Sen. McCaskill: the Abortion Prohibition is on the Insurance Plans not on Individuals

by: debcoop

Mon Nov 09, 2009 at 15:38

The Hyde amendment is now a festering sore that has suppurated which will deprive American women of all kinds from the poor to middle and even upper class womwn, access to an essential reproductive rights.  

But the Senator's understanding is a misunderstanding of great proportions.  She is wrong.  The prohibition is not on individuals in the exchanges who buy plans but on the plans which GET subsidies.

Senator McCaskill said via the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

"But we are talking about whether or not people that get public money can buy an insurance policy that has a coverage for abortion. And that is not the majority of America. The majority of America is not going to be getting subsidies from the government...."

The majority of America now gets coverage from their employers who will be allowed to purchase on the exchanges.  

But she is very, very wrong on the mechanism for prohibiting abortion coverage.. She has it backwards.  Her misunderstanding is convenient perhaps because it allows her to proceed under the assumption that few people will be affected. Maybe that makes it better in her mind.

She is wrong.  Millions of women --now without insurance and even those now with it in the private market will be affected.  In a few years all women will be affected as employers are allowed to enter the exchanges.  No abortion coverage for anyone at all.

See David Dayen at Firedoglake

http://news.firedoglake.com/20...

The federal subsidies affect the plan, not just the individuals in the plan.  It is not just the individual who has subsides that can't get abortion coverage.  It is that any subsidy from anyone taints the entire plan. So any plan that gets subsidies from anyone at all can not offer abortion coverage.

What Obama is doing in Missouri - a theory

by: Mobar

Sun Sep 07, 2008 at 14:18

1. The McCaskill factor. She was with Obama early and strongly. She lost in 04 when she ran for governor and followed the D.C. establishment's plan for how to campaign in Missouri. And she lost to a total tool. When she ran for Senate in 06, she rejected the outsiders advice and spent an enormous amount of time and resources campaigning in out-state Missouri. She won by trimming Talent's margins in out-state. (The divide in MO is not urban vs. rural as much as KC/St.Louis/Columbia and "out-state," which represents the other half of the population and much of which manages to maintain certain "rural" attitudes despite being sizeable populations in cities full of colleges - see Springfield).

Where Missouri Legislators Stand on CAFOs

by: Jo Etta

Fri Sep 21, 2007 at 23:09

On few issues is the line dividing Democrats from Republicans 100 percent pure and obvious, and the CAFO issue is not one of them. 

Democrats don't always behave as I would have them do.  Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton (pictured), for example, is sponsoring House legislation (a companion bill to one being offered by Kit Bond) to have CAFO (Contained Animal Feeding Operation) waste declared non-toxic.  Such a law would effectively remove CAFOs from EPA oversight.

To pretend that animal waste in those concentrations isn't toxic is horse hockey.  McDonald County, in the very southwest corner of the state, is dotted with CAFOs, and every water body in that county is on the impaired water bodies list.