With millions of Americans out of work, House Republicans are focusing in on real priorities: decimating private abortion coverage and crippling public funding for abortion, as Jessica Arons reports in RH Reality Check.
In AlterNet, Amanda Marcotte notes that the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3, also redefines rape as "forcible rape" in order to determine whether a patient is eligible for a Medicaid-funded abortion. Under the Hyde Amendment, government-funded insurance programs can only cover abortions in cases of rape and incest, or to save the life of the mother. Note that the term "forcible rape" is legally meaningless. Supporters of the bill just want to go on the record as saying that a poor 13-year-old girl pregnant by a 30-year-old should be forced to give birth.
Feminist blogger Sady Doyle has launched a twitter campaign against the bill under the hashtag #dearjohn, a reference to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). Tweet to let him know how you feel about a bill that discriminates against 70% of rape victims because their rapes weren't violent enough for @johnboehner, append the hashtag #dearjohn.
Everybody chill out
A federal judge in Florida ruled the entire Affordable Care Act unconstitutional on Monday. However, as political scientist and court watcher Scott Lemieux explains at TAPPED, the ruling is not necessarily a death blow to health care reform:
[T]his ruling is less important than the controversy it will generate might suggest. Many cornerstone programs of the New Deal were held unconstitutional by lower courts before being upheld by the Supreme Court. This ruling tells us nothing we didn't already know: There is a faction of conservative judges who believe the individual mandate is unconstitutional. Unless this view has the support of five members of the Supreme Court -- which I still consider very unlikely -- it won't matter; Vinson's reasoning would have a much greater impact if adopted by the Court, but for this reason it is even less likely to be adopted by higher courts.
In a follow-up post, Lemieux explains the shaky legal reasoning behind Judge Robert Vinson's decision. The judge asserts bizarrely that being uninsured has no effect on interstate commerce. That premise is objectively false. Health insurers operate across state lines and the size and composition of their risk pools directly affects their business.
Given the glaring factual inaccuracies, Judge Vinson's decision may be overturned by a higher court before it gets to the Supreme Court.
Scamming Medicare
Terry J. Allen of In These Times win's the headline of the week award for an article entitled "Urology's Golden Revenue Stream." She reports that increasing numbers of urologists are investing millions on machines to irradiate prostate cancer in the office. The doctors can bill Medicare up to $40,000 per treatment, but they have to use the machines a lot to recoup the initial investment. So what does this mean for patients? Allen explains:
Rather than accessing centralized equipment and sharing costs, physicians are concentrating their own profits by buying expensive in-practice technologies that pay off only if regularly used. One result is overtreatment, which is driving up health care costs, exposing patients to unnecessary radiation and surgeries, and is frequently no better than cheaper approaches.
One third of Medicare patients with prostate cancer undergo the expensive IMRT therapy, as the procedure is known. In 2008, Medicare shelled out over a billion dollars on a treatment that has not shown to be any better for patients than less expensive therapies.
Obstetric fistula in the developing world
Reproductive Health Reality Check is running a special series on the human rights implications of obstetric fistula. Fistula is a devastating complication of unrelieved obstructed labor in which the baby's head gets stuck in the birth canal and presses against the soft tissues of the pelvis. If labor goes on long enough, the pressure will starve the pelvic tissues of blood, and they will die, creating a hole between the vagina and the bladder, and/or between the vagina and the rectum. Fistula patients face lifelong incontinence, chronic pain, and social ostracism.
The condition is virtually unknown in the developed world, where women with obstructed labor have access to cesarean delivery. However, an estimated 2 million women, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, have untreated fistulas with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year. Without reconstructive surgery, these women will be incontinent for life.
Sarah Omega, a fistula survivor from Kenya, tells her story. Omega sustained a fistula when she delivered her first child at the age of 19. She suffered for 12 years before she finally obtained the surgery she needed. As Agnes Odhiambo explains in another installment in the series, fistula is a symptom of a dysfunctional health care system. Women suffer needlessly because they can't get access to quality health care.
The most likely victims of fistula are the most vulnerable members of their respective communities. Early childbearing increases a woman's risk of fistula. Pregnant rape victims may face even greater barriers to a safe delivery, thanks to the social stigma that accrues to victims of sexual violence in many societies. (Not to mention any names, House Republicans...)
Preventing and repairing obstetric fistula is a major human rights issue. The U.S. should make this effort a high priority for foreign aid.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
According to Robin Marty of Care2.org, today's young whippersnappers are snorting bath salts and plant food to get their kicks. I knew I was getting old when I had to check the media to find out about the latest youth drug menace.
But, before you go and blow your allowance at the Body Shop or the garden center, keep in mind that "bath salt" and "plant food" are just euphemisms that web-based head shops use to sell these amphetamine-like drugs , according to a 2010 report by the UK Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The active ingredients of this legal high are mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV).
Despite what the media would have you believe, these designer drugs are not ingredients in common household products. You cannot get high on actual bath salts or plant food. Sorry. Gardeners, if you bought exotic imported "plant food" online, and it arrived in an impossibly tiny packet, don't feed it to your plants.
Anti-choice black op linked to James O'Keefe
At least a dozen Planned Parenthood clinics across the country have recently been visited by a mysterious, self-proclaimed "sex trafficker" who was apparently part of a ruse to entrap clinic employees. Planned Parenthood reported these visits to the FBI.
In each case, the man reportedly asked to speak privately with a clinic worker, whereupon he asked for health advice regarding the underage, undocumented girls he was supposedly trying to traffic.
[Prominent anti-choice blogger] Jill Stanek and other anti-choice operatives, including Lila Rose of Live Action Films are effectively claiming responsibility for sending pseudo "sex traffickers" into [Planned Parenthood] clinics, and also warn of "explosive evidence," of which they of course present.....none. They appear to have no credible response to exposure of their efforts to perpetrate a hoax on Planned Parenthood.
As Jacobson points out, sex trafficking is a very real problem. And a sex trafficking hoax diverts time and resources that the authorities who could be hunting down real traffickers. She adds:
Victims of sex trafficking, after all, also need sexual health services because they are effectively being raped regularly and are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections and experience unintended pregnancies. Does this help them get treatment?
Lila Rose of Live Action Films is a former associate of right wing hoaxster James O'Keefe, who orchestrated a sting operation against the social justice group ACORN. O'Keefe was sentenced last year to three years' probation for scamming his way into the offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) in January, 2010.
Sex, lies, and the classroom
To mark the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the National Radio Project presents a discussion of sex ed in American schools, federal funding for sex ed, and advocacy by interest groups and parents. Guests include Phyllida Burlingame of the ACLU and Gabriela Valle of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice.
Hot coffee!
Remember the woman who sued McDonald's after she spilled a hot cup of coffee in her lap? Corporate interests made Stella Liebeck into a national joke, even though she won her suit. Hot Coffee is a new documentary that tells the story behind the one-liners. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! interviews Ms. Liebeck's daughter and son-in-law.
McDonald's corporate manuals dictated that coffee be served at 187 degrees, in flimsy styrofoam cups. A home coffee maker usually keeps the brew between 142 to 162 degrees, and most people pour their Joe into something sturdier than a styrofoam cup. If you spill that coffee on yourself, you have 25 seconds to get it off before you suffer a 3rd degree burn. Whereas if you spill 187-degree coffee on yourself, you've got between 2 and 7 seconds.
Companies are expected to produce products that are safe for their intended use. McDonald's was serving coffee to go, through drive-through windows, with cream and sugar in the bag. By implication, it should be safe to add cream and sugar to hot coffee in a car. In the pre-cup-holder era, millions of Americans were probably steadying their coffees between their legs to add cream and sugar every day. A responsible restaurant would not dispense superheated liquids in flimsy to-go cups. Indeed, McDonalds' own records showed that 700 people had been scalded this way.
In 1992, the plaintiff was a passenger in a parked car, attempting to add cream and sugar to her coffee while steadying the cup between her knees. When she opened the lid, the cup collapsed inward, dousing her with scalding coffee. The 79-year-old woman sustained 3rd degree burns over 16% of her body. She needed skin grafts to repair the damage. Initially she only sued to recoup part of the cost of the skin grafts. But the judge who heard the case was so outraged by McDonald's disregard for customer safety that he urged the jury to award punitive damages.
Another theme of Hot Coffee is how medical malpractice caps are forcing taxpayers to cover the medical costs of people who are injured by negligent health care providers.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Dr. Kenneth Katz recently published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Health Hazards of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell." This week, he penned an op/ed for RH Reality Check about his experiences treating U.S. military at an STD clinic in San Diego. Dr. Katz sees the Pentagon's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" rule for LGB members of the military as a huge roadblock to good medical care. He's pretty confident that his military patients feel safe divulging their sexual histories to a civilian doctor like himself. But when those troops go overseas, they are cared for by military doctors. Technically, doctor-patient communication is exempt from DADT, but many patients don't realize that they can tell their military doctors about gay sex without fear of reprisals (at least in theory). Dr. Katz's patients have told him that they won't go for recommended follow-up STD screening after they ship out because they're afraid to be honest with their doctors. He worries about how many troops are suffering from treatable infections in war zones because they aren't allowed to serve openly.
Food stamp use skyrockets, swordfish sales unaccountably flat
Monica Potts of TAPPED points to the alarming statistic that in the last month alone an additional 500,000 Americans went on food stamps. She notes that the right wing website Daily Calleris alarmed not by the fact that fellow citizens can't afford food, but rather that there's no gruel-only foodstamp program available:
Meanwhile, the conservative news site The Daily Calleris shocked, shocked, to learn that you can use food stamps to buy all manner of food. The government, apparently, doesn't restrict you from purchasing an $18-per-pound swordfish steak from Whole Foods. But that kind of discovery, like almost everything else in the "debate" over food stamp use, is the sort of ridiculous one that comes from a person who's never been hungry.
The Hyde Amendment
In Campus Progress, Jessica Arons and Madina Agénor call for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment for being an assault on the reproductive rights of poor women and women of color. The Supreme Court declared abortion to be a constitutional right in 1973, yet nearly 40 years later, the Hyde Amendment still prohibits nearly all federal funding for abortions. In practice, the women most affected by the Hyde Amendment are those who depend on government health care programs like Medicaid and the Indian Health Service:
Former U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL), the law's sponsor, admitted during debate of his proposal that he was targeting poor women because they were the only ones vulnerable enough for him to reach. "I certainly would like to prevent, if I could legally, anybody having an abortion, a rich woman, a middle-class woman, or a poor woman," he said. "Unfortunately, the only vehicle available is the ... Medicaid bill."
Meanwhile, ultra-conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is calling on Congress to de-fund the reproductive health provider Planned Parenthood, Andy Birkey reports in the Minnesota Independent. In an interview with a conservative news site, Bachmann doubled down on that idea, suggesting that all of health care reform be de-funded because it funds abortions. This is not true. The aforementioned Hyde Amendment guarantees as much. Furthermore, even though health reform never would have funded abortions, President Obama signed an eleventh-hour executive order guaranteeing that health care reform would not fund abortions.
Brooklyn bees gorge on maraschino cherry run-off
Home beekeeping is the hottest new trend for health-conscious locavores. New York City recently changed the law to accommodate beekeepers in the five boroughs. Just because you live in an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn is no reason to miss out on this sweet action, right? Well, actually, there is a catch. That nice honey at the farmers' market tastes like lavender because that's what those rural bees ate. What do bees in Red Hook, Brooklyn eat? Run-off from a maraschino cherry factory. The overindulgent bees "look like vampires" according to one local keeper and their honey runs bright red. Maraschino honey sounds like a delicious mash-up of high and low culture. Unfortunately, Sarah Goodyear reports in Grist that the end product doesn't taste nearly as good as it looks. Arthur Mondella, the owner of Dell's Maraschino Cherries, wants to do right by the beekeepers. He initially suggested putting out vats of different colored syrup to "help" the bees make rainbow honey. His proposal was not well-received by the crunchy set. Instead, he has agreed to work with the beekeepers to keep the bees out of the vats next year.
Editor's Note: Happy Thanksgiving from the Media Consortium! This week, we aren't stopping The Audit, The Pulse, The Diaspora, or The Mulch, but we are taking a bit of a break. Expect shorter blog posts, and The Diaspora and The Mulch will be posted on Wednesday afternoon, instead of their usual Thursday and Friday postings. We'll return to our normal schedule next week.
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Wednesday is the heaviest travel day of the year in the United States, as millions of Americans head home to celebrate Thanksgiving. Some of you are probably reading this dispatch on PDAs as you wait in an interminable line at airport security. Here's some food for thought.
At Grist, food writer Michael Pollan officially declares himself a Rules Guy. Don't worry, that doesn't mean he won't accept a Friday dinner invitation offered after noon on Wednesday. Pollan thinks that our healthy eating skills are passed down to us as part of food culture. In this era of drive-through windows and meal replacement bars, a lot of the old wisdom is falling by the wayside and Americans are finding themselves adrift in a sea of calories. On the eve of Thanksgiving, Pollan provides some helpful guidelines for avoiding the food coma:
[M]any ethnic traditions have their own memorable expressions for what amounts to the same recommendation. Many cultures, for examples, have grappled with the problem of food abundance and come up with different ways of proposing we stop eating before we're completely full: the Japanese say "hara hachi bu" ("Eat until you are 4/5 full"); Germans advise eaters to "tie off the sack before it's full." And the prophet Mohammed recommended that a full belly should contain one-third food, one-third drink, and one-third air. My own Russian-Jewish grandfather used to say at the end of every meal, "I always like to leave the table a little bit hungry."
But wait, there's more!
Unions representing airline pilots and flight attendants are advising their members to avoid the the TSA's new backscatter x-ray scans because of concerns about the long-term health effects of x-ray radiation. Crew members who refused scans have been subjected to new "enhanced" pat-down searches. This week, the TSA granted an exception to pilots, but not to flight attendants. As I reported for Working In These Times, all crew members go through the same FBI background check and fingerprinting process. "Don't touch my junk!" has become a rallying cry for passengers, particularly white men, who are not accustomed to being asked to give up any part of their body's autonomy for the greater good. Is it a coincidence that 95% of pilots are men and three-quarters of flight attendants are women? [Update: The TSA has relented. The agency announced Tuesday that flight attendants will now get the same exemption as pilots.
Adam Serwer argues in The American Prospect that it's easy to demand tough security measures when the presumed targets are faceless Muslims in a distant country. When air travelers are asked to compromise their own privacy in the name of security, the tradeoff suddenly seems very different.
Employee health insurance deductibles are skyrocketing at Whole Foods and CEO John Mackey is trying to blame the increase on health care reform. "This is very important for everyone to understand: 100% of the increases in deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums in 2011 compared to 2010 are due to new federal mandates and regulations," Mackey wrote in a corporate memo. In fact, as Josh Harkinson reports in Mother Jones, Mackey's memo is pure, organic BS. The provisions in the Affordable Care Act that might increase costs won't go into effect until 2014, so it's hard to figure out how federal policies could be responsible. Health insurance costs were rising by about 5% per year, year after year, before the Affordable Care Act passed. The truth is that health insurance is getting more expensive because health care is getting more expensive. As Harkinson points out, one of the reasons that health care is getting more expensive is because corporations like Whole Foods are pushing more of their employees into part-time work to avoid covering them. Of course, when those workers get sick, someone has to pick up the cost of their care. So those who have insurance, including some of Whole Foods' own employees, have to pay more to make up the difference.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
As some Americans obsess over whether to brine or deep-fry their Thanksgiving turkeys, others are going hungry. Seth Freed Wessler reports for ColorLines that 50 million Americans went hungry in 2009, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Astonishingly, more than 36% of female-headed households suffered from food insecurity last year, in spite of a massive expansion of federal food stamp benefits as part of the economic stimulus. Forty-two million families received food stamps last year, 10 million more than the year before. Congress gutted the food stamp program this summer. If something isn't done, families of four will lose $59 a month in food stamp benefits at the end of 2014. At the time of the cuts, House Democrats promised to restore food stamp benefits during the lame duck session of Congress, but Freed notes there's been little sign recently that they plan to follow through on the promise.
Making Crisis Pregnancy Centers come clean
The New York City Council is preparing to vote on the legislation to force so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs) to disclose that they are not health care facilities and that they do not provide birth control or abortions. CPCs are anti-choice ministries that deliberately mimic abortion clinics in order to trick women who might be seeking abortions. It's all a ruse to bombard these women with false information about abortion under the guise of health care. As we discussed last week in the Pulse, CPCs also serve as incubators for more extreme forms of anti-choice activism, from clinic obstruction to violence.
In RH Reality Check, Dr. Lynette Leighton explains why she supports New York City's proposed bill to require so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" to disclose that they aren't real clinics staffed by health care providers:
As a family physician, I provide comprehensive health care for all of my patients, including safe abortions for women who decide to end a pregnancy. I've cared for many women who came to me in crisis when they learned they were pregnant. The last thing my patients need is to be misled by anti-abortion organizations masquerading as health clinics. I'm strongly in favor of the New York City bill requiring crisis pregnancy centers to disclose that they do not provide abortions or contraception, or offer referrals for these services.
New York CPCs are claiming that the requirement to disclose violates their freedom of speech, Robin Marty notes in RH Reality Check. In other words, they are claiming a First Amendment right to bait and switch. The executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) is scheduled to testify before the City Council that the free speech claim is baseless.
See you in court!
In other reproductive rights news, the Center for Reproductive Rights took the FDA to court on Tuesday over access to the morning after pill. The FDA has been ignoring a court order to make emergency contraception available over the counter to women of all ages, and the Center is going to court to spur the agency to comply, Vanessa Valenti reports for Feministing.
Look at this smokin' hipster
Tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds is courting hipsters with a new "Williamsburg" cigarette, Brie Cadman reports for Change.org. "[Smoking Camels is] about last call, a sloppy kiss goodbye and a solo saunter to a rock show in an abandoned building... It's where a tree grows," according to the online ad copy. Mmm, kissing smokers.
It's all part of an online marketing campaign in which users are invited to guess where brand mascot Joe Camel will show up next week. Interestingly, the contest's name is "Break Free Adventure," a twist on the Camel brand's "Break Free" tagline. Odd that they'd pick a slogan usually associated with quitting smoking, rather than feeding the addiction. Those hipsters sure love irony.
Blowing the whistle on health insurers
On Democracy Now!, health insurance executive turned whistleblower Wendell Potter predicts that the Republicans will back off their grandiose campaign promises to repeal health care reform and instead try to dismantle the bill's provisions that protect consumers. Potter notes that health insurers are major Republican donors, and that parts of the law are very good for insurers, notably the mandate forcing everyone to buy health insurance.
Apparently, some true believers haven't gotten the memo. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly notes that some Republican members of Congress are still gunning to shut down the government over health care reform and other spending.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
The Republicans gained ground in last night's midterm elections, recapturing the House and gaining seats in the Senate. The future House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) wasted no time in affirming that the GOP will try to repeal health care reform.
A full-scale repeal is unlikely in the next two years because the Democrats have retained control of the White House and the Senate. However, Republicans are already making noises about shutting down the government to force the issue. The House controls the nation's purse strings, which confers significant leverage if the majority is willing to bring the government to a screeching halt to make a point.
Don't assume they'll blink. The GOP shut down government in 1995, albeit to its own political detriment. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and his allies have sworn a "blood oath" to shut down the government, regardless of the consequences. The Republicans may actually succeed in modifying minor aspects of the Affordable Care Act, such as the controversial 1099 reporting requirement for small business.
The most significant threat to the implementation of health care reform may be at the state level. Republicans picked up several governorships, and the Affordable Care Act requires the cooperation of states to set up their own insurance exchanges. Hostile governors could seriously impede things.
Mixed results for radical, anti-choice senate candidates
As a group, the eight ultra-radical, anti-choice Republican Senate candidates had mixed results last night. Three wins, two sure losses, and three likely losses that haven't been definitively called. Voters didn't seem thrilled about electing senators who oppose a woman's right to abortion, even in cases of rape and incest.
Two cruised to victory: Rand Paul easily defeated Democrat Jack Conway in Kentucky. Paul is one of the most extreme the of a radical cohort. As Amie Newman reported in RH Reality Check, Paul doesn't even believe in a woman's right to abort to save her own life. In Florida, anti-choice standard bearer Marco Rubio defeated Independent Charlie Christ.
Another radical anti-choicer, Pat Toomey, who favors jailing abortion providers, narrowly edged out Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.
Two were soundly defeated. Evangelical code-talker Sharron Angle lost to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and anti-masturbation crusader Christine O'Donnell lost to Chris Coons in Delaware.
The last three radical anti-choice senate candidates were down, but not, out as of this morning. Democrat Sen. Michael Bennett leads Republican Ken Buck by just 15,000 votes out of over 1.5 million ballots cast, according to TPMDC. Planned Parenthood launched an 11th hour offensive against Buck because of his retrograde stances on abortion, sexual assault, and other women's issues, as Joseph Boven reports for the Colorado Independent.
This morning, Tea Party Republican Joe Miller was trailing behind incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who challenged him as an Independent, but no winner had been declared. In Washington State, Democrat Sen. Patti Murray maintains a 1% lead over radical anti-choicer Republican Dino Rossi.
Are fertilized eggs people in Colorado?
Coloradans won a decisive victory for reproductive rights last night. Fertilized eggs are still not people in Colorado, as Jodi Jacobson reports for RH Reality Check.
Amendment 62, which would have conferred full person status from the moment of conception, thereby outlawing abortion and in vitro fertilization. It also called into question the legality of many forms of birth control, including an array of medical procedures for pregnant women that might harm their fetuses. The proposed amendment was resoundingly defeated: 72% against to 28% in favor. This is the second time Colorado voters have rejected an egg-as-person amendment.
Blue Dogs and anti-choice Dems feel the pain
Last night was brutal for corporatist Democrats who fought the more progressive options for health care reform and Democrats who put their anti-choice ideology ahead passing health care. In AlterNet, Sarah Seltzer reports only 12 of the 34 Democrats who voted against health care reform hung on to their seats. The Blue Dog caucus was halved overnight from 56 to 24. Nick Baumann of Mother Jones speculated that the midterms would mark the end of the Stupak bloc, the coalition of anti-choice Democrats whose last-minute brinksmanship could have derailed health care reform.
Did foot-dragging on health care hurt Democrats?
Jamelle Bouie suggests at TAPPED that Democrats shot themselves in the foot by passing a health care reform bill that won't provide tangible benefits to most people for years. The exchanges that are supposed to provide affordable insurance for millions of Americans won't be up and running until 2014.
In Summer 2009, Former DNC chair Howard Dean predicted that the Democrats would be penalized at the polls if they failed to deliver tangible benefits from health care reform before the midterm elections. That's why Dean suggested expanding the public health insurance programs we already have, rather than creating insurance exchanges from scratch.
Sink, sunk by Scott
Andy Kroll of Mother Jones profiles Rick Scott, the billionaire health clinic mogul, corporate fraudster, and enemy of health care reform who spent over $50 million of his own money to eke out a very narrow victory over Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida governor's race.
Apparently, many Floridians were willing to overlook the fact that Scott had to pay a $1.7 billion fine for defrauding Medicare, the largest fine of its kind in history. Scott also spent $5 million of his own money to found Conservatives for Patients' Rights, one of the leading independent groups opposing health care reform.
Pot isn't legalized in California
California defeated Proposition 19, which would have legalized marijuana for personal use. David Borden of DRCnet, a pro-legalization group, writes in AlterNet that the fight over Prop 19 brought legalization into the political mainstream, even if the measure didn't prevail at the polls. The initiative won the backing of the California NAACP, SEIU California, the National Black Police Association, and the National Latino Officers Association and other established groups.
So, what's next for health care reform? The question everyone is asking is whether John Boehner will cave to the extremists in his own party and attempt a full-scale government shutdown, or whether the Republicans will content themselves with extracting piecemeal modifications of the health care law.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Don't look now, but Sarah Palin is back on her death panel kick, just in time for Halloween. No, really, don't look. It just encourages the former governor of Alaska to recycle the exhaustively debunked allegation that health care reform will involve bringing the elderly and the disabled before "death panels" who will judge whether they are fit to live.
David Corn of Mother Jones caught Palin referencing the thoroughly debunked myth in her latest interview with the conservative website Newsmax. Oh, and she says she won't rule out a presidential run in 2012.
Boobs against breast cancer
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. The National Cancer Institute estimates that over 207,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and that nearly 40,000 will die of the disease this year. Breast cancer is the second-most common form of cancer in women.
Amie Newman of RH Reality Check notes that even Kentucky Fried Chicken is getting in on the awareness action with pink chicken buckets "for the cure." This month, KFC is donating 50 cents from each rosy-hued tub of Original Recipe chicken to Susan G. Komen For The Cure, a leading breast cancer advocacy group. The promotion is expected to raise between $1 million and $8 million for breast cancer research and activism. That's between 2 million and 16 million buckets of chicken. It's more of a barometer than a donation, really.
The fewer buckets they sell, the more awareness has been raised. Newman notes that KFC's french fries are an unusually rich source of acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen found in deep fried foods. In a recent study, women with the highest acrylamide intakes were at 43% greater risk for hormone-positive breast cancers.
Some marketers have decided that the root cause of our society's lack of breast cancer awareness is our lack of breast awareness in general. This doesn't seem quite right, especially because the breasts most likely to get cancer (those of women over 50) are seldom the breasts featured in the the various "save the gazongas" campaigns we're subjected to every October.
Martha Pitts of the Ms. Blog wonders whose bright idea it was to "raise awareness" about breast cancer by inviting women to list their bra color as a Facebook status update. Pitts wonders how learning about friends' underwear will motivate anyone to learn more about breast self-exams or mammograms. According to Ann Pietrangelo of Care2, the latest breast cancer "awareness" meme took a turn for the Dada-esque. This year, women were invited complete the sentence: "I like it on the..." referring, of course to where the Facebook user likes to keep her purse. Obviously, they need a meta-awareness campaign to explain what this has to do with breast cancer.
Monica Potts of TAPPED reminds us that while activists and policy makers are wrangling about access to mammograms, which may or may not improve women's odds of surviving breast cancer, about 4000 women a year still die of cervical cancer in the US, despite the fact that the disease is almost completely preventable with routine Pap smears.
Anti-gay bullying
In other public health news, anti-gay bullying is making headlines all over the country. A series of high-profile suicides by bullied gay youth have riveted national attention on the issue. The statistics are sobering. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, and LGBTQ youth are at significantly higher risk of suicidal behavior than their straight peers.
Nine out of ten LGBTQ youths told researchers that they had been harassed at school and two out of three said they felt unsafe at school because of their orientation, Jessica Strong reports for Campus Progress.
In Minnesota, three gay students the Anoka-Hennepin school district have committed suicide this year and the district is facing increasing pressure to crack down on homophobic bullying. However, not everyone's on board.
Andy Birkey of the Minnesota Independent reports that the head of a Christian rock ministry called "You Can Run But You Can't Hide" is opposing the anti-bullying programs, which he considers to be a recruiting tactic for gays, and by extension, child molesters (?!). Birkey also reports that Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial hopeful, Tom Emmer, has said he won't sign an anti-bullying bill if he is elected. Emmer has a strongly anti-gay record as a state legislator. The department store chain Target drew the ire of national gay rights groups when it gave a major donation to a pro-Emmer PAC.
Coming out for...
Monday was National Coming Out Day. To mark the occasion, Richard Kim published a piece in TheNation arguing that tougher criminal penalties aren't necessarily the solution to anti-gay bullying. Bullies are, after all, mirroring the prejudices they see in adult society:
It's tougher, more uncertain work creating a world that loves queer kids, that wants them to live and thrive. But try-try as if someone's life depended on it. Imagine saying I really wish my son turns out to be gay. Imagine hoping that your 2-year-old daughter grows up to be transgendered. Imagine not assuming the gender of your child's future prom date or spouse; imagine keeping that space blank or occupied by boys and girls of all types. Imagine petitioning your local board of education to hire more gay elementary school teachers.
Kim argues that simply heaping more punishment onto bullies is an easy way out for a society that doesn't want to grapple with widespread homophobia.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Weekly Pulse: DIY Abortions on the Border, Pawlenty Screws MN on SexEd
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Women on along U.S.-Mexico border are buying black market misoprostol to induce abortions, according to a new report by Laura Tillman in the Nation. The drug is easily available over the counter in Mexico.
Weekly Pulse: Uncovered Abortions, Toxic Mani-Pedis, and Kagan's a Go
by Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
Last week, the Obama administration preemptively caved to the anti-choice lobby by declaring that new high-risk insurance pools, a byproduct of recent health care legislation, will not cover abortions, even if states or patients pay for that coverage with their own money. Under health care reform, states must create high-risk insurance pools for people with preexisting conditions. These pools will be phased out in 2014 when the new insurance exchange comes online.
Last week, the Obama administration preemptively caved to the anti-choice lobby by declaring that new high-risk insurance pools, a byproduct of recent health care legislation, will not cover abortions, even if states or patients pay for that coverage with their own money. Under health care reform, states must create high-risk insurance pools for people with preexisting conditions. These pools will be phased out in 2014 when the new insurance exchange comes online.
As you may recall, the Nelson amendment to the health care reform bill says that the federal government can't pay for abortion coverage in the exchanges, but it doesn't mention the high-risk pools. There is no overarching ban that would preclude federal funds for abortion coverage in the high-risk pools. The Obama administration's ruling is purely a lack of political courage. In fact, as Jessica Arons explains at RH Reality Check, the pool rules are even stricter than Nelson's rules for the exchange.
Hey, you! Outta the high-risk pool!
The Nelson amendment was hailed as a compromise because it gave women the option of buying their own abortion coverage. Now, the Obama administration has taken that option away from women in high-risk pools. This is especially troubling because high-risk pools are supposed to help people with chronic medical conditions-who might be more likely to need an abortion. That means that more women with diabetes and cancer will have to pay out of pocket for abortions to preserve their health.
Michelle Chen of ColorLines accuses the Obama administration of selling out women of color to avoid the wrath of the anti-choice lobby. She predicts that women of color will be disproportionately affected by these restrictions because they are more likely to end up in the high-risk pools in the first place.
Nail in the Coffin
In the latest of a series of videos on occupational health and safety, Brave New Films shines a spotlight on toxic chemicals in the nail salon industry. Currently, there are almost no federal regulations on what manufacturers can put in professional beauty products. The nail care industry is booming. There over a hundred thousand manicurists in California alone, most are female, and a large percentage are Vietnamese immigrants. Salon workers breathe a toxic soup of chemicals, many of which have never been tested on humans. Brave New Films is circulating a petition calling on Congress to protect workers by supporting safe cosmetics legislation. youtube]
Kagan gets the nod
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court by a vote of 13-6. The outcome of Tuesday's vote was never in doubt. Many were mildly surprised to see that Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) voted in Kagan's favor. Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly predicts that the vote will ensure that Graham will get a conservative primary challenger. But Benen also doesn't see what all the fuss is about.
[...] I still find the right's outrage over Graham to be pretty silly. He's voting for a qualified Supreme Court nominee? The horror! Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed on a 96 to 3 vote when her nomination was sent to the floor. How many of those Republicans were threatened with primary challenges because of it?
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Elena Kagan's Supreme Court confirmation hearings kicked off on Monday. Her nomination has been met by glum resignation on the left and indifference on the right, as Adam Serwer notes in the American Prospect. Kagan is hoping to replace the Supreme Court's most prominent liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, who stepped down earlier this week. Progressives are counting on Kagan to shore up the pro-choice faction on the court.
Kagan has never been a judge and she hasn't published very many academic law opinions. As a result, the confirmation process is leaning heavily on her counsels to President Bill Clinton as a White House adviser, her clerkship with legendary liberal Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and her stint as Dean of Harvard Law School.
RH Reality Check has video of a key exchange in Kagan's confirmation hearing yesterday, in which Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) pressed Kagan on her views about life and health exemptions for the mother within abortion bans.
"Do you believe the constitution requires that the health of the mother be protected in any statute restricting access to abortion?" Feinstein asked Kagan.
"Senator Feinstein, I do think that the continuing holding of Roe and Doe v. Bolton is that women's life and women's health have to be protected in abortion regulation," Kagan replied.
That's a good start, but it's hardly the ringing endorsement of choice that progressives would have hoped. Kagan went on to talk the special case of "partial birth abortion bans," which she encouraged Bill Clinton to support while he was president. "Partial birth abortion" isn't even a medical term. It's a marketing term coined by anti-choicers in their bid to chip away at Roe v. Wade. For pro-choicers, it's disappointing to see Kagan uncritically buying into that frame.
Title X and the Gag Order
Jodi Jacobson discusses Kagan's record on choice issues in greater detail at RH Reality Check. She notes that the Center for Reproductive Rights reviewed Kagan's record and raised many questions about her views on abortion. On the bright side, CRR believes that Kagan would have struck down the Title X gag rule. Title X was established in 1970 to provide public funding for reproductive health care, including birth control.
In 1988, the Secretary of Health and Human Services imposed a so-called "gag rule" that prevented doctors from talking about abortion and required them to refer patients to services for the welfare of "the unborn." Kagan argued in a 1992 law review article that the gag order violated the First Amendment because the government was trying to silence one point of view while promoting another.
However, in a memo for Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan said it was "ludicrous" that a lower court found that the Eighth Amendment guarantees elective abortions for women in prison. Kagan disagreed with the lower court's finding that elective abortions are "serious medical needs."
Obamacare all over again
A Supreme Court confirmation hearing is like Shark Week on the Learning Channel. Chum's up!
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) criticized Kagan for rejecting the fringe legal theory of "tentherism," a position that opponents of health care reform have used to argue that Obamacare is unconstitutional. As Ian Millhiser observes in AlterNet, it's ironic that Sessions also criticized Kagan as an incipient "activist judge." Embracing "tentherism" would be nothing if not judicial activism. It's extremely unlikely that any tenther-based challenge would make it to the Supreme Court.
Outside the Senate chamber, anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera is demanding to know whether Dean Kagan schemed to allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice, reports Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones.
Some Republican senators questioned Kagan about her decision to bar military recruiters from school-sponsored recruiting events at Yale Law School over Don't Ask Don't Tell. On the outside, a Yale grad and Republican activist named Flagg Youngblood has taken to the talkshow circuit to complain about how he had to attend ROTC drills at another school. It's not clear why any of this is Kagan's problem, seeing as she was Dean of Harvard and took a much weaker stance on military recruiting.
That's not cooling Youngblood's apocalyptic anti-Kagan rhetoric, though, Adam Weinstein reports in Mother Jones. "In the last 18 months, the president and his plotting comrades have dragged the United States to the edge of Constitutional oblivion. America's in the eleventh hour, and Elena Obama must be stopped from pushing us over the cliff," Youngblood recently proclaimed.
Part of the plan
Meanwhile in Nevada, Republican Senate hopeful Sharron Angle is in hot water for asserting that women who get pregnant through rape must be forced to give birth because these pregnancies are all part of God's plan. Good catch by Vanessa Valenti of Feministing.
"You know, I'm a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things," Angle said in an interview with a conservative broadcaster in January.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Rand Paul, the Republican senate candidate in Kentucky, is a freewheeling libertarian. Instead of getting some fancy board-certification as an ophthalmologist, Paul decided to "go Galt" and make up his own credentials. Paul founded the National Board of Ophthalmology, ostensibly to certify doctors as qualified eye specialists.
The NBO is run out of Paul's home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Paul is the president, is wife is the vice president, and her father Hilton Ashby is the organization's secretary. Normally medical boards sponsor rigorous exams to ensure the highest professional standards in their respective specialties. "I can't tell you what the organization does," Ashby told TPM.
It takes a rugged individualist eye doctor to found an entire medical board just for himself and a few friends. When you think about it, it's kind of hypocritical of Paul to hold a standard medical license. If he were a true libertarian he'd found his own medical board and let the free market decide who's a "real doctor."
FDA cracks down on DNA tests
The mean old FDA has ordered that companies offering so-called over-the-counter DNA testing prove that their products actually work. Libertarian Alex Tabarrok is outraged. He argues that if the tests don't actually harm anyone, the government shouldn't restrict them.
At the American Prospect, Tim Fernholtz replies that the FDA's decision is just common sense. If a company is claiming to provide medical information, the onus is on them to prove that they are informing the public accurately. Besides, even if the test itself is harmless the results of the test could have life-altering consequences.
Michael Mechanic reports in Mother Jones that one woman became convinced that she'd been the victim of a hospital baby mixup when a over-the-counter DNA test showed that her son wasn't hers. Kevin Drum of Mother Jones applauds the FDA for getting involved but wonders aloud whether over the counter DNA testing is really that much different from astrology or other dubious prediction methods that are perfectly legal and protected by the First Amendment. Should Magic 8-Balls be allowed to market themselves as pregnancy tests? Signs point to no.
HIV in the Motor City
Former White House staffer Van Jones is raising the alarm about HIV in Detroit, as Todd Heywood reports in the Michigan Messenger. HIV rates in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. have garnered national headlines, but the crisis in Detroit has gone largely unnoticed. Over half of the zip codes in Detroit report HIV prevalence rates of at least 3%. In the most severely affected zip codes, 6% of the population is HIV positive, an infection level on par with Uganda.
Modeling Christian behavior
A self-proclaimed Christian school in Florida fired a pregnant teacher because she admitted to conceiving her child three weeks before her wedding. Jaretta Hamilton was fired from Southland Christian School for telling the truth about premarital sex, Joseph DiNorcia reports in RH Reality Check. By all accounts Mrs. Hamilton's job performance was fine. Instead of bearing false witness, she answered an intrusive question truthfully. Apparently the school felt it was more "Christian" for Hamilton's baby to be born to an unemployed mother. Hamilton is suing for discrimination.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
Seventeen percent of sexually active teenage girls said they used the rhythm method as a means of birth control in 2008, up from just 11% in 2002, according to the latest report from the CDC. For most of these girls "rhythm method" means guessing the least risky day to have unprotected sex. You and I both know that one in five teenage girls isn't taking her temperature every day and charting the consistency of her cervical mucus on the calendar.
Not so ab-fab
Amanda Marcotte of RH Reality Check blames abstinence-only propaganda for the trend. She points out that abstinence-based curricula rely heavily on shame to discourage kids from having sex. Teens who are ashamed don't necessarily abstain, but they are less likely to use birth control when they do have sex. Claiming to use the rhythm method is an excuse not to use real birth control. Marcotte points out that abstinence-only curricula also promotes stereotypes of female passivity and male dominance, which makes it even harder for girls to negotiate condom use.
There is a glimmer of hope, Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports that the Obama administration is shifting gears on sex ed. For the first time in many years, school districts will be eligible for federal funds to teach evidence-based, comprehensive sex ed. Abstinence-only funding hasn't gone away, but at least districts will have the option.
Recession-based bedroom blues
Interestingly, teens are having slightly less sex overall, according to the CDC. The abstinence-only crowd is trying to take credit, but as Stephanie Mencimer of Mother Jones notes, the recession seems to be putting a damper on the sex lives Americans of all ages. The latest sex survey by the AARP showed that Americans over 45 are having less sex than they were in 2004 and enjoying it less as well.
Looking at the same study, Wendy Strgar of Care2 notes that that teen motherhood has become much more socially acceptable among adolescents, perhaps due to highly publicized teen moms like Bristol Palin and Jamie Spears.
The war on choice
Michelle Chen of RaceWire reports that hundreds of anti-choice bills have been introduced in state legislatures around the country since the passage of national health care reform. Missouri's new Abortion Restriction Act requires abortion clinics to post signs offering state assistance if she has the baby. Too bad the Missouri legislature slashed the funds that would have provided most of those services.
Two moms = healthy kids
In other health news, a new study forthcoming in the journal Pediatrics shows that lesbian couples raise healthier children than straight couples. Gabriel Arana of TAPPED suggests that maybe lesbians do better on average because they are a self-selected group of highly motivated parents that had to overcome obstacles in order to raise their kids. Or maybe two moms are better than one.
As Arana notes, the politically important thing about this study is the finding that same-sex parents are doing at least as well as opposite sex parents. Conservatives opposed to gay rights have often justified second-class citizenship for gays in terms of protecting children from allegedly harmful same-sex parents. Now, science is showing that same-sex families are at least as healthy as more traditional family units.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about health care by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Pulse for a complete list of articles on health care reform, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.
When Scott Roeder shot Dr. George Tiller in church last year, media accounts described him as a lone wolf. Roeder acted alone on the day of the assassination, but he was part of a community of career anti-choice terrorists, as Amanda Robb reports in Ms. Magazine.
This week's health care news was full of mind-bending paradoxes: Prostate health is girly, abstinence-only education works through failure, "principled" libertarian Rand Paul would protect all-white lunch counters but ban private abortion clinics, and more.
STATE BLOGS
