Blogs Comment On Baucus Health Reform Bill, Health Insurance For Women, Other Topics

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Abortion;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 21 Sep 2009 - 3:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

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

• "Baucus Shifts in a Pro-Life Direction," Steven Waldman, Beliefnet: "At first blush," the health care bill released Wednesday by Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) appears "more pro-life than the House bill," according to Waldman. He notes that Baucus' bill does not include a public insurance plan option that would cover abortion services and includes federal tax benefit for individuals to choose what private insurance plan to purchase. Baucus also "used some bookkeeping tools to further limit the possibility of federal money going to abortion, but it's the same language (albeit in a different context) that was mocked by pro-life groups when included in the House bill," according to Waldman. He writes, "I was surprised Baucus included the House provision requiring that each insurance exchange include a private plan that covers abortion and one that doesn't," adding that antiabortion-rights groups "disliked" the amendment "because it meant that some areas that might not have any plans covering abortion would now have to have some." Waldman continues, "Whether it will be enough to satisfy pro-life groups -- especially the Catholic Bishops -- remains to be seen." He also includes the text of a press release from the National Right to Life Committee's Douglas Johnson reacting to the Baucus plan (Waldman, Beliefnet, 9/16).
  
  
• "What Will the Baucus Healthcare Plan Mean for Abortion?" Dan Gilgoff, U.S. News and World Report's "God & Country": "Judging from the experience decoding the House bill's abortion provisions ... it may be a little while until we know for sure" how the Senate Finance Committee's draft reform bill would affect abortion coverage, Gilgoff writes. For example, a blog post by Beliefnet's Steve Waldman "says the Baucus bill is 'more pro-life' than the House version in a couple of ways," Gilgoff reports. However, the National Right to Life to Life Committee "is having none of it," he says. A press release from NRLC reacting to the Baucus bill states that the measure "'contains an array of pro-abortion mandates and federal subsidies for elective abortion'" and that the group "will work in support of amendments to eliminate the abortion mandates and federal abortion subsidies" (Gilgoff, "God & Country," U.S. News & World Report, 9/16).
  
  
• "Can Condoms Combat Climate Change?" Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times' "Booster Shots": A recent editorial in the journal the Lancet argues that "encouraging the use of contraception also will help save the planet" by preventing unintended pregnancies, particularly in the developing world, Kaplan writes. According to the editorial, preventing unintended pregnancies "translates into reduced demand for increasingly scarce and energy-intensive resources like food, water and shelter," Kaplan adds. The editorial says that a lack of modern contraception leads to 76 million unintended pregnancies annually. A related report -- written by Thomas Wire, a postgraduate student at the London School of Economics -- found that if contraception were made available to every woman who wanted it, "so many pregnancies would be averted that the number of 'people-years'" lived between 2020 and 2050 "would fall to 326 billion," saving "34 gigatons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise cost at least $220 billion to produce," Kaplan reports. She adds, "In other words, each $7 invested in contraception would buy more than one ton of carbon dioxide emissions" (Kaplan, "Booster Shots," Los Angeles Times, 9/17).
  
  
• "Health Insurers Consider a Caesarean-Section Pregnancy a Pre-Existing Condition," Amanda Terkel, Think Progress: It is not just that "most individual health insurance markets do not cover maternity care, ... [m]any insurers consider caesarean-section pregnancy a pre-existing condition and refuse to cover women who have had the procedure," Terkel writes. Terkel cites a 2008 New York Times story featuring a woman who was "turned down because she had given birth by caesarian section." The Times reported that because having the operation once increases the odds of a needing another c-section, the insurance company hoped to avoid paying for subsequent procedures. Terkel continues that some companies that "don't necessarily reject women with c-sections often do charge them higher premiums." She concludes, "What's even worse is that once you're denied by one company, it's harder to get coverage somewhere else because you've been red-flagged" (Terkel, Think Progress, 9/17).

Antiabortion-Rights Blog

• "White House Officials to Meet with Pro-Life Group on Health Care and Abortion," David Brody, CBN's "The Brody File": A meeting on Thursday between Charmaine Yoest -- president and CEO of Americans United for Life Action -- and White House Domestic Policy Director Melody Barnes and Tina Tchen, head of the White House Council on Women and Girls and director of the Office of Public Liason -- "all began when AUL Action sent a letter to the president a couple of months ago," according to Brody. The letter claimed that the House health reform bills (HR 3200) and the bill passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee would require public and private plans to cover abortion. Brody claims that it is a "political reality that if the abortion language is not changed in the House bill, 40 Democrats ... stand ready to block the bill," which is a problem "that can't be blown off." The White House deserves "a tad bit of credit" because it "could have easily blown off that letter and not given AUL Action the time of day," he writes, adding, "It's one thing to say you want to be inclusive. It's another thing to show it" (Brody, "The Brody File," CBN, 9/11).

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.

© 2009 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.

• Additional
• References
• Citations