No Government Wood

I completely agree. I suggest a DeGette Amendment no longer allowing insurance companies participating in the exchange to cover the cost of erectile dysfunction medication. See how long that takes to get voted down since probably half of those Congress freaks are using it.

I don’t care one way or another – but I’ve found myself wondering about the ‘false equivalency’ aspect of this meme, which I’ve seen floating about on other blogs.The drawbacks of the Stupak amendment and the implications it holds for the reproductive health of women should be argued on their own merits, and there are many. It seems that crying “O.K. – so no boner pills for you!!“ is going to diminish the argument in the eyes of some.

I don’t understand why this is such a big deal. If your principals tell you that abortions, while legal, should be rare, then why do we need federal funds to pay for them? Are Federal Funds paying for them now?Someone please enlighten me. I’ve asked this question three times now at this blog, and the only response i’ve received was an allusion to some big, hairy, ugly monster that rhymes with “roll”.

PPP – Federal funds are NOT paying for abortions. They never were due to the Hyde Amendment. If you have been paying any attention, the Stupak Amendment prevents any insurance company from participating in the exchange if they offer abortion coverage, even if the person buying the coverage is paying for 100% of the cost. No subsidies, no entitlements, no government handouts.Which means, if a woman already has coverage with a company including abortion care coverage, and that company decides it wants to be part of the exchange, they have to drop that specific coverage to enroll. Basically, the bill is telling the insurance company how to run business.And yes, Eric, there is no equivalence, but that bad example is basically showing the hypocrisy of the amendment.

Adding… Eric, the “no boner pills” argument is meant to show the hypocrisy in Republicans and Conservadems who voted for this bill in the same way Anthony Weiner brought up an amendment to end Medicare and dared the Republicans to vote for it if they really hated government run health care so much.

PPP– This goes beyond federal funds. The Stupak language says that no one in the exchange can use their insurance — their PRIVATE non-subsidized insurance — to have an abortion. This is VERY wrong.

The Stupak amendment is wrong, definitely, although I think it’s fair enough that our government not spend any money on abortions. But it shouldn’t stop companies in the exchange from offering it if they want to.However, this equivalence is wrong and it’s ridiculous to pretend an abortion procedure is in any way similar to boner dysfunction. Viagra is actually much like birth control pills, not like abortions. Viagra and birth control help men and women enjoy sexually active lifestyles, that’s all. A relative of mine told me he has had issues in that department ever since he got back from Vietnam. Seems he has a right to his boner pills.An abortion is taking it a step further. In my day, teenagers had to scrounge up a few hundred bucks and pay out of pocket. Since when do people use their insurance for it?

You know, this Stupak amendment is actually the Stupak/Pitts amendment, co-authored by my congressman who somehow keeps getting re-elected, who won’t vote for any health care bill whether or not this amendment passes. This is pure “C” street underhanded sabatoge. On the other hand, I’m surprised and a bit sceptical that insurance pays for abortions anyway. Unless a woman’s life is in danger, this kinda falls under elective surgery.

I wonder when these fools will start attempting to legislate that all treatments for conditions secondary to irresponsibility are not coverable (and not a few minutes of hormone-fueled irresponsibility, but decades of poor health choices).High blood pressure or sleep apnea or diabetes secondary to obesity, COPD from smoking, etc.Limbaugh wouldn’t only lose coverage for his Cialis, but also for his hypertension meds, or diabetic supplies or a CPAP machine if he needed it.At least their logic would be consistent….

eljefejeff, insurance pays for abortions when they are medically necessary for the life of the mother and when through no fault of mother there is no or very low fetal viability outside the womb. There are women in this country who have been forced to have a baby with zero fetal viability because there is no access to late term abortions even when they know the fetus won’t survive, and then they keep it alive for weeks putting a further burden on the parents because now they not only have to pay for a funeral, now they have to pay thousands in medical bills for a baby that couldn’t have survived outside the womb in the first place. (This happened to a woman that lived down the street from me.)

Mys13k, that’s horrible. I am in favor of late-term abortions for the health of the mother or to avoid situations such as you described, which is what makes Dr Tiller’s murder that much more tragic. Abortion is such a tricky subject and there’s never going to be an answer we can all agree on.I just wish folks in the pro-choice camp didn’t come across so much as pro-abortion. I’m pro-choice while personally opposed to abortion in general, and I get the feeling most people would agree with that. The progressive platform should be to attempt to limit, but not prohibit abortions.

According to the Guttmacher Institutute, 85%ish of corporate insurance plans cover elective abortions. Only 15% of women with these plans actually bill their insurance companies for abortions, probably because they don’t want their employers to find out.From 1993-1995 federal employees were able to purchase health insurance that covered abortions and about half of the plans offered it. (NARAL website).Fifty percent of pregnancies each year are unplanned and about 20% of those result in an abortion (again Guttmacher). This may be under-reported.Let’s not forget that abortion is legal, and although it is elective in many cases, many procedures and therapies covered by health insurance are elective.Some crazy people use abortion as a birth control method, I’m sure. But most women who have elective abortions are going through a brutally difficult decisions.It is pure hype for some people, not on this blog, to say that government coverage of abortion will cause women to choose it as a method of birth control. Women are not suddenly going to stop paying for birth control because they can get an abortion that is covered by insurance.There seems to be a lot of disrespect, on the nuttier blogs, for women and their ability to make deeply moral and complicated decisions about their own pregnancies, health, and personal ability to raise children properly.

by the way, is this guy an asshole or what?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/bart-stupak-there-will-be_n_355083.html

Of course it’s a false equivalence, but as pointed out by others it accurately points out the idiocy of Stupak (and Hyde for that matter).

Not familiar with Medicare and ED drugs, but just before I retired a in 2008, DoD was spending a ton of money on teh viagras. In fact, they put a 10 pill/month limit on prescriptions because it was costing so much that the pharmacies were running out of money for needed drugs.

Your gubmint also shells out a lot of dough for fertility treatments because, you know, there aren’t enough kids looking to be adopted. Ever wonder why so many military families have multiple births?

It seems to me that if teh jeebus doesn’t want you to procreate, you should listen.

As I’ve said before Abortions, aka the D&C surgery, is often elective. HOWEVER it is often due to fetal viability and NOT to irresponsible behavior. I think we’ve let the conservatives frame our own position. As eljefejeff said, too many people perceive us as “pro-abortion” when we are really “pro-choice”…..we simply want optons when the fetus has died or is not viable, when the mother is a victim of rape or incest, etc. Very few women go through these surgeries blithely and for birth control. And if they do, they’re not only morally reprehensible but stupid and/or ignorant.I’m not comfortable with the traditional pro-choice view that the woman have “full choice” to abort in any and all circumstances. But pro-lifers refuse to meet us halfway at any reasonable position. We’re at this horrible stand-off where everyone has a gun pointed at everyone else and no one is ready to move and put their gun down first. We’ve lost the belief that the other side negotiates in good faith. And no wonder consider the lies and horrible distortions they engage in.

I don’t think anyone is actually pro-abortion. And it really makes me mad that the pro-lifers paint us this way. I actually saw a bumper sticker the other day that said “I miss having a Pro-Life President”. I wanted to take a sharpie to the window to point out that most of us in the pro-choice camp aren’t pro-abortion. We simply realize that the decision is never as cut and dried as its painted.

I am going to say this again.I do not like the term “pro-life”. It is misleading and way too kind to the people that want to impose their religious beliefs (or whatever) on others.How about a bumper sticker that says . . .”I miss having a no-choice president”?

Money quote: “Having to watch my baby boomer fellows wail “Viva Viagra” is offensive to anyone who has any taste in music.”

considering most pro-lifers are content dropping bombs on children in other countries while supporting the death penalty and opposing health care reform for all Americans, where does the pro-life part come in? Really all they can claim is being pro-fetus. George Carlin had a good bit about this.

Here’s another thing, though. There are a number of right-wingers who feel that birth control is a form of abortion (no, I didn’t get that backwards.) Even though most medical experts think a pregnancy starts when a fertilized egg is implanted in the uterine wall, there are those who argue that a pregnancy starts when an egg is fertilized and any form of birth control which prevents that fertilized egg from being implanted is, therefore, abortion.Far out fringers? Perhaps…but they made inroads at HHS during the last months of BushCo, with HHS going so far as to offer up a proposal which would allow ANY federal grant recipient to block a woman’s access to contraception.Authored by Cristina Page on HuffPo, July 15, 2008:In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman’s access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion.…There is no scientific evidence that hormonal methods of birth control can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. This argument is the basis upon which the religious right hopes to include the 40% of the birth control methods Americans use, such as the pill, the patch, the shot, the ring, the IUD, and emergency contraception, under the classification “abortion.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cristina-page/hhs-moves-to-define-contr_b_112887.htmlAlthough, this was one of the first things the Obama Administration reversed, those people have not gone away. And if they had their way, language such as that in the Stupak Amendment could grow to include insurance coverage for birth control as well as abortion.Go on, read the article at the link. It’s eye-opening & quite disturbing.

ceuYou have a good handle on this issue. I don’t. So, do you know how the No -Choice advocates justify their belief that abortion is the taking of a life and a sin? Seriously. I find craziness like this . . .God also helps and calls the preborn child. “You have been my guide since I was first formed . . . from my mother’s womb you are my God” (Psalm 22:10-11). “God… from my mother’s womb had set me apart and called me through his grace” (St. Paul to the Galatians 1:15).Also, how do they reconcile their “keep government out of our lives” wingnuttery with ” except when we want our religious beliefs imposed on others” ?

Or when they tell private companies (insurance) how to do business (don’t offer abortion coverage) or support wholesale use of the death penalty…I don’t know, hielo. My mind doesn’t work that way. I think, therefore I am liberal.