Tag: womens health
GOP Infatuation With Defunding Planned Parenthood Could Exact Heavy Price

GOP Infatuation With Defunding Planned Parenthood Could Exact Heavy Price

Reprinted with permission from CT Viewpoints.

With the election of a Republican president and control of the U.S. Congress by Republicans, you’d think Planned Parenthood is in trouble. Defunding the reproductive health organization has been for years a rallying cry among Republicans, especially Christian conservatives opposed to abortion. With the GOP now in power, it would seem the tide has finally turned.

It hasn’t. In fact, Planned Parenthood has the advantage.

What gives Planned Parenthood the advantage is the insistence among leading Republicans to tie together two things that should not be tied together if Republicans hope to protect their majority. They evidently believe their majority, especially in the House, is impervious, because they have linked the defunding of Planned Parenthood (to the tune of $500 million) with their proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act.

The Republican Party has always been between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the health care law. Though often called Obamacare, the program is a fundamentally conservative creature that maintains a role for private health insurers when a saner public policy scheme would have been Medicare for All.

So whatever they proposed, the path was always going to be treacherous. But when the Republicans rolled out a replacement Tuesday called the American Health Care Act, it was clear the very same people railing against “death panels” for eight long years still have no idea what they are doing.

The proposed law would cut $600 billion out of the federal budget, but almost all the savings would go to the very affluent. Meanwhile, subsidies to ordinary people would vanish. In their place, the Republicans aim to offer tax credits to buy private insurance. The new law would also repeal the mandate requiring everyone to buy insurance or pay a penalty.

In terms of policy, this is not smart. Subsidies allowed millions to pay for insurance upfront. Under the new plan, people would have to wait for reimbursement after Tax Day. This won’t work. Most Americans can’t pay for insurance now and wait to be paid back later. They do not have ready cash.

Nixing the “individual mandate” means healthy people will leave the insurance pool, leaving sicker people behind, which will in turn raise the cost of health care for everyone, even those already covered. House Speaker Paul Ryan habitually uses the phrase “death spiral” to describe Obamacare. The real death spiral awaits if the Republicans pass this bill.

But policy isn’t why Republicans —specifically, Republicans representing affluent white suburban districts won by Hillary Clinton — are worried. These Republicans face no fallout from constituents getting major tax cuts. They have no fear of constituents losing health insurance, because their affluent white suburban supporters do not require federal subsidies. But there is one thing these Republicans fear, and fear gravely.

An overt assault on women.

If you defund Planned Parenthood, you send a signal to all of your female voters that women’s issues don’t count. That’s what freshman congressman U.S. Rep. John Faso, who represents parts of the Hudson Valley, told the GOP leadership last month during a retreat. He said: “We are just walking into a gigantic political trap if we go down this path of sticking Planned Parenthood in the health insurance bill. If you want to do it somewhere else, I have no problem, but I think we are creating a political minefield for ourselves —House and Senate.”

The Democrats are banking on it. If they stay unified in the Congress, they can squeeze vulnerable blue-state Republicans. The Democrats need 24 seats to retake the House in 2018. You can bet every Republican like Faso has a big fat imaginary bull’s eye on his back.

The minefield isn’t limited to the U.S. Congress. Republican leaders in blue states are concerned, too. Fight for tax relief all you want, the thinking goes, but please please pretty please don’t enrage the women. That’s why GOP Gov. Charlie Baker, of Massachusetts, is talking about replacing whatever might be lost in federal funds with state funds. That’s why Republican moderates are asking the party leadership to decouple Planned Parenthood from health care reform, because if you insist on tying them together, the party may end up losing twice.

There may be another way of looking at this, and it’s upside down. There is no win for the Republicans in repealing and replacing Obamacare. As I said, it is already a conservative program. The party has distorted reality so much that austerity freaks like the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity, and Freedomworks are already opposing it. So are powerful nonpartisan groups like the American Medical Association and the AARP. If the Republicans mess this up, they will suffer, big league. They may pay a price for gutting Planned Parenthood, but the price will surely be higher if they foul up health care reform.

Which is why some think there’s a reason the GOP leadership insists on coupling Planned Parenthood with replacing Obamacare. If they were separate, the party would have no one to blame when they foul up health care reform. But by poisoning the replacement plan with a defunding plan, they can blame their failure on a familiar foe, Planned Parenthood.

It would be genius if it weren’t so short-sighted.

John Stoehr is a lecturer in political science at Yale and a New Haven resident.

IMAGE: Anti-abortion activists (L) rally next to supporters of Planned Parenthood outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. February 11, 2017. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

For Women, What Comes Next?

For Women, What Comes Next?

International Women’s Day is a once-a-year acknowledgment of what women do every day of the year, which is to keep the world afloat with our labor — paid and unpaid.

March 8 fell on a Wednesday this year. Here in the U.S., some of the organizers of January’s Women’s March encouraged women to wear red and take to the streets again. In addition to protesting, we were to avoid shopping — except at female-owned businesses — and boycott our jobs to show the impact of “A Day Without a Woman.”

An admirable cause, no question, but it’s one that brings out the crankiness in me, I confess. One of the challenges of showing support for women in America is how to do this without excluding most of the women in America who need it most.

Many women who take care of patients, for example, couldn’t take the day off without potentially harming those they’ve committed their lives to helping. My friend Amy Johnson responded to my post about this on Facebook, and she said it better than I ever could:

I am a nurse in an OB/GYN office completely run by women. The only males are two of our physicians who are amazing advocates for women, having devoted their entire careers to their care. There can be no ‘Day Without A Woman’ day-off here because we would not be able to serve the 60 women we will see today for prenatal care and GYN-related issues like Pap tests, breast exams, and STD treatment if there were. We will consider our work serving the healthcare needs of women to be our contribution to the cause — today and every day.

Women who take care of children, such as teachers and day care workers, very likely added an additional burden to the lives of other women who had to scramble to find alternative child care, often at extra cost, if they chose to boycott work. Some of these school communities reportedly organized volunteers for alternative child care, but I understand why some parents would balk. For 10 years, I was a single mother with a job and no family nearby. Safe, reliable child care was a constant source of stress and worry, but I would never have entrusted the care of my child to strangers. Now a seasoned grandmother, I know that for all of my outdated ways, I am still in sync with most of today’s parents on that one.

Now let’s consider hourly wage earners, who are the backbone and the beating heart of labor in this country. They cannot take off work without fear of losing their jobs. After years of interviewing such women and writing about their lives, I thought I understood the full burden of their work. It took only 10 minutes today in a national chain store to discover a new depth to my cluelessness.

I approached three different female employees to talk about Wednesday’s protest, and each balked at the sight of my notebook. One of them told me, “I know you think you’re helping, but if corporate finds out I talked to you without permission, I’m fired.”

Think about that. They couldn’t even describe what it means to be a woman right now without fear of reprisal from their bosses. Never have I felt more privileged for getting paid to say whatever’s on my mind.

Also, let’s keep this in mind: A high percentage of hourly wage labor is performed by women who are not white. Optics matter here. When public protests are populated by mostly white women who have control over their schedules and their lives, even the most honorable of causes can come off as a lucky hobby.

I have been thrilled by the throngs of women marching in the streets of America for the women of America. Makes me feel the weight of my years, in a good way.

But if there’s one thing age hasn’t cured in me, it’s my impatience.

Let’s figure out what comes next.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and professional in residence at Kent State University’s school of journalism.

IMAGE: Demonstrators hold signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court as the court is due to issue its first major abortion ruling since 2007 against a backdrop of unremitting divisions among Americans on the issue and a decades-long decline in the rate at which women terminate pregnancies in Washington, U.S. June 27, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Planned Parenthood: Quality Health Care For All Women

Planned Parenthood: Quality Health Care For All Women

Dozens of women in Congress wore suffragist white Tuesday night for President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session.

You know this had to annoy him, all those dames sticking out in that sea of dark suits, but he stayed on script anyway. That was all he had to do, apparently, to be newly anointed as “presidential” by pundits who just a week ago were filling the airwaves with the sounds of barely suppressed panic.

I understand this new take is mostly a collective sigh of relief — say “presidential” out loud as you exhale and you’ll see what I mean — but I thought we set that bar a little higher.

If managing to avoid rambling about everything from a nonexistent electoral landslide to an imaginary enemy force of journalists is the new definition of “presidential,” it’s only a matter of time before we’re seeing headlines about how the leader of the Free World can turn water into whine. I mean wine.

But maybe I’m just picky.

The House’s Democratic Women’s Working Group came up with the idea to show up wearing white as a reminder of “the ongoing fight to attain equal rights for all women.”

From a statement by the group’s chair, Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel: “We wear white to unite against any attempts by the Trump Administration to roll back the incredible progress women have made in the last century, and we will continue to support the advancement of all women. We will not go back.”

Group photos of the smiling women started popping up on social media, which is to right-wingers what dangling a raw rib-eye is to a cougar. Lots of hyperventilating over their refusal to blend in with the scenery. How dare those women draw attention to themselves! Who do they think are, men?

My favorite thread of outrage came from those who accused the women of stooping to “identity politics.”

Tell you what. I’m going to stop identifying as a woman as soon as Republicans stop identifying women for targeted attacks.

Speaking of Planned Parenthood.

Last month, I went to a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cleveland for a Pap test. I realize some of you would rather not think about this grandmother’s adventures in gynecology. I hear you. That’s how I feel every time legislators try to interfere with the gynecological endeavors of our grown daughters. Until Republicans stop going after them and countless other women, this is how we’re gonna roll.

Not only do women still need quality health care after we can no longer conceive, but also this freedom from reproduction seems to unleash countless opinions we used to keep to ourselves. I can speak only for myself, of course — and most every postmenopausal woman I know.

I went to Planned Parenthood on the recommendation of my family doctor, who doesn’t do gynecological exams. “You know how professional they are,” she said, “and you can afford it.”

“Walk that talk,” she wanted to say — I could tell by the look on her face — but she’s always been too nice that way.

So off I went to Planned Parenthood, which accepted my insurance and treated me as if I were not invisible. They’re dangerous that way, those people, insisting on seeing us for who we are and filling us with ideas of how we still matter. I can see why right-wingers get alarmed.

That visit was a lot more fun than my recent encounter with a local hospital and my health insurer. Just yesterday, I spent more than a half-hour on hold while an employee on each side debated who was at fault for failing to properly process payment for my mammogram last August.

I sat there listening to the march of classical music on speakerphone and thought about what our president had said, out loud, to a roomful of governors just the day before.

“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” he said, thus revealing what it’s like to be a man who has never had to spend a day of his life worrying about how to pay a medical bill.

I feel better. How about you?

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and professional in residence at Kent State University’s school of journalism. She is the author of two books, including ...and His Lovely Wife, which chronicled the successful race of her husband, Sherrod Brown, for the U.S. Senate.

IMAGE: A Planned Parenthood clinic is seen in Vista, California, August 3, 2015. REUTERS/Mike Blake  

Virginia Governor Vetoes Bill Defunding Planned Parenthood

Virginia Governor Vetoes Bill Defunding Planned Parenthood

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have blocked funding for Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other health services.

The bill passed by the Republican-controlled legislature would have barred the state from providing funds to clinics that perform abortions not covered by Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for the poor.

McAuliffe, a Democrat, said the measure would harm thousands of Virginians who relied on Planned Parenthood healthcare services and programs. He vetoed a similar measure last year.

“Attempts to restrict women’s access to health care will impede the goal of making Virginia the best place to live, work, and run a business,” he said in a statement.

Advocates for the law had said it would underpin organizations that provide the widest range of services.

Planned Parenthood draws the ire of many Republicans because it provides abortions. Republican President Donald Trump has pledged to defund the organization.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by James Dalgleish)

IMAGE: Democratic nominee for Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe stands onstage during a campaign rally in Dale City, Virginia, October 27, 2013.  REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo