By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer David Crary, Ap National Writer – 5 mins ago
NEW YORK – Millions of American women will face tough choices about abortion coverage if restrictions in the House health care bill become law, both sides in the abortion debate agree.
Divisions over abortion are a major obstacle in President Barack Obama's push for health care overhaul, with both sides arguing over how to apply current law that bars taxpayer dollars for abortions in a totally new landscape. Under pressure from the Catholic Church and abortion foes, the House added tough restrictions to its version of a health care bill.
The measure would prohibit the proposed new government-run insurance plan from covering abortions except in cases of rape, incest or to save a mother's life, and bars any health plan receiving federal subsidies in a new insurance marketplace from offering abortion coverage. If women wanted to purchase abortion coverage through such plans, they'd have to buy it separately, as a so-called rider on their policy.
"It forces insurance companies and women to navigate a series of chutes and ladders to get abortion coverage at the end of the day," said Donna Crane, policy director for NARAL Pro-Choice America.
The amendment's proponents says its goal is simply to ensure that a long-standing ban on using federal dollars for elective abortions is extended to coverage plans arising from new health care legislation.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., an abortion foe, insisted the amendment is not a dramatic change in current law, offered to negotiate if his critics could convince him otherwise, and said it leaves ample alternatives for women to obtain coverage if they use their own money and are willing to buy a separate, add-on plan.
"If you really still want this coverage, you can have it," he said. "The only difference is that more people will have to make that decision that they didn't confront before. ... More people are going to have to choose, 'Is this a benefit I want?'"
Crane and other abortion-rights advocates say the amendment would make it harder — in some cases perhaps impossible — for millions of women to have health insurance that covers abortion. They depict it as one of the gravest assaults ever on American women's reproductive rights.
Two large groups of women would not be affected by the amendment: low-income women already ineligible for abortion coverage because they rely on federal Medicaid funds for health care, and women who have abortion coverage through the private plans of their own or their husbands' large employers. Most Americans currently have employer-sponsored coverage.
That leaves a significant number of other women likely to be affected — women who would be prime candidates for joining the new federally subsidized plans, but in the process might have to forgo abortion coverage they had previously under a private plan. These would include self-employed women who must buy their own coverage, divorced women who formerly were insured through their husbands' employers, and women who work in small businesses whose owners decide to seek more affordable coverage through the new exchange.
"This is a middle-class abortion ban that would impact millions of middle-class women," added Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "It's saying to them, 'You can't get full coverage that meets your needs.'"
Abortion-rights activists say the option of buying additional coverage for abortion — a so-called rider — is a false promise. They cite the examples of Oklahoma and North Dakota, where riders have had negligible use even though allowed under state laws that otherwise ban insurance coverage of elective abortions.
"Abortion coverage should be part of the regular package," Crane said. "Women don't expect unplanned pregnancies and don't expect their wanted pregnancies to go wrong. ... They don't anticipate needing abortion coverage so they wouldn't buy a rider."
Kristin Binns of WellPoint, Inc., which oversees health plans serving 35 million Americans, said it's impossible for the insurance industry at this stage to estimate how much such riders would cost and the extent to which they might be offered.
"We don't have a clue," she said.
Douglas Johnson, the National Right to Life Committee's legislative director, said it's difficult to forecast the restrictions' practical impact, but he agreed that some women now covered for abortions would face restrictions if they wanted to switch to potentially cheaper coverage in the new insurance marketplace, known as an exchange.
"There's a choice they are offered by the government — this gift, this great subsidy — and this plan is not going to cover everything, as a matter of public policy," he said. "If there's a market (for add-on abortion riders), if there are people who think it's that important, it will be offered."
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 21 million people would purchase individual coverage through the exchange, under the House plan. That would amount to about 7 percent of Americans under the age of 65. Of those, about 18 million would have government subsidies and thus would have to be in plans that don't cover abortions.
"Beyond that, it's an open question for individual insurance companies — how much of their business is in the exchange or outside it," said Adam Sonfield of the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive-rights issues.
Stupak says one reason his amendment's impact would be limited is because only a small fraction of abortions — 13 percent by Guttmacher Institute estimates — are paid for directly by private insurance. The vast majority are paid for in cash, even by women with abortion coverage who do so out of privacy concerns.
However, Dr. Willie Parker, an abortion provider in Washington, D.C., noted that insurance coverage could be vital for women with health problems who need hospital abortions costing many thousands of dollars, compared to roughly $400 to $800 for a first-trimester abortion in a clinic.
"The cash option was a challenge for many women even in more reasonable economic times," Parker said. "I see that becoming worse as people have to make hard decisions because abortion is not considered part of health care."
Obama says he wants to strike a balance on the issue, but whether such middle ground can be found remains unclear.
I am not (nor can ever be) a smoker, due to that whole heart failure thing, but you can’t tell me that smoking doesn’t at least lookcool.Granted, I’m from the era where people smoking everywhere was on the decline, but I’ll be damned if we didn’t have TWO smoking lounges in our proud, lung cancer filled high school (one for students, the other for teachers/staff).Interestingly enough, we really didn’t think about the legal smoking age—18.Actually, there weren’t that many 18-year-old seniors in my class.I was one, but there were probably about 9 others in my huge class of 95 students.
So that means, not only were the administrators ignoring the law (and smoking away in their own offices!), the police didn’t particularly care either.Okay, we only had one police officer, and he was a janitor during the day, then at 2 pm, he changed into his police uniform. I suppose the police force liked those coffin nails too.
Then, there were the really underage kids—junior high and younger.We all saw them, and aside from the occasional comment that those kids looked way too young to be smoking, we didn’t even think about it.You could go into the corner store and buy a carton of your favorite brand (supposedly for your parents, and sometimes it actually would be!), and they sometimes weren’t too strict on kids coming home with a couple of six-packs of Bud (for the parents, of course.)
You could smoke in offices; the Dairy Queen in which I worked (in the kitchen, on the register, in the back office, in the restaurant area, dammit, if you had ‘em, you could smoke ‘em!) I even remember when you could smoke on public transportation. (Okay, I was 3, but you’d think in 1978, you could still smoke anywhere on God’s green and black tar earth).Of course, there were always the stogie smokers, and those who were probably playing along with the whole “Dave’s not here, man.” Because of how the windows opened then, you could basically open the whole damn side and stick your body out to holler at whomever.Nowadays, only the tops open, which sometimes makes me miss the good ol’ days of dangerously opening windows.When it’s hotter than hell, those little top-opening windows just don’t cut through the funk, I’ll tell you what.
Now, due to all the horribleness of smoking (no, I’m not saying smoking’s good, but follow along for a bit.) There are those horrible Truth ads on TV, but I’ll be damned if they ever go after big LIQUOR!I mean, why they are never pestering the people at Busch beer about the fact that those who drink their product will most certainly shorten their lives by a noticeable amount.But I suppose drink shitloads of liquor (and driving!) is a hell of a lot healthier than smoking.
And, to for your enjoyment, here are some wonderful ads from yesteryear when we didn't know that smoking and amphetamines would kill us! (Of course, you can't help but notice whom I'm listening to right now, either! No, I'm not judging....how could I judge? Me, the picture o' health!)
I can't believe that it's been 25 years since I've seen the Curly Shuffle on American Bandstand. Then again, I'm aging myself by admitting that I've watched AB. Hey, both my parents and my sister and I have seen James Brown perform, so...
Not to get this on to an American Bandstand thing, but I miss shows like that--there was something about watching it on a Saturday afternoon, seeing who the new groups were, and seeing Dick Clark hold up the record that the band was going to sing a song from. (Yeah, it was a record...which is, to me, the best format of music. You can have your mp3s, CDs, those horrible monstrosities called cassettes AND 4 and 8-tracks, nothing will ever beat the warmth of a well-cared for record. Now, I'm not talking mono here--mono sucked total ass.
Okay, back to the subject at hand, Mr. Curly Howard (or Jerome Horwitz). That man lived a mere (I hate using "mere" when much younger people die, but I'll use it here) 48 years. The man lived enough lives for at least five people. There were the many marriages, the many affairs, and his love of food and drink which definitely contributed to his demise. If you look at a short from early 1945, then from later that year, you cannot believe the total difference in the man--I mean, he looked 10 years older in a matter of months. I don't know what the hell kind of treatment they were using back in the 40s, but damn! Giving him boiled rice and apples to lose weight?! Shit, weight'd drop off me in a manner of microseconds. Ewww!
But, however sad his life ended, you have to say the man lived hard, and died hard. How many of us can say that we were on top of the world, at least for a while, one of the most beloved entertainers in history? Most of us are living sad, loud-ass lives of hysterical desperation, wishing that there was something different that we could be doing. (Of course, that could just be me, the secretary talking....well, not just a secretary--I'm also a psych major who's planning to go to grad school whenever I can figure out what the fuck I need to do to actually do it.
Wow--this did not really go as well as Larry's tribute, did it? But I feel a little differently about Curly than Larry. Larry was my favorite--the man was the best actor of the three (Norman Maurer--Moe's son-in-law even said so), so when it comes to him, it's just funny to look at him because he was the true definition of a Stooge--stand there and look dopey. Curly? Dude could not stand still--even with such a handsome face, he was funnier than hell. And speaking of which, here's a picture of the world's most famous Stooge:
(And yes, I know that his birthday was actually October 22, but I probably won't be able to "work" tomorrow!)
Larry Fine (originally thought to be born on October 5, 1902, he later discovered it was actually September 5, 1902) January 24, 1975
For some reason, I've always liked this photo--this is from (I believe) 1933 or 1934, when the fellows had just left MGM for their historic career at Columbia. What made them so memorable, so able to transcend all these generations....from my paternal AND maternal great-grandparents on down to my sister and I...Stooges for life!
(The title of this entry comes from the wonderful drunken banter of Moe and Larry in a short from 1950,Love at First Bite.
In it's entirety:
(During a bachelor party, Shemp gets drunk and decides to take a foot bath...in cement!) Moe: We killed him! We killed our best pal! Larry: They'll hang us for this! Moe: I got it! we'll cremate him! Larry: Can't do that...we ain't got no cream!"
I was just reading this blog, and the author and comments make me wonder just HOW WORTHLESS is my bachelors (in Fine Arts, no less!). I've never believed that I was getting anything that was worth any great shakes--in fact I know that it's just a prettier piece of paper than my high school diploma. But the thought of going to grad school doesn't fill me with dread...it makes me wonder if I'd be prepared because I didn't really find the classes all that challenging. Sure, I've been interested in psychology since I was four (it was probably before that), so not only did I not feel challenged, I was also lazier than hell and my transcripts prove that out. I was much more successful in my sociology minor than my major. Ah, well. I'm sure that people are going to look more at the masters degree anyway. And in psychology, that means that I'll need to go further. Why bother with grad school if you're not going to get a doctorate?
So, apparently, I'll be in school for the rest of my natural born life.
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