SOME GOP delegates promote easy access to birth control

MoonHowler

trojanhorse

The key word here is SOME.  Not one delegate from Prince William County was a signatory on the letter written to Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius.  Granted, the GOP delegates who sent the letter appear to be the more modern of the Republicans in the Delegate Assembly but I still smell a rat…actually, I smell a Trojan Horse.

From the Virginia Pilot:

Several Republicans in the House of Delegates  have urged federal health officials to allow birth control to be sold  without a prescription to adults.

More than two dozen legislators wrote U.S. Health and Human Services  Secretary Kathleen Sebelius seeking a policy change they called “a  reform that makes sense and is something the Obama administration could  quickly move on with bipartisan support.”

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President Obama: Executive action

MoonHowler

Let’s keep it simple.

Today, the President is announcing that he and the Administration will:

1.    Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevan tdata available to the federal background check       system.

2.  Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health InsurancePortability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from makinginformation available to the background check system.

3.  Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.

How long will the hysteria last?

MoonHowler

I have listened to people’s hysteria over ACA for several years now.  Part of it escapes me–the hysteria that is.  Health care is horribly expensive.  Insurance companies rip people off all the time and often one’s treatment depends on what is deemed appropriate by the insurance company, not by the medical community and the patient.  People are excluded from health care because of pre-existing conditions.  All the things I have mentioned are not good for the average person.

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Santorum–a dodge and a miss

MoonHowler

Rick Santorum wanted to be anywhere but in that interview.  Mitt Romney looks like a smooth talker compared to this guy in the hot seat.  First he tried to throw his benefactor under the bus.  Then he tried to blame Obama, followed by taking a few shots at the media and saying they were playing ‘gotcha.’

His worse offense, however, was trying to turn the discussion to kids and to talk about the sex habits of young people.  The Foster Friess comments have nothing to do with young people.  That is an entirely different issue. 

What prompted the Friess remarks was the debate on health care covering contraception for grown working women.  Grown women do not have to justify their sexual behavior to anyone.  How dare Rick Santorum try to deflect a question about grown women by bringing up teenage girls?  Is he implying that grown women are really just older teenagers?

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Contraception: What do the employees think?

MoonHowler

For some of us, the very fact that we are having a discussion about birth control  in 2012 is almost unfathomable.  We know that unless women can control their own reproduction, there is no equality.

This was also a fight many of us thought was over 50 years ago.  This issue isn’t a fringe issue or something avant-garde.  The churches do themselves no favors getting strident over the issue of contraception and certainly the Republican party, in an election year, does itself no favors.  98% of all women who are or have been sexually active have used contraception.  There are some things that just should not be political and this is one of them.

So far, the Affordable Care Act has stated that contraception will be made available on all health care policies for free, without deduction.   There has been a hue and cry over this health care rule, from the clergy, politicians,employers,  bloggers, and probably lots of others I haven’t mentioned.  The issue is about health care to most of us.  To some, the issue is about religious freedom.  That’s a hard argument to survive when no one is saying anyone has to use contraception.

What hasn’t been mentioned is that 28 states already require contraception coverage.  Additionally, some Catholic institutions already provide contraception in their benefits package.  DePaul University is one such example and it is the largest Catholic University.

There is one group that we haven’t heard from in this media frenzy of opinion and that is the employees.  The Catholic Church is probably putting up the biggest barrier to this health care mandate and that is because of their beliefs.  We know what many of  the men of the church are saying.  What we do not know is what the employees of all the Catholic institutions are saying.  Those workers at hospitals, universities, publishing houses and various support systems run by the Catholic church have yet to voice their opinion.  Some are probably afraid.  They want to keep their jobs.  Some are afraid, especially if they are Catholic, of their priest finding out that they use contraception.  Regardless, this group is the most affected by the controversy and the most under-represented in the discussion.  The sounds of silence are deafening.

Sebelius nixes emergency contraception for OTC use

MoonHowler

 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has over-ruled the recommendations of the FDA and ‘the morning after’ pill (or Plan B) will not be made available to everyone as an OTC product.  Girls must be 17 years or older to buy the product without a prescription. 

From Huffington Post:

The Food and Drug Administration recommended on Wednesday that Plan B One-Step, commonly referred to as the “morning-after pill,” be made available over the counter without age restrictions, but an Obama administration official overturned that recommendation.

After ten months of reviewing scientific data, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg decided on Wednesday that emergency contraception should be made available to everyone over the counter.

“There is adequate and reasonable, well-supported, and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for nonprescription use for all females of child-bearing potential,” she said in a statement.

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GOP gets a little deja vu

MoonHowler

Both Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and  Rep. West of Florida faced angry town hall voters during spring break over proposals to change Medicare.  The Florida town hall meeting nearly erupted in chaos and angry voters challenged West for what they saw as trying to dismantle Medicare to pay for bolstering up tax cuts for the wealthy and industry.  The crowd was enraged.  Rep. Ryan faced a similar packed town hall meeting.  He attempted to outline his proposals and justify changes.  The citizens were having none of that. 

Florida Rep. Daniel Webster ran into an extremely loud accusatory crowd in Orlando who demanded that he leave Medicare alone and accused him of selling out in favor of corporations and fat cats.  They waved signs stating ‘Hands Off Medicare.’   According to the New York Times:

Mr. Webster, shown in video from station WFTV, sought to defuse the situation by saying that any changes were years away and that current retirees would not see a difference. “Not one senior citizen is harmed by this budget,” he said, noting that his new granddaughter was “looking at a bankrupt country.”

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Friends without Benefits

MoonHowler

Jon Stewart gives the finger to Congress because it wants to make sure that those receiving benefits for their rescue work after 9-11 aren’t on a terrorist list. Huh? The Zadroga Bill had a few hidden caveats.

Congress is just the gift that keeps on giving.  The Literal Insult to Injury Amendment  belongs in Blackboard Conspiracy Bizarro Land, according to Stewart.

 

No Fast Track for Cooch

MoonHowler

The Richmond Times Dispatch:

The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Virginia’s petition to have its lawsuit against federal health-care legislation bypass appellate review and be heard directly by the court.

As a result, the lawsuit will continue on its current path to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is scheduled to hear the case May 10 in Richmond.

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Post Tucson–Where do we go from here?

MoonHowler

Who is Jarod Loughner? That seems to be the question everyone is fighting over. What were his links to politics? Anytime a congresswoman and a judge are shot, the shooting is automatically political–whatever that means.

From all descriptions, Jarod Loughner is seriously mentally ill. Even if he is political, he seems in too much of a fugue state to even have an ideology.

 Where do we, as a nation, go from here?  This horrific situation seems so like the massacre at VA Tech in so many ways.  Specifically, a person demonstrating psychotic, erratic behavior is noticed by professors to the point they refuse to teach the students  (Dr. Gioninni at Tech and Ben McGahee at Pima Community).  The students are removed from the class.   At Pima, Jarod was suspended from college until he had a psychological evaluation declaring him not a danger to himself or others.  In both cases, we have bizarre behavior that makes students and faculty every uneasy and very afraid.

So nothing is done.  Both students meltdown and both go on a rampage, killing and wounding multiple people. 

Why must we allow those who are obviously seriously mentally ill to go untreated?  What must happen in order to put people away BEFORE they harm others?  We need to reassess how we deal with people who display extremely erratic behavior.  We cannot allow these rampages to continue. 

Saturday’s events will change how some things happen in America. We will use expressions like ‘post Tucson’ to indicate how things have changed since this tragic event.  Hopefully America will focus on providing a safety net for when people get dangerously mentally ill.  Now is not the time to make cuts in mental health care.  Our very lives depend on it.

UPDATE:

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Beware of John’s “Feet in the Stirrups” Resolution

MoonHowler
Prince William County has no abortion clinics.  There is one that has been in the City of Manassas for over 20 years.  There are several in Fairfax County.  For some reason the Prince William County Board of Supervisors feels it necessary to pass a resolution directing Governor McDonnell to make it more difficult for abortion clinic providers to be able to practice.  What a cowardly way, once again, to interfere with a woman’s most personal choice. Over and over again, Roe vs Wade has been reaffirmed.  This is simply a back door tactic to prevent clinics that provide abortions to be able to provide services.
 

Federal Judge in Michigan Reject HCR Challenge

MoonHowler

From Huffington Post:

 

DETROIT — A federal judge on Thursday rejected an attempt to stop some key provisions of the new national health-care law, saying Congress has the authority to require people to get insurance by 2014.

The ruling – the first in a challenge to the Obama administration’s health care overhaul – came in a lawsuit filed in Michigan by a Christian legal group, the Thomas More Law Center, and four people who claimed lawmakers exceeded their power under the Constitution’s commerce clause.

But U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit said the insurance mandate, and the financial penalty if someone skips coverage, are not illegal. He said Congress was trying to lower the overall cost of insurance by requiring participation.

“Without the minimum coverage provision, there would be an incentive for some individuals to wait to purchase health insurance until they needed care, knowing that insurance would be available at all times,” the judge said.

“As a result, the most costly individuals would be in the insurance system and the least costly would be outside it,” Steeh said. “In turn, this would aggravate current problems with cost-shifting and lead to even higher premiums.”

U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler noted the ruling “marks the first time a court has considered the merits of any challenge to this law.”

Now we all get to discuss what this ruling means.  Meanwhile, according to my friend Ivan, the race to the appeals court is on.  Where does this leave our esteemed AG?  How does this affect his solitary lawsuit?  

Most of us will now have more questions than we did before this ruling was issued.   U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh was appointed by Bill Clinton and has been a U.S. District Judge for about 12 years. 

Not with a bang but a whimper….

MoonHowler

The Opt Out Resolution, that call to arms by Corey Stewart passed the BOCS on Tuesday, not with a bang but  a whimper. What passed in a 6-2 vote, was a resolution that directs the county staff to find out how much new federal health care regulations will cost Prince William County. Both Supervisors Jenkins and Principi voted against this Resolution because they felt it was taking the staff off their regular jobs and that staff was already short.

From the News and Messenger:

With a vote of 6-2, Prince William supervisors Tuesday passed a resolution that directs staff to find out how much new federal health care regulations will cost the county.

The resolution also requires staff to report these costs to the board and to alert state and federal authorities if there’s a problem—that is, if the regulations amount to unfunded mandates that will require supervisors to raise taxes or cut essential services.

Supervisors John Jenkins, D-Neabsco, and Frank Principi, D-Woodbridge, voted against the measure after attempts to amend the document—to set up a committee to study the issue and to direct staff to research and report on tax-saving benefits of the federal health care plan—failed.

The actual resolution that passed is a watered-down version of what was originally proposed, and is in not a call to opt-out of the federal health care plan. It does not support, or even mention, the state’s lawsuit against the federal law, either. Rather, the resolution, which is available online at the county government’s website, http://www.pwcgov.org, is a directive to staff.

This Resolution is a far cry from what was originally proposed for our county by Corey Stewart, early in April at a political rally down in Stafford County. Stewart originally  said he was proposing a resolution that would direct the staff not to honor new medicaid claims that were to be ushered in January 1, 2014 as a result of HCR. By April 15, Stewart was handing out fliers at a Tea Party Tax Rally calling his proposal an Opt Out Resolution. By the time Moonhowlings.net received a copy, there was no ‘Opt Out,’ just a directive for staff to study the costs and report back to the board. Funny how that all worked out, isn’t it?

Good work, citizens of Prince William County. It looks like we avoided another Stewart Folly.  Hats off to the supervisors who voted no.  As our regular, George Harris,  has stated, he found out much of what he needed to know by making a couple phone calls.  Why can’t the county do the same thing rather than turning every issue into a circus?