efforts to prevent Roeder auction.
Anti-choice activists attempt to subvert eBay efforts to prevent Roeder auction.
An online auction to raise money for the defense fund of Scott Roeder, the accused murder of Dr. George Tiller, launched last night on eBay despite the company’s pledge to prevent it. Late last week, eBay announced that the planned auction violated its policy toward offensive materials which “does not permit listings that benefit someone charged with or convicted of a crime.” eBay stated that it would “not permit the items in question to be posted to the eBay site,” adding that they would be “removed if they are posted.” But organizers temporarily subverted these restrictions by posting “less contentious” items and using “spellings that make searches difficult.” TPMMuckraker posted a slideshow of the items Roeder’s supporters planned to auction, but now reports that they have been removed from the eBay website.
Rape Victim Confronts Vitter Over His Vote Against Franken’s Amendment Holding Contractors Accountable
Rape Victim Confronts Vitter Over His Vote Against Franken’s Amendment Holding Contractors Accountable
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones’ Halliburton/KBR co-workers gang-raped her while she was working in Baghdad. The company then detained her in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would be heard in private arbitration only.
Last month, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts if companies “restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Although the amendment passed, 30 Republican senators voted against it.
One of the Republicans singled out for especially harsh criticism following the vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has a track record of siding against women’s rights. The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein reports that at a town hall meeting this past weekend, a constituent confronted Vitter about his vote. The woman, a rape victim, demanded that he explain why he opposed Franken’s amendment. Vitter refused to give her a straight answer:
WOMAN: It meant everything to me that I was able to put the person who attacked me [behind bars]. And what allowed me to do that was our judicial process. I showed up in court every day to make sure that happen
VITTER: And I’m absolutely supportive of any case like that being prosecuted criminally to the full extent of the law. [...]
WOMAN: But how can you support [a law] that tells a rape victim that she does not have the right to defend herself?
VITTER: Ma’am The language in question did not say that in any way shape or form.
WOMAN: But it is unconstitutional to have a law that says a woman does not have a right to defend herself.
Vitter then tried to deflect blame to the Obama administration, saying that it was also against the amendment. When the woman replied, “But I’m not asking Obama. I’m asking you,” Vitter retorted, “Do you think he’s in favor in rape?” Watch it:
Vitter’s criticism of the Obama administration isn’t quite correct. “While the Obama Defense Department raised concerns about the reach of the Franken amendment,” notes Stein, “the White House itself said it supported ‘the intent’ and was working to make sure it was ‘enforceable.’”
House Health Reform Bill Outlaws Treating Domestic Violence As A Pre-Existing Condition
House Health Reform Bill Outlaws Treating Domestic Violence As A Pre-Existing Condition
This morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) unveiled the re-tooled Affordable Health Care for America Act (HR 3962). The bill will cost $900 billion over 10 years, extending health coverage to 36 million Americans (6-7 million more than the Senate Finance Committee’s version). As Igor Volsky points out, it also “includes a national public option that reimburses physicians at negotiated rates and requires individuals to acquire coverage and large employers to provide it.”
A less-noticed — but still significant — part of the bill would ensure that insurers in the individual market would no longer treat domestic violence as a pre-existing condition:
A health insurance issuer offering health insurance coverage in the individual market may not, on the basis of domestic violence, impose any preexisting condition exclusion (as defined in section 2701(b)(1)(A)) with respect to such coverage.
Eight states currently allow insurers to reject women who have survived domestic abuse for coverage. As the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim has explained:
Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you’re more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.
In human terms, it’s a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.
This provision is part of the bill’s larger ban on pre-existing conditions, which stipulates that insurers cannot discriminate based on “health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, disability, or source of injury (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence) or any similar factors.”
In 2006, Senate Democrats on the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee tried to end domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but lost in a 10-10 vote. All the “nay” votes were Republicans. Women currently pay up to 50 percent more for health insurance than a man would shell out for the same coverage, and most individual health insurance markets don’t cover maternity care.
The inclusion of a ban on domestic violence being treated as a pre-existing condition fulfills a promise Pelosi made earlier this month. “Think of this,” Pelosi told reporters. “You’ve survived domestic violence, and now you are discriminated [against] in the insurance market because you have a pre-existing medical condition. Well, that will all be gone.”
eBay refuses to allow auction for Roeder’s defense fund.
eBay refuses to allow auction for Roeder’s defense fund.
The Kansas City Star is reporting that eBay has decided to prevent a planned online auction organized to support the defense fund of Scott Roeder, the accused murder of Dr. George Tiller. EBay said that the auction violated its policy against “offensive material” and would not be allowed. EBay made its announcement on the same day the family of Dr. George Tiller issued a personal appeal to the company to intervene and prevent the scheduled auction:
“These materials contain hate messages, glorify violence against abortion doctors who provide constitutionally protected medical services, and instruct on means of violence, including bombing, of abortion clinics,” said Lee Thompson, an attorney for the Tiller family, in a letter sent to eBay on Tuesday and approved by Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller. “We urge you to deny access to the resources of eBay for this reprehensible and vile ‘auction.’”
The decision by eBay followed a week of increasing national criticism. Anti-choice activists organized the auction to help fund Roeder’s defense, and items being donated included “an Army of God manual, a prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons, and several autographed drawings submitted by Roeder.”
State Rep: In Oklahoma, There’s A ‘Feeling That Women Aren’t Capable Of Making Reproductive Decisions’
State Rep: In Oklahoma, There’s A ‘Feeling That Women Aren’t Capable Of Making Reproductive Decisions’
Oklahoma recently passed a law that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Women will have to answer questions about their age, income, race, number of previous pregnancies, type of health insurance, whether they’re a state employee, date of abortion, and location where the procedure is performed. Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or “any information specifically identifying the patient,” as Feminists for Choice points out, many of these questions could be used to identify a woman in a small community.
In recent weeks, the law has been generating attention nationwide. On Monday, ThinkProgress spoke to Oklahoma state Rep. Jeannie McDaniel (D), an outspoken opponent of HR 1595, which was sponsored by two male lawmakers — Sen. Todd Lamb (R) and Rep. Dan Sullivan (R). McDaniel stressed that this bill is part of a pattern by the Oklahoma legislature to take away power from women:
McDANIEL: I’ve served five sessions, and I have one more term to go before I’m up for reelection. Each of the successive five years, there has been a bill introduced in the Oklahoma legislature regarding women’s reproductive rights. … Each year, it creeps a little more toward taking away women’s freedoms, more restrictions between the doctors. [...]
TP: So how did this get passed?
McDANIEL: Well, in our state, we have a very strong feeling that women aren’t capable of making reproductive decisions when it comes to terminating a pregnancy. It’s a very strong effort pro-life. And while I don’t advocate abortion, certainly, I understand the Supreme Court gives us the right to have availability to that service, and I do believe that women have the right to make the choice and to make healthy choices.
In the interview, McDaniel stressed that not only is the bill trying to intimidate women from receiving reproductive care, but it’s intended to discourage doctors from providing the services in the first place. Physicians are required to fill out the survey — even if they work at a private institution — and if they don’t, they will face sanctions. “I think what we’re doing is we’re driving them out of the services completely to providing women’s health care,” said McDaniel. Listen to excerpts of the interview here:
One of the recent bills McDaniel mentioned that takes away women’s reproductive choices was legislation that would have required a woman to submit to an ultrasound and hear descriptions of the fetus’s heart, limbs, and internal organs before receiving an abortion. The law said that the woman would be allowed to “avert her eyes.” However, a judge struck down the law, saying it “violated a clause in the State Constitution requiring that bills deal with only one subject.” The Center for Reproductive Rights is now challenging the new abortion law on the same grounds. On Monday, the court postponed activation of the law until Dec. 4 as part of the legal challenge. The state attorney general had requested the delay in order to have “more time to respond.”
As Megan Carpentier notes, “Making abortion illegal or difficult to obtain doesn’t reduce its prevalence in a country. It simply increases the health risks to the women who seek them anyway. The only proven way to stop women from having abortions is to help them make their own choices about when to become pregnant.”
Unfortunately, if the court doesn’t overturn this law, there may not be a legislative fix coming anytime soon. McDaniel said that she’s sure there aren’t the votes right now to repeal the law right now. “I think it’s an education process, and I think the more educated a constituency is, or people in a state are, that they will realize that access to affordable reproductive health care is the key,” McDaniel replied.
Transcript: More »
Beck: Madeleine Albright looks like a ‘turkey’ because of ‘the neck skin on her.’
Beck: Madeleine Albright looks like a ‘turkey’ because of ‘the neck skin on her.’
On his radio and TV shows recently, Glenn Beck has been positioning himself as an advocate for America’s mothers, who he says will be the “ones who will save the Republic.” “When are mothers going to stand up and demand the respect they deserve? Beck said on Fox this week. But as Media Matters noted on Tuesday, Beck has a long history of disrespecting women and moms with sexist commentary. Just today, he said that former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, a mother and grandmother , looks like a “turkey” because of “the neck skin on her.” Listen here:
On Sunday, Republican strategist Mary Matalin defended Beck’s public persona by saying that he was connecting with “maligned mothers.”
Speaker Pelosi responds to Republicans: ‘I’m in my place. I’m the Speaker of the House.’
Speaker Pelosi responds to Republicans: ‘I’m in my place. I’m the Speaker of the House.’
Earlier this week, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) put out a press release criticizing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) comments on Afghanistan, saying that Gen. Stanley McChrystal should “put her in her place.” Today, Pelosi responded during her weekly briefing:
It’s really sad that they really don’t understand how inappropriate that is. I’m in my place. I’m the speaker of the House — the first woman speaker of the House. And I’m in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there.
Pelosi added that she hadn’t heard sexist language like what was in the NRCC press release in “decades.” Watch it:
New Oklahoma law will publicy post details of women’s abortions online.
New Oklahoma law will publicy post details of women’s abortions online.
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will “cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.” Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother
(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother
(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or “any information specifically identifying the patient,” as Feminists for Choice points out, these eight questions could easily be used to identify a woman in a small community. “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions,” Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, said. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law, arguing that “it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it ‘covers more than one subject’ — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law.”
National Review’s Derbyshire Says Women’s Suffrage Is ‘Bad For Conservatism’ And Therefore ‘Bad For Society’
National Review’s Derbyshire Says Women’s Suffrage Is ‘Bad For Conservatism’ And Therefore ‘Bad For Society’
Last month, radio host Alan Colmes asked National Review columnist John Derbyshire about a chapter in his new book, called “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage.” After Colmes repeatedly pressed him about his views on womens’ suffrage, Derbyshire admitted that while he thinks women should be allowed to vote, we’d “probably” be a “better country” if they didn’t
Yesterday, radio host Thom Hartmann probed Derbyshire about the suffrage issue, and Derbyshire re-affirmed his view that “of course” he believes women should have the right to vote. But, he explained, they shouldn’t exercise that right because it is “bad for conservatism” and therefore “bad for society”:
HARTMANN: Do you believe that women should be allowed to vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, of course I do.
HARTMANN: Why then is the title called “The Case Against Female Suffrage”?
DERBYSHIRE: Because it is a case against female suffrage. [...]
HARTMANN: Did you not say to, for example, my colleague Alan Colmes that women should not be allowed to vote, that it would be a better country anyway if women were not allowed to vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Well, you know, my mentor Paul Buckley used to say, he who say a must say b. And the logic of that chapter, that chapter five in my book, rests on the proposition that women voting is bad for conservatism, and as a conservative, of course, I think that’s bad for society.
HARTMANN: So therefore if women were not allowed to vote it would be a better country in your opinion?
DERBYSHIRE: I think as a hypothetical I think that’s arguable, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Listen here:
While Derbyshire may think that gender equity is “bad for society,” the fact is that the countries that rank the highest in the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index — meaning they have the most gender equality — tend to also rank the highest on the U.N.’s Human Development Index. While it’s possible that women’s suffrage is “bad for conservatism,” maybe it’s conservatism — not women’s suffrage — that is “bad for society.”
Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR’s Treatment Of Rape
Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR’s Treatment Of Rape
In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:
The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.
Watch Franken’s speech:
On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) spoke against the amendment, calling it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.” Franken responded, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”
In the end, Franken won the debate. His amendment passed by a 68-30 vote, earning the support of 10 Republican senators including that of newly-minted Florida Sen. George LeMieux. “He did what a senator should do, which was he was working it,” LeMieux said in praise of Franken. “He was working for his amendment.”
Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. “It means the world to me,” she said of the amendment’s passage. “It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.”
National Review’s John Derbyshire: Women Should Not Have The Right To Vote
National Review’s John Derbyshire: Women Should Not Have The Right To Vote
John Derbyshire, a British-American conservative author and columnist for the National Review, has written a new book titled We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism. The book contains a section called “The Case Against Female Suffrage.” Yesterday on his radio show, Alan Colmes asked Derbyshire to articulate his argument.
“What is the case against female suffrage?” Colmes asked. “The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left,” Derbyshire responded nonsensically. “They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.”
Colmes then pressed Derbyshire on whether women should have the right to vote. “Ah…” Derbyshire sighed, attempting to dodge the question initially. “I’m not putting forward a political program here,” he said. But then Derbyshire slowly began to open up:
DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.
COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?
DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?
COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.
DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].
COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.
DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.
Derbyshire reasoned that we “got along like that for 130 years.” Colmes countered by asking if he also wants to bring back slavery. No, Derbyshire responded, “I’m in favor of freedom personally.” Colmes noted that freedom didn’t extend to women’s right to vote, however. Derbyshire said, “Well, they didn’t and we got along ok.” Listen here:
Later in the interview, Derbyshire said there’s also a case to be made for repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act because you “shouldn’t try to force people to be good.”
If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
Right-wing icon Schlafly: Feminism is ‘the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today.’
Right-wing icon Schlafly: Feminism is ‘the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today.’
Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-Equal Rights Amendment activist who heads the Eagle Forum, hosted the right-wing conference How To Take Back America last weekend. Several GOP members of Congress attended the conference, and each paid their respects to Schlafly for her leadership in the conservative movement. Schlafly delivered several speeches and led a discussion advocating traditional roles for women as well as warning about the dangers of feminism and blasting single mothers:
I submit to you that the feminist movement is the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today. [...] My analysis is that the gays are about 5% of the attack on marriage in this country, and the feminists are about 95%. [...] I’m talking about drugs, sex, illegitimacy, drop outs, poor grades, run away, suicide, you name it, every social ill comes out of the fatherless home.
Watch it:
At the closing ceremony, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) thanked Schlafly for her critical support of his candidacy last year, and Mike Huckabee stood by as she was presented with the “American Hero of the Century” award. “God bless you,” said Huckabee, “and God bless Phyllis Schlafly most of all.”
Texas schools move away from abstinence-only education: We don’t think it’s working.
Texas schools move away from abstinence-only education: We don’t think it’s working.
Texas currently has the third-highest teen birth rate in the country and “the highest rate of repeat teen births.” It also leads the nation in the amount of government money it spends on abstinence-only education. But some school districts in the state are now shifting away from that approach, admitting that it isn’t working:
“We mainly did it because of our pregnancy rate,” said Whitney Self, lead teacher for health and physical education at the Hays Consolidated Independent School District. “We don’t think abstinence-only is working.” [...]
Both approaches to sex education teach that refraining from sexual activity is the safest choice for teens.
But abstinence-only gives limited information about contraceptives and condoms and tends to downplay their effectiveness, while abstinence-plus stresses the importance of using such protection if teens are sexually active.
Medical experts have stated concluded that not only do abstinence-only programs not curb teen pregnancy, but “there is evidence to suggest that some of these programs are even harmful and have negative consequences by not providing adequate information for those teens who do become sexually active.”
Asked If His Thesis Advocated A ‘Radical Agenda,’ Bob McDonnell Replies ‘No’
Asked If His Thesis Advocated A ‘Radical Agenda,’ Bob McDonnell Replies ‘No’
Last month, the Washington Post revealed that Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Bob McDonnell, had written a master’s thesis at Regent University in 1989 “in which he described working women and feminists as ‘detrimental’ to the family,” said that “government policy should favor married couples over ‘cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators,’” and criticized “as ‘illogical’ a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.” After reading the thesis, TPM’s Eric Kleefeld and Zachary Roth said it represented “a manifesto of the anti-gender-equality right-wing.”
The thesis has since become a central issue in McDonnell’s race against Democrat Creigh Deeds. On Fox News Sunday today, host Chris Wallace asked McDonnell if his thesis represented a “radical agenda.” McDonnell replied that it did not:
WALLACE: … it was revealed that in 1989 you wrote a master’s thesis in which you said — and let’s put up some of the things on the screen — this has obviously been a big issue here in Virginia — The new trend of working women and feminism that is ultimately detrimental to the family. You criticize tax credits for child care. And you even opposed a Supreme Court ruling legalizing birth control for married couples. Mr. McDonnell, isn’t that a pretty radical agenda?
MCDONNELL: No. I think those are a couple of quotes out of a 100-page document, Chris, and what the whole purpose of the — of the thesis was to say, Look, families are the bedrock of society. And I think there’s broad agreement on that, and that government programs should not undermine the family, because that will lead to more government spending for problems that occur when the family’s not intact.
Watch it:
When McDonnell said the thesis was “20 years ago and some of my views over time have changed,” Wallace played a clip from an ad being run by Deeds, which said that McDonnell has supported his thesis agenda as a legislator. “In fact, we checked the record. As a legislator, you voted against a resolution that would have called for ending wage discrimination based on gender,” said Wallace. “You voted against extending child care services. And you voted against extending or requiring health insurance plans to cover birth control. So it’s not just the thesis.”
Insurer Denies Woman’s Claim: She Should Have Known That Her Bleeding Breast Was Not An ‘Emergency’
Insurer Denies Woman’s Claim: She Should Have Known That Her Bleeding Breast Was Not An ‘Emergency’
One of the worst abuses of private insurance companies is the practice of using spurious reasons to deny claims. In April, Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez awoke and found her shirt soaked in blood. Realizing that her “her left breast [was] bleeding from the nipple,” she rushed to the emergency room.
Today, CBS-5 reports that this San Francisco Department of Public Health employee has had her claim denied because her insurance company, Blue Shield of California, didn’t consider her situation to be an “emergency.” Even though her doctor told her it was likely a tumor, Blue Shield said that Miran-Ramirez should have known it wasn’t:
But Miran-Ramirez said the real shock came when her insurance company, Blue Shield of California HMO, which had initially approved the claim for the emergency room visit, reversed course and sent her a new bill three months later requiring her to pay the total charges for that visit: $2,791.00.
Why? Documents from Blue Shield indicate the company had reviewed the case and determined Miran-Ramirez “reasonably should have known that an emergency did not exist.”
“I am like how can they say that it was not an emergency? Like, my breast was bleeding! I am not a clinical person but if your breast is bleeding, for me that’s an emergency,” she said. [...]
So she appealed. And she was denied again. This time Blue Shield told her she hadn’t been in “any acute distress.”
Watch CBS-5’s report:
The sad truth is Miran-Ramirez is certainly not alone in having her claim denied by a major health insurer. The California Nurses Association (CNA), a nurses’ union and health care advocacy group, recently released a comprehensive study of claims denials across California. The study found that the six largest insurers in California rejected 47.7 million claims in the first half of 2009, nearly 22 percent of all claims submitted. The CNA twice successfully lobbied the California legislature to pass legislation that would establish a single-payer universal health care system in the state, only to have it vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA).
Last week, in a congressional hearing titled “Between You and Your Doctor: the Bureaucracy of Private Health Insurance,” top insurance executives testified before Chairman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) that the insurance company practice of denials can be fatal for its customers.
Indeed, such a denial cost 17-year old Nataline Sarkisyan her life in 2007, when Cigna denied coverage for a liver transplant until it was too late. Her mother, Hilda Sarkisyan, came to D.C. earlier this year to lobby for a public health insurance plan that would stop such denials. She told the press, “Insurance companies cannot decide who’s going to live and who’s going to die.”
Following the CBS-5 investigation, Blue Shield agreed to pay for all charges for Miran-Ramirez’s emergency room visit.
Kyl Asserts ‘I Don’t Need Maternity Care’ In My Health Policy; Stabenow Shoots Back ‘Your Mom Probably Did’
Kyl Asserts ‘I Don’t Need Maternity Care’ In My Health Policy; Stabenow Shoots Back ‘Your Mom Probably Did’
Today, the Senate Finance Committee debated Sen. Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) amendment to prohibit the federal government from “defining the health care benefits offered through private insurance.” Kyl tried to make his case by citing the unnecessary expense of maternity care. He was quickly smacked down by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI):
KYL: I don’t need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.
STABENOW: If I could just interject once with my colleague — I think your mom probably did. (LAUGHTER)
KYL: Over 60 years ago my mom did. (LAUGHTER) You notice I wasn’t too specific with regard to that.
Watch it:
Of course Kyl doesn’t need maternity care; he will never be a mother. As Igor Volsky notes at the Wonk Room, Kyl’s amendment “would prohibit the government from defining which benefits should be included in a standard benefit package and would permit health insurance companies to design policies that exclude higher-cost beneficiaries.”
Maternity care, in fact, is a perfect example of why Kyl’s amendment is so bad. Most individual health insurance markets don’t cover maternity care. In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 14 states have a requirement for such coverage, and the number of plans without maternity coverage continues to rise dramatically. Anthem Blue Cross — which has been actively fighting health care reform — considers pregnancy optional and therefore not necessary to insure:
“The point of insurance is to insure against catastrophic care costs. That’s what you’re trying to aggregate and pool for such things as heart attacks and cancer,” said an Anthem Blue Cross spokesman. “Having a child is a matter of choice. Dealing with an adult onset illness, such as diabetes, heart disease breast or prostate cancer, is not a matter of choice.”
“A well defined minimum benefits package would compel health insurers to provide basic services to all Americans,” adds Volsky. “The Kyl amendment, which ultimately failed, would have allowed the industry to continue profiting from discriminatory practices.”
Health Insurers Consider A Caesarean-Section Pregnancy A Pre-Existing Condition
Health Insurers Consider A Caesarean-Section Pregnancy A Pre-Existing Condition
Earlier this week, the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reported on the fact that in seven states plus the District of Columbia, “getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.” The insurance industry figures that if “you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you’re more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure,” but what it really does is punish these victims for something that wasn’t their fault.
But that isn’t the only policy that health insurers have that primarily discriminate against women. First of all, most individual health insurance markets don’t cover maternity care. In fact, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only 14 states have a requirement for such coverage, and the number of plans without maternity coverage continues to rise dramatically. Why? Anthem Blue Cross — which has been actively fighting health care reform — considers pregnancy optional and therefore not necessary to insure:
“The point of insurance is to insure against catastrophic care costs. That’s what you’re trying to aggregate and pool for such things as heart attacks and cancer,” said an Anthem Blue Cross spokesman. “Having a child is a matter of choice. Dealing with an adult onset illness, such as diabetes, heart disease breast or prostate cancer, is not a matter of choice.”
Even Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) spoke an unintentional truth when he said of his parents: “When they arrived in Baton Rouge, my mother was already four-and-a-half-months pregnant. I was what folks in the insurance industry now call a pre-existing condition.”
When a woman isn’t currently pregnant, she often still cannot get coverage. Many insurers consider a Caesarean-section pregnancy a pre-existing condition and refuse to cover women who have had the procedure. From a 2008 New York Times story about a Colorado woman who had Golden Rule Insurance:
She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified.
The number of C-sections performed in the United States has been “growing steadily,” with approximately 30 percent of women having the procedure. Other insurance companies that don’t necessarily reject women with C-sections often do charge them higher premiums or “factor in chronic or recurring problems that might have led to the Caesarean.” What’s even worse is that once you’re denied by one company, it’s harder to get coverage somewhere else because you’ve been red-flagged.
Today, Golden Rule CEO Richard Collins is testifying before the House Subcommittee on Domestic Policy about “Bureaucracy of Private Health Insurance.”
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