Blogs Comment On Obama's Health Reform Speech, Baucus' Reform Proposal, Other Topics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Abortion;  HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 14 Sep 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries.

• "National and State ACLU File Suit To End Ab-Only Funding in Mississippi," Jodi Jacobson, RH Reality Check: The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday "asked a federal court in Mississippi to end government funding of religion in the state's abstinence-only-until-marriage program," Jacobson writes. According to the lawsuit, religious themes were used in the state Department of Human Services' annual teen abstinence summit in 2008 and 2009. Kristy Bennett, staff attorney with ACLU of Mississippi, noted that studies have shown that abstinence-only sex education programs are ineffective at preventing teen pregnancy or the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Bennett also said, "'Given the high rates of teen pregnancy and HIV infection in Mississippi, the failings of this year's summit are inexcusable.'" According to Jacobson, Congress since 1996 has appropriated more than $1.5 billion "for programs that focus solely on promoting abstinence and censoring information that young people need to make healthy and responsible decisions about sexuality." She concludes that "studies show that curricula that stress waiting to have sex while providing information about effective contraceptive use can significantly delay the initiation of sex, reduce the frequency of sex and the number of sexual partners and increase condom or contraceptive use among sexually active teens" (Jacobson, RH Reality Check, 9/9).
  
• "Religious Progressives Raise Concerns About Abortion in Health Care Reform," Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News & World Report's "God & Country": Left-leaning religious advocates who support health care reform are pressuring Democrats to revise Rep. Lois Capps' (D-Calif.) amendment on abortion coverage under the House health reform bill (HR 3200). One idea the advocates are floating is to create a second public health insurance plan that excludes abortion coverage, Gilgoff reports. Another suggestion is to offer abortion coverage as a supplemental insurance rider. Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, said that the Capps amendment "'addresses the vast majority of concerns [of] the moderate pro-life community'" with regard to provider "conscience" protections and abortion coverage. However, the "'question of how to handle abortion coverage in the public option has proven more difficult to answer,'" Korzen said. According to Gilgoff, progressive religious groups are concerned "that without revising abortion provisions in the public option, the debate over abortion can bring down the whole health care reform effort." He adds, "Progressive faith groups have been an important part of the Democratic coalition pushing for health care reform, making a moral case for the effort in the face of opposition from conservative religious activities and lending organizing muscle" (Gilgoff, "God & Country," U.S. News & World Report, 9/9).
  
• "Reproductive Health in the Baucus Plan," Dana Goldstein, American Prospect's "Tapped": Goldstein asks, "After health reform, who will decide what medical services insurance companies must cover?" The House bill (HR 3200) and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee's bill would establish a committee of experts to make recommendations to the HHS secretary. Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus' (D-Mont.) plan "articulates broad areas of coverage that must be included, such as preventive care, primary care, hospital stays and maternity care," Goldstien says. However, she writes, "Baucus would allow insurance companies themselves to define what services each of those areas include, without government interference." Reproductive health advocates are "cautiously optimistic" about Baucus' proposal, Goldstein reports. Adam Sonfield of the Guttmacher Institute said, "'Services like contraception, [sexually transmitted infection] testing and treatment, and Pap tests can and certainly would fit into many of the other categories,'" such as preventive care. Abortion coverage "would likely remain unchanged" under Baucus' plan because there is no public option, and most insurance companies already choose to cover the procedure, Goldstein writes (Goldstein, "Tapped," American Prospect, 9/10).
  
• "Obama Isn't Budging on Abortion in Health Care Reform" Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News & World Report's "God & Country": "President Obama devoted a single line of his speech" Wednesday to the growing debate about abortion coverage under health reform legislation, Gilgoff writes. The president's assurance that federal dollars will not fund abortion "sounds like an endorsement of the House health care bill's approach to abortion coverage," according to Gilgoff. He adds, "It's worth noting that Obama didn't acknowledge the growing concern of religious progressives about Americans in the public health insurance plan being forced to fund abortions with their premiums. On abortion -- and for the moment -- the White House isn't budging at all" (Gilgoff, "God & Country," U.S. News & World Report, 9/10).
  
• "Sexism, Collusion and the Price of Eggs," Kerry Howley, Double X's "XX Factor": A recent Double X article on state laws prohibiting compensation for egg donors "woke me up" and "got me thinking about the issue," Howley writes. The "pieces spoke of blanket bans on cash for ova in scientific research," Howley writes, adding, "By contrast, compensation for ova used by prospective mothers is generally seen as a carnivalesque open market free-for-all." She continues that industry and reproductive groups cap such compensation "under the assumption that ova donors ... should be motivated by nurturing, womanly, fuzzy fellow-feeling," even though "no one expects a man to give up his sperm out of some heartwarming love of humanity." Infertility clinics "are rarely challenged, and very often applauded, by left-wing consumer advocates and right-wing social conservatives trying to shield women from the true price of their ova," Howley adds (Howley, "XX Factor," Double X, 9/10).
  
• "Increasing Access to Abortion Through Advanced Practice Clinicians: An Advocacy Agenda," Tracy Weitz, RH Reality Check: Weitz posts an article she recently published in the journal Contraception that examines the declining availability of abortion services and promotes a strategy to "ameliorate this problem" by increasing the number of physician assistants, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives. The article said it is "time to acknowledge" that such health care professionals "are capable and qualified to provide abortion care services, but the current efforts to provide this care are thwarted by both the politics of health care and the politics of abortion." The article calls for advanced practice clinicians, reproductive health advocates, physicians and attorneys to "join together to promote the provision of abortion by APCs, thereby protecting both women's access to abortion care and practitioners' rights to provide essential care for their patients" (Weitz, RH Reality Check, 9/10).
  
• "Throwing Women Overboard -- Again," Martha Burk, Huffington Post blogs: In a "short -- but not too sweet -- message to the president," Burk chides President Obama for appeasing Republicans by stating in Wednesday's speech that no public funds would be used to cover abortion under his health reform plan. Burk reminds Obama, "Women put you in office, and stuck with you when the crazies were beating you up with 'death panel' and 'socialized medicine.'" She continues, "We still support you but like millions of women who were watching, we wonder why you have to always use our most intimate health issues as a bargaining chip to give away, when you're not going to get anything back." According to Burk, "You let us down once again by not calling for repeal of the restrictions on our reproductive health care that are already in place in Medicaid coverage." She adds, "And worse, you opened the door for private policies to cancel abortion coverage if their clients are using any government subsidy money to pay the premiums" (Burk, Huffington Post blogs, 9/9).
  
• "Abstinence Education Is DisObeyed," Lon Newman, Huffington Post blogs: "In the politics of abstinence-only education, we have a lot to learn," according to Newman, president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association. Advocates of comprehensive sex education curricula "don't have very much time for study," as the full Senate is expected to vote in September on the $163 billion Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill, Newman continues. He notes that the Senate Appropriations Labor, HHS, Education and Related AgenciesSubcommittee's bill "replaced abstinence-only funding with evidence-based teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted [infection] prevention funding." Advocates of comprehensive sex education "will have to maintain our position through the full Senate vote and then through conference committee," he writes, adding that "our strongest player in these political poker games" will be House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey (D-Wis.). "[W]e must work hard right now to preserve President Obama's (and now Dave Obey's) evidence-based pregnancy prevention funding through the full Senate vote and continue the alliance with ... Obey to maintain the initiative through the conference committee reconciliation," Newman writes. Newman then lists five lessons for advocates to learn about Obey and concludes, "We must work with Dave Obey now because when it comes to sex education, our opponents will stop at nothing" (Newman, Huffington Post blogs, 9/10).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women's Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women's Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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