MOMocrats™

Dear Members of the House Who Voted for Stupak-Pitts,

2009-11-12T11:14:10-08:00

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and accept the enclosed package. In it you will find my uterus. I believe you’ll see that the tag on the bottom says, “Please return to original owner, the United States House of Representatives, when not in use.” Per those instructions, here it is.

I already have one son and one daughter and though in the past I have entertained the idea of a third, I recently decided against it. Mainly due to the passing of the Stupak-Pitts amendment last weekend. I figure if my uterus is not really mine you should go ahead and have it back. Frankly, I’d rather not deal with it anymore.

You see, after suffering a number of miscarriages almost eight years ago I was diagnosed with a chromosome disorder. This disorder was causing my miscarriages and once I was blessed with a viable pregnancy I found out there was a chance that a very extreme form of the disorder I carried could be passed on to my unborn child.

I had to have an amniocentesis at 17 weeks and knew that if the results didn’t come back in our favor we faced the possibility of what you like to call a “late-term abortion” (you know that procedure you keep trying to say I can't have). Luckily both my son and later my daughter turned out to be healthy.

But now I’m in my thirties. My risk is even greater and my insurance is non-existent. So, while I’m happy that you passed legislation that may help me regain healthcare, you made sure to omit one of the most important things I need to make sure is included. And since I no longer feel I can count on being covered for the possible risks involved with me having another baby, thanks to you, I'll just go ahead and pass. Besides, if I were to have another baby, it could very well turn out to be a girl. And I'm sure you're already swamped and another girl would just mean one more uterus for you to worry about.

So thanks for passing healthcare. I do appreciate it. But I'll be turning in my uterus anyway. Please use it well.

Love & Kisses,

Former uterus owner, Meghan Harvey 10CD-California

When Meghan Harvey is not fully immersed in angry sarcasm she is blogging on her personal blog, Meg's Idle Chatter.

BRUNNER SAYS U.S. HOUSE ACTION MOVES WOMEN'S RIGHTS BACKWARD

2009-11-10T14:00:00-08:00

MOMocrats are happy to welcome back guest poster Ohio Secretary of State and Senate Candidate Jennifer Brunner as she comments about the Stu-Pitts action in the House and the untenable effect it has on women's right to access legal health care. She sent this official statement, which we are running in its entirety:

Ohio Secretary of State and U.S. Senate candidate Jennifer Brunner today called the House passage of a last-minute anti-choice amendment to health reform an insult to Ohio women and an assault on the right to privacy -- and strongly urged the Senate to protect a woman's right to choose. Brunner said that while passage of the health care reform bill is on balance a positive step, it is critically important that America not allow the anti-choice forces to achieve through Congressional statute what the courts have repeatedly refused - the elimination of a woman's right to choose.

The amendment, offered by anti-choice Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA), was adopted late Saturday by a vote of 240-194. The Stupak-Pitts amendment makes it virtually impossible for private insurance companies that participate in the new system to offer abortion coverage to women - even if they pay for it with their own funds. The Stupak-Pitts amendment would leave Ohio women worse off than they are today by denying them the right to use their own money to purchase an insurance plan with abortion coverage in the new health system - a policy far more far-reaching than the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited public funding of abortions since 1977. Presently, more than 85 percent of private-insurance plans cover abortion services.

"By voting yesterday to block women from essential reproductive health care services, the anti-choice obstructionists in Congress have abandoned Ohio women and would legislate a woman's constitutional right to choose ineffective at best," Brunner said. "The final health care bill must not only guarantee each Ohioan's right to the health care they need when they need it, it also must also provide access to reproductive health services for all, regardless of income level and regardless of whether or not they receive government subsidized care," Brunner added. "Universal health care is based on the principle that health care should be equally accessible to all citizens. Universal health care does not allow income to determine who gets care and services, and who does not. The Stupak-Pitts amendment violates this basic tenet."

Brunner added that the beneficial impact of the overall bill for Ohio was undeniable. "This bill provides employer-based coverage for more Ohio families, provides coverage to hundreds of thousands of Ohioans who are currently without any coverage, eliminates pre-existing conditions and caps imposed on families by insurance companies, reduces the cost of uncompensated care for thousands of Ohio doctors and hospitals, closes the prescription donut hole for tens of thousands of Ohio seniors, and, most importantly, reduces premiums for millions of hard working Ohioans. It is a good bill, but its passage hinged on denying women services for health care that only women may choose. This is unconscionable. The Senate must remedy the untenable and inequitable sacrifice that this bill would require of women and children in the United States," said Brunner.

Jennifer Brunner was elected twice as a judge, and won an open seat for Ohio Secretary of State with a 15-point lead over 3 other candidates in the general election. As Secretary of State, she was awarded the JFK Library Foundation's Profile in Courage award for fighting for needed election reforms related to voting machine reliability and security. The Profile in Courage Award is considered the nation's most prestigious honor for elected public servants.

It's a Mad World in the US House of Representatives when it comes to Health Care Reform

2009-11-10T10:10:04-08:00

The US House of Representatives just asked women to take a sucker punch in the ovaries, "Sacrifice your fair access to LEGAL health care for the GREATER GOOD."

I think women have been sacrificing too much for too long for the greater good. Elected officials -- put in office, by the way, most likely largely by women -- have no right to not ask but IMPOSE such a sacrifice on women.

I don't think it's time to suck it up and take another one for the team, with all due respect, Madame Speaker Pelosi, and I'm flabbergasted you think that's the right thing to do.

Let's get one thing crystal clear: I am personally opposed to abortion. That's right, I am. My husband and I rejected prenatal testing and even had a specialist threaten to drop us from care because we would not sign a paper agreeing to selective reduction or abortion.That was our choice for us, and we don't extend our personal choices or morals to anyone else.

What we do extend to others is a trust and respect in their ability to choose what is best for them and their family and their own life situation.That's because we inherently believe in the individual's right to free will and choice.

Sort of, you know, like the founding principles of the great nation of the USA.

That's also my guiding principle behind believing utterly in a woman's right to choose for her reproduction, a legal right, by the way.

Welcome to the new generation of political women: we won't sit down, shut up or take one for the team.

Quit selling out women's rights. Women, quit letting them do it.

Members of Congress, it's dead wrong to deny access to legal health care. Period. In fact, it perpetuates the very inequities in care that you purport to be reforming. It's clear discrimination of women and public health care should NOT be allowed to prevent access to legal health care. It's an invasion of privacy (there, I said it out loud).

In the incredibly insightful words of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), "Proposing that women … purchase a separate abortion rider is not only discriminatory, but ridiculous.” She went on to note that in five states that do require such riders, it’s nearly impossible to find coverage for abortions.

Respect the right to different opinions, different choices, and most of all, the legal right to both.

I'm speaking up and will be contacting my own senators (as much as that is shouting down a black hole) because I do not want this madness to infect the Senate.

The Stu-Pitts of Congress, and Women's Health Care From the Waist Up

2009-11-09T14:57:03-08:00

Forgive me if I sound a little bitter despite being deeply moved by the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act this past weekend in the House. It IS a huge achievement and one-third of what we need to get the bill to President Obama to sign. I'm proud and grateful so many wonderful elected representatives who truly want to help Americans were able to move mountains and pass the bill.

It's just that, well, that was quick. We had a wonderful feminist moment there, didn't we, when we realized that women are treated differently than men by health insurers. We finally exposed the widespread practice of gender-rating--or disparate pricing by gender--for health insurance coverage that unfairly requires women to pay more than men with similar health status. We learned how eight states still allow insurers to consider domestic violence as a "pre-existing condition" to deny women coverage. We saw documentation of how common it is for women to be uninsured and underinsured whether it's employer-based coverage or self-procured, and how this made health insurance reform of particular interest to women. A quick statistic from the Commonwealth Study linked immediately above:

Six in ten women with moderate incomes (between $20,000 and $40,000) report being unable to pay medical bills, being contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills, changing their way of life to pay medical bills or paying off medical debt over time, as did almost half (46%) of middle-income women.

Women rallying support around health insurance reform, I maintain, helped lift poll numbers for the public option and lift some of the curse extremist Teabaggers had tried to cast on the bill.

The moment lasted all of two weeks, concluding with the release of the Shriver/Center for American Progress report, A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. Among much interesting data, we discovered that women have now crossed the 50% threshold as co-breadwinners--or in some cases, sole breadwinners (for themselves and their kids if they have them). For a moment, it looked like a gendered analysis of health insurance coverage and a recognition of the centrality of women as not only consumers, but producers and drivers of the American economy, might result in real, truly beneficial change.

Then, this past weekend during the vote, conservatives launched their poison pill, one that had been dormant since its introduction at the beginning of the conversation about health care reform in the spring. The Stupak-Pitts-Kaptur-Ellsworth-Dahlkemper-Smith-Lipinski Amendment, written by a Republican and now popularly known by the name of its anti-choice Democratic Party lead sponsor, Stupak, has the following provisions:

The compromise amendment, offered Saturday by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), in effect bans abortion coverage by all plans that are purchased using taxpayer dollars. Abortions could still be obtained by policyholders who pay their entire premiums without government assistance or by individuals receiving federal subsidies in the event of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life.

What the Stupak-Pitts Amendment does is set up a class turnstile, ensuring that the poorest women will not have access to private health insurance that covers comprehensive reproductive health, including abortion, as they will most certainly receive an affordability credit from the government. (It's estimated that 85% of Americans will receive some sort of affordability credit to help achieve near-universal health insurance coverage.) Women of means have, and will continue to have, access to the health care they need to terminate pregnancies. But lest we think "low-income women" or "moderate income women" means someone else, increasingly it means you, me, and women we know who'll be on the wrong side of the turnstile. After all, according to the Commonweath study above, almost half of middle income women had difficulty paying off medical bills too.

Here are the 64 Democrats who joined all Republicans in the House to pass the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Cross-index that list with this chart showing votes by party and congressional district for and against the Affordable Health Care for America Act. (I'm formulating plans as to WHO to replace in the 2010 elections based on this information, aren't you?)

Basically, yes, health insurance reform--if it passes--will cure the un- and under-insured ills that plague women. "Pre-existing conditions," including pregnancy, a C-section, and domestic violence, as a pretext for denial of coverage will end. Gender-rating will end. These are no small gains for women. From the waist up and between the ages of 0 - puberty and menopause - death we appear to be in okay shape. But women in our childbearing years, what could be four or five decades between girlhood and mature, middle-aged nonchild-bearing woman? Good luck getting health insurance coverage from the waist down for some of the most important, life-changing experiences a woman can face.

See, if pregnancy will be covered by all insurers, the termination of a pregnancy--A LEGAL PROCEDURE--will not. I want to repeat that part. ABORTION IS A LEGAL PROCEDURE.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment uses the pooled nature of insurance exchanges to put the Hyde amendment on steroids. If any insurer includes abortion in health coverage for women, it may not participate in the insurance exchange, as a single taxpayer dollar will be disallowed to any insurer that offers coverage for termination of a pregnancy. (Details here.) Stu-Pitts makes exceptions for federal funding in cases of rape, incest, and a physical disorder/injury/illness endangering the life of the woman. It therefore federalizes a patchwork of laws that exist in 15 states prohibiting abortion either in coverage offered by government-run plans for state employees or through private insurance or both (pdf). On the face of it, the exceptions might seem completely reasonable. But think of how many situations can't be crammed into the box of "life-threatening" or how the parameters are defined for a woman confronting an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy, instead of her ability to determine the parameters of necessity and appropriateness for herself. The sovereignty a woman has over her own body is never the starting point as it is with a man. This is classic anti-choice framing.

If, as the Guttmacher Institute has found, 60% of the women choosing an abortion are mothers of one or more children, it's clear family size and a wish to best mother the child or children she already has shapes the choices of many women who elect to terminate a pregnancy. It becomes a decision made in the context of family. How does a reasonable desire to control one's family size and possibly avoid additional economic distress qualify as a "physical disorder/injury/illness" under the Stupak-Pitts amendment? In short, it doesn't. Instead the amendment forces mandatory procreation on poor women who, given other circumstances, perhaps would have made another choice.

Impact, If Enacted

One activist estimates that the abortion loophole, which contradicts the spirit of universal coverage of all Americans, will simply be the pretext through which all insurers deny coverage to low income people, most of whom would probably be women and, disproportionately, women of color at that. Abortion coverage would be offered, but since women with affordability credits couldn't purchase it, insurers would have a perfectly legal way to deny coverage to the low-income and/or less healthy.

And we all know that when women buy insurance, it's to cover the whole family. Realistically, how many women will have the means or the foresight to buy a separate insurance rider with separate funds that covers pregnancy termination? Will they if it means their whole family might lose out on coverage? What if their miscarriage gets classified as an abortion?

Many feminists have pointed out that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and their anti-choice arm lobbied the Stu-Pitts members of Congress hard on this issue. What's diabolical--and I use that term purposefully, as in, devilish--about the USCCB's efforts is that the culture war issue is a back door way to subvert the goal of universal health insurance coverage the public option is meant to provide. Coincidentally, politics over women's bodies benefits the insurance industry's bottom lines.

In the future, either insurers won't offer coverage for abortion services, abandoning the current practice of 87% of insurers who do, OR they will offer this coverage and gladly abandon the low-income (female), and less healthy part of the population. Right now, it looks as if the Stu-Pitts amendment is a culture war way to undo the public option; an infrequently used but key component of women's reproductive health has suddenly become the donut hole in health insurance reform.

And isn't that what we've been fighting for, a strong public option? Because, as has been noted again and again, mandating health insurance coverage but not providing a public option that will force insurers to compete with the public option's lower overhead will simply mean a GIANT GIVEAWAY to insurance companies. They'll have gained millions of new customers and maybe jettisoned the least healthy along the way--hello mega-huge corporate profits, goodbye competitive cost-controls. Our premiums will continue to rise. And a large swath of the population will continue to struggle without the insurance coverage they need.

Somehow this isn't what I think President Obama had in mind when he said as recently as November 6, 2009, that health insurance reform needs to have a strong public option. Or, see this July 16 White House video address to the American people:

Nor is this what the many good people in Congress envision who truly did toil long and hard to get us a public option.

So, I think the question for the White House, the House, and most immediately, the Senate, is this: DO WOMEN'S VOTES MATTER? DOES THE ENTIRETY OF OUR HEALTH MATTER?

Women get it on the public option. Women need to have ALL of their reproductive health care needs met, not health insurance that applies mostly above the waist. That includes coverage of a LEGAL procedure that some women need on occasion, yes, consistent with the Hyde amendment--which, to my regret, is still the law of the land last I checked. (Though some hardy folks want to repeal it.)

Women have been watching how men in the House treated Congresswomen who made statements on the floor:

We watched as Senator Kyl dismissed the need for maternity coverage in health insurance:

We saw how 30 Republican Senators thought it was perfectly fine to leave the criminal gang rapes of female contractors in warzones like Iraq up to "arbitration" and voted against the Franken amendment, which would have made government subcontractors liable for the actions of their employees or lose the contract.

We're not stupid, though the Stu-Pitts of Congress may think we are. We know when gas is poured on the flames of the culture wars to obscure back door dismantling of the public option we ALL desperately need, men and women.

And we know who really has been fighting to better the lives of women. So, will they fight this final mile? I'm a feminist who desperately wants health insurance reform, and so long as I see members of Congress fighting to get that, I'll stand by them.

STRIP THE STUPAK-PITTS AMENDMENT FROM THE FINAL BILL. It's probably unconstitutional, discriminatory in its effects, intrudes on the rights of insurers to run their businesses, and undoes the work of the public option. We stood by you. Now stand by us. We heard that A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. But does it? And can we, going forward?

The Senate version must pass. Then a version goes to conference committee, at which time President Obama will be seated at the table. There are still a few more steps where the Stu-Pitts amendment can be stripped from the final bill. Can we whip our president, congresspeople, and senators to strip the amendment, keep the public option in, and keep voting yes?

Let's get real health insurance reform passed that truly covers everybody.

PS Viagra, prostate exams, and presumably male fertility issues are, of course, covered in full by the Affordable Health Care for All Act.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. She has an adorable son who's the apple of her eye, and the crucial choice to limit her family to exactly that number of children.

I'm still waiting for those defenders of children to defend them.

2009-11-09T12:46:25-08:00

Image by andyofne via Flickr

Really, this just goes beyond the pale. Picketing the school where our President's children attend with racist, threatening, hateful signs?

Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group that goes around the country staging anti-gay rallies at some of the most inappropriate places (e.g. the funerals of former White House press secretary Tony Snow, victims of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, and U.S. troops) with messages like “Thank God For AIDS” and “God Hates Fags.”

I believe in the first amendment. I believe that speech, no matter how hateful and ugly, should not be suppressed. I also believe that allowing speech like this and last weeks' teaparty rally in DC to go unchallenged by those who claim to be 'defenders of liberty' is abhorrent.

Sasha and Malia Obama did not choose their parents, nor are they responsible for their parents' politics. The Westboro church has a long history of being intentionally repugnant with their speech and gestures, but that is no excuse for officials to turn a blind eye as though they have nothing to do with it.

At first blush, it appears that Phelps' choice to picket Sidwell Friends school had nothing to do with Sasha and Malia and everything to do with the school's tolerance toward gays. It doesn't hold water with me. Phelps understood that by targeting Sidwell, he's guaranteed a headline somewhere. Props to the students at Sidwell for outnumbering the haters 10:1 and driving them away.

As I said, Phelps is entitled to spew hate, no matter how disgusting it is. The more repugnant aspect of this incident is that I have yet to see any leader for the Republicans, the teapartiers or any other conservative organization condemn it. By turning their head and allowing it to continue, they give an implicit nod of approval to hateful, ugly attitudes that often lead to violence and sometimes, death. Matthew Shepard's death is the best example of that.

Where is Dick Armey's denunciation? Where is Newt Gingrich's? Where is John Boehner's? Mitch McConnell's? Michael Steele's? Dick Cheney's? George W. Bush's?

Let me tell you where they are. Nowhere. For all the conservative posturing about 'protecting the children', when it actually comes down to caring about those children, it's clear that it begins at conception and ends at birth. Last Saturday's health care debate was evidence of that. While women's bodies became the football tossed to conservatives in order to get health care reform through the House of Representatives, not ONE SINGLE pro-family anti-abortion Republican could be bothered to admit the immorality of denying access to health care to the women who carry and bear them. NOT ONE.

At 1:30pm on November 16th, so-called Christian pastors plan to stage a protest outside the US Department of Justice over the Matthew Shepard hate crimes bill. Here's their strategy:

The "Rally for Religious Freedom" in front of the Department of Justice in Washington is intended to force Holder either to address the issues or be put in a position of ignoring those who say they are violating the provisions of the federal law, Cass said.

"We're basically going to defy the law, and challenge it," Cass told WND. "We're going to declare the whole counsel of God, including those parts that some may consider 'inciting a hate crime' to see if the attorney general is going to come down and arrest a group of peaceful clergy exercising their First Amendment rights."

Of course, they will spew hateful, horrible slogans and utterly unChristian sentiments. They will behave just like Pharisees in Jesus' time, while claiming to be saving the morality of our country from the immoral. They will be righteous and appeal to the Sarah Palins and Michelle Bachmanns, sanctimonious enough for the Baptists and the Assembly of God loyalists. If we're really, really lucky, they might even show up with some snakes and demons.

They will be allowed to spew, and I predict there will be some conspicuously absent voices as well. There will be no condemnation by Gingrich, Armey, Boehner, Steele, Cantor, McConnell, Bachmann or Palin. They will, with an implicit wink and nod, sanction hideous hate.

This is what conservatives have become, and yet, they try to compare health care reform to terrorism. We know who the terrorists are. Not health care reformers. Ideologues and demagogues peddling hate, fear, and violence on the steps of our nation's capitol.

via thinkprogress.org

A Word on Gay Marriage

2009-11-05T11:32:36-08:00

As everyone celebrates the one-year anniversary of the historic election of President Obama a lot of us, especially here in California are sadly reminded of another anniversary this week. The anniversary of the passing of Proposition 8, which was made even more painful after a similar vote passed in Maine on Tuesday. Writing this, I still can’t wrap my mind around the one burning question that keeps haunting my thoughts. Why?

Why are people voting on the right for other people to marry? Why do people care? And why are people so stupid? Yes, I said stupid. Sue me.

One of my favorite books in high school was The Crucible. I’ve always loved the subject of the Salem Witch Trials. The part of the story that was always so fascinating to me was the people in the community who were so easily taken advantage of. People who let their fear and ignorance become a tool that was used to make fools out of all of them.

This is perfect analogy to me of the poor fools who continue to vote against gay marriage in California and Maine and every church that preaches against it. These people continue to have their own fear, their religion, and their ignorance used against them to take a stance against gay marriage.

I joke about these people and their ignorance with friends, but in truth, it’s not funny. In fact it breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart because for me when I think of gay couples and their families, I don’t see “gay couples.” I see my friends. I see family members. I see other PTA moms who fight with their kids to do homework. I see soccer games, I see vacations, and I see kids growing up in loving homes, just like my kids. No different.

So to you, the people who keep fighting the inevitable legalization of gay marriage, I ask you to face the sweet young faces of the kids who are being raised in these loving homes by loving gay & lesbian couples and tell them why their family is different. Why their family breakfasts, their trips to the supermarket, and their Saturday T-Ball games with the family are any different than yours.

Tell them, explain it to them. And then tell me, because I’m totally clueless.

This is proudly Meghan Harvey’s inaugural post at MOMocrats. When she’s not working hard to find a cure for ignorance she can also be found blogging on her personal blog, Meg’s Idle Chatter.

"Off With Their Heads!" (Hey, They Aren't Using Them Anyway)

2009-11-03T06:42:23-08:00

I'm sure by now most MOMocrats readers have seen the video of Billionaires for Wealth serenading Bill McInturff as he speaks to America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). But, if you haven't yet witnessed the spectacle, please feast your eyes:

I saw the video on Rachel Maddow. "Gleeful" might be too weak a word to describe my reaction. My husband, ever the professor, reminded me that I'd be all kinds of annoyed if someone interrupted a meeting of say, Trust for America's Health or the National Partnership for Women and Families.

I thought about that all evening. You know what? He's right. I would be FURIOUS. And if that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. I'm ready to fight for health care reform.

The head of AHIP, Karen Ignani, is a former AFL-CIO'er. How she sleeps at night is simply beyond me. But she shouldn't be resting comfortably. When you decide to head up an organization dedicated to preventing people from obtaining affordable primary/preventative and emergency care, your conscience should be troubling you in the wee hours.

So what do I want to do? I want the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to visit to Mary Landreiu. I want them to tell her that if she doesn't vote for cloture and every other procedural motion that they will find a primary challenger. They they'll personally assist said challenger in producing television ads that alternate images of her thanking Senator Frist and other politicians with images of people languishing in post-Katrina New Orleans and photographs of what will surely be multi-hour waits to see a doctor -- any doctor -- at the November 14 free clinic in New Orleans.

And Landrieu's just one example. Joe Lieberman? Let me say publicly that if the DSCC finds someone with a decent resume to run for that seat, I will take whatever personal time I've accrued and haul myself to the Nutmeg State to work for him/her gratis for as long as my heart can stand being away from my (insured) 18-month-old.

The House is no better. Mike Ross is leading the Blue Dogs against the public option. He wants to complain about the cost. Oh, really? Well, Mr. Ross, y'know what? I want my tax dollars back. I want every single cent that I pay to support Medicaid and Medicare programs that treat the myriad of diseases resulting from Arkansas' love affair with tobacco and fast food. I'd like every single penny back so I can make a contribution to whomever mounts a credible campaign to defeat your obstructionist behind. Mr. Ross, you represent a state that ranks 48th nationally in health care indicators! You should be embarrassed to support anything but the public option!

(See, I live in MD, a relatively healthy that state that receives about $1.30 for every dollar we pay in federal taxes. But, some of that is because the federal government is paying to run installations in MD -- Ft. Meade, Ft. Detrick, the National Security Agency, Andrews Air Force Base, the FDA, NIH, etc. Arkansas, which receives about $1.40 for every dollar it pays, and has one Air Force Base and one Army post, cannot say the same.)

And Mr. Stupak. You're going to hold up health reform over abortion. I believe that abortion is an issue over which people of good conscience can disagree. But the bill won't pay for abortions! Any funding for abortion services would be solely paid for out of private payments (the money a person or company contributes to premiums; no government funds). You're worried that helping people buy health insurance will free up dollars in their meager budget thereby allowing them to afford a previously unaffordable procedure.

By that logic, we ought to take away people's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (aka Food Stamps) benefits or right to drive on federal highways or Section 8 voucher or the U.S. military. After all, those things allow them to spend less money buying food, paying tolls, paying rent, or paying a private militia. 'Cause it seems obvious to me that women are obviously just biding their time waiting for health care reform to free up some money in their budget so they can drive to one of the 12% of counties with an abortion provider, probably undergo some biased counseling and probably have to endure a waiting period </sarcasm>.

Of course, Mr. Stupak is displaying a special kind of stupidity. After all, increasing access to contraception -- the very thing a comprehensive health care reform bill would do -- would lower the number of abortions in this country. So, to Mr. Stupak: Congratulations on cutting off your nose to spite your face.

A cry for help

2009-10-19T20:38:46-07:00

Here's the letter I faxed to my representatives. I understand they pay more attention to handwritten letters than emailed or typed letters. Click for the large version. It's my last shot at trying to get them (especially Rep. Gallegly and Senator Feinstein) to get a clue about how desperate we are. $4,700 - colonoscopy. $500/mo, ongoing supplies/meds. Health care reform I can actually afford? Priceless. All we have now is a train wreck.

Go Watch It: Rachel Maddow Takes on Americans for Prosperity

2009-10-16T10:02:54-07:00

In August, I wrote about how astroturfing groups funded by big business and staffed by GOP political operatives and corporate lobbyists — like the Koch Industries-funded group Americans for Prosperity — are influencing the national debate on health care by helping to organize and promote Tea Party gatherings and town hall protests at the local level.

Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow took on Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips in a scathingly direct interview. If you're concerned about the involvement of corporate lobbyists in the health care debate, don't miss this interview! Watch parts one and two below (part two is after the jump).

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Hear My Story: I’m insured (for now), but I want health insurance reform

2009-10-13T10:00:29-07:00

MOMocrats are honored and happy to welcome successful author and advocate Melissa Stanton as a guest blogger covering the ongoing health care reform discussion. Today, the Senate Finance Committee is voting on the health bill. It's a landmark day, and hopefully the Senate will hear voices such as Melissa's on this topic. She offers the perspective so many of us can relate to: a "rags to riches to rags to riches. . ." history of on again/off again health care. Read on for Melissa's story. . .

I’m very lucky. I have health insurance through my husband's corporate job.

That coverage, though, requires that we pay several hundred dollars a month out-of-pocket toward the premiums, and of course for the deductibles, co-pays, etc. But, we didn’t have to apply for the insurance, and since it’s a group health plan, we couldn’t be denied coverage due to any pre-existing conditions. (Have you heard? A c-section can be considered a pre-existing condition.)

Although my family is currently blessed with decent employer-sponsored health coverage, I am a strong believer in health insurance reform, including a public option. Experience tells me that good fortune doesn't always last.

As a child in the mid-1970s, my father and stepfather were both unemployed at the same time due to corporate layoffs. Although my mother and my dad's wife worked, neither had jobs with health coverage. I remember being very sick (with some strange allergy that left me puffed up and covered in hives) and not being able to see a doctor due to our lack of health insurance, and money.

As an adult, my insurance fortunes have varied between near rags and comparative riches.

I landed a staff job with benefits soon after college. However, when the magazine I worked for folded, I spent $400 a month for medical and dental coverage premiums as an unmarried 25-year-old. My access to coverage came through COBRA, the federal law that allows workers to keep their employer-sponsored health benefits for 18 months after a job loss by paying the full cost of the premiums. (In response to the bad economy and the escalating cost of insurance premiums, President Obama signed legislation earlier this year enabling laid off employees to pay just 35 percent of the cost of coverage for nine months. While $350 a month in premiums sure is better than, say, $1,000, it's still a big bill to foot when you're unemployed. Not only that, the discount and the coverage expires.)

Fortunately, I immediately found work after that layoff; however, my new employer (one of the largest magazine publishing companies in the world) hesitated to put people on staff, lest it have to pay for benefits and absorb other employee costs. So I worked as a freelancer, or “independent contractor,” which meant I did the same work as staff members did, but without any insurance, paid vacation, 401-k or job protections. Marriage eventually supplied me with coverage, as did my eventual hiring as a full corporate citizen worthy of a fantastic package of employee benefits.

A decade later, when my husband lost his Wall Street-area, Internet-industry job due to layoffs and accepted a hard-to-turn-down consulting position in Maryland, I left my corporate career in New York. Although I redirected my work efforts toward freelance assignments and caring for our toddler son, because my spouse received no employee benefits (remember, he was a consultant), I sought out a family-flexible retail job that paid just $10 an hour but provided health insurance for a 30 hour week. (These days, with employers, and especially retail employers, slashing hours and benefits, such a work-for-the-insurance option might be nearly impossible to find.)

Soon after, I became pregnant with twins. I quickly became too sick to work and was put on bed rest. I had to quit the job. (I hadn’t been there long enough for disability leave.) We wound up paying nearly $1,000 a month for family coverage premiums through COBRA. We were lucky to be able to keep (and afford) the employer-contracted group coverage. If we'd been forced to shop for private insurance on the open market, the cost would have likely been higher, and my pregnancy would almost certainly have been deemed a pre-existing condition and excluded from coverage. By the time our 18-month access to COBRA expired my husband had become a staff employee, and with that change in status we were once again the beneficiaries of employer-sponsored insurance.

One of the many things I think is missing from the current health care debate is a sense of “There but for the grace of God go I.”

People who have health insurance—through an employer, a spouse, a union, a government-funded source such as Medicaid or Medicare, a Daddy-financed trust fund, or some other sort of group plan (such as being a member of Congress!)—just don’t understand what it’s like not to have access to affordable health insurance and medical care.

I’ve noticed that the disconnect and insensitivity is especially fierce among people who have always been fortunate enough to have health insurance. I’ve actually heard it said that workers who don’t have insurance due to a job loss, or because they can’t afford it, have only themselves to blame for not picking a more secure or better paying profession. (I’ve been told this by the stay-at-home wife of a doctor and a bank-industry couple who, by dumb luck I’m sure, have survived a succession of bank mergers and layoffs without ever losing their jobs.)

The problem with such people is often, frankly, ignorance. They have no clue that the rules are different for an insurance shopper on the open market than for someone who is handed a group policy through an employer. Many have never even heard of COBRA, or if they have, they don’t understand that the newly unemployed person is paying the full cost of the premium, not just the smaller charge that an employer may deduct from a paycheck. (Incredibly enough, I know a human resources executive who didn’t understand this distinction.) I’ve also listened to the grumbling of senior citizens and military people who rattle on about Socialism and believe that expanding coverage to all will take coverage away from them. (Gee, who funds their insurance and income? And, gosh, you’d think the elderly would be concerned for the well-being of their children and grandchildren.)

A once-close friend recently challenged my views by asking, “Why should health care be a right?” I responded that instead of arguing about whether health care is a “right,” we need to accept that it’s a reality.

The reality is that all people need health care, and dealing with that reality is a collective responsibility—unless we want to be a nation in which only those with enough money and luck thrive and survive. (In others words, “break a leg” that you don’t actually break a leg.)

Oddly, the most vociferous health care opponents I personally know consider themselves to be “pro life,” “Christian,” and “patriotic.” This is where I have a disconnect. Consider these questions:

People without health insurance and health care die, so shouldn’t universal health care be a “pro life” position?
Would Jesus really be for protecting insurance company profits and denying health care coverage to all?
Is it an American value to care only for the wealthy?
Is it good for the economy to put the responsibility for health coverage on employers who, when they can’t afford to pay for coverage, just don’t?

Additionally, does it make sense that smokers with insurance can have all sorts of treatments for their self-inflicted cancer but health-conscious, working adults who have no insurance (say, because of a pre-existing condition or family history) can be left to die—or else treated and burdened for life by medical bills?
Is it good for the United States to be the only developed nation in which people actually declare bankruptcy due to their medical expenses?
Most of all, is it an American value to be fighting with one another about whether or not to provide a medical safety net to everyone?

Frankly, I do wonder if we’d have had screaming tea baggers and death panel lies if health care reform was being promoted by Republicans rather than Democrats. I expect that George W. Bush would have been praised as the “compassionate conservative” he claimed to be if he had promoted health care for all. Instead, we all know the names extremists have been calling President Obama.

Americans need affordable, comprehensive, permanent health insurance.

How that coverage should be provided (be it through the private or public sector, or some combination thereof) requires rational thought and discussion, not crazed distortions and shouting. To continue having a society of haves and haves nots—consisting of "haves" who can overnight become “have nots”—is immoral and unsustainable. While individuals suffer directly, our nation suffers as a whole.

Melissa Stanton is the author of The Stay-at-Home Survival Guide: Field-tested strategies for staying smart, sane, and connected while caring for your kids (Seal Press/Perseus Books). She blogs at www.reallifesupportformoms.com.