What’s a Woman To Do?

MOMocrats welcomes guest author Linda Tarr-Whelan's comments on the health insurance reform bill and the promise it holds for women and children. Please support the MomsRising campaign at the post's end!

Health care for women is in the news these days. But what does it all mean?  Having just researched for my new book what different decisions emerge when 30% women are at the table, I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Congress were made up of 30% women, instead of 17%.  But more on that in future posts!

For today, I’m riveted by news stories that a “very prestigious independent medical panel” has recommended big changes in our health care routines.  As a colon cancer survivor and former nurse, it leaves me with more questions than answers. They talked about preventing deaths from breast cancer, but then told us to cut out several key steps we have learned to take.

We have walked, done relays, worn pink ribbons and educated ourselves to take practical steps:  do breast self-exams, have the mammograms we need after the age of 40 and regular doctors’ visits. Could these common-sense precautions really be unnecessary?  Really?

Go Read It: US Catholic Conference of Bishops' Hypocrisy on Federal Tax Dollars & the Stupak-Pitts Amendment

Not all Catholics believe the exact same thing. There are Catholics for Choice, Catholics who use contraception, and then...there's the US Conference on Catholic Bishops, which was an active, energetic force lobbying politicians to pass Stu-Pitts prior to the recent House vote on the Affordable Health Care for All Act. Strongly opposed to a woman's right to decide when and if to terminate a pregnancy, the USCCB receives 67% of its budget in federal tax dollars to help fund hospitals and other good works with secular impact operated by the Catholic church, and is itself charged with separating federal funding from religious practices.

Go read this op-ed that calls out hypocrisy in how the USCCB separates taxpayer dollars from church funds in their operations. It spells out why they, if anyone, should realize that the never-voted on Capps Amendment ensuring compliance with 1977's Hyde Amendment already adequately addressed the separation of taxpayer funds from abortion services. A short excerpt:

Catholic Charities, the domestic direct service arm of the bishops, also depends on state and federal dollars. Sixty-seven percent of Catholic Charities’ income comes from government funding. That represents over $2.6 billion in 2008 — an amount that is more than three times as large as the next largest charitable recipient of federal funds, the YMCA. Just as Catholic hospitals do, Catholic Charities receives enormous quantities of government dollars while abiding by existing constitutional and statutory requirements that prevent government sponsorship of religion.

Yet the USCCB wants to potentially sink health care reform--which they've previously supported--with a culture-war grenade. They want to effectively prevent any private insurer from providing a legal medical procedure by pushing falsehoods about the Affordable Health Care for All Act.

Call your senators and congressperson and demand that Stupak-Pitts be prevented from being inserted into the Senate bill and that the final bill reflect the Capps Amendment's compromise.

Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k.

The Stu-Pitts of Congress, and Women's Health Care From the Waist Up

Forgive me if I sound a little bitter despite being deeply moved by the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act this past weekend in the House. It IS a huge achievement and one-third of what we need to get the bill to President Obama to sign. I'm proud and grateful so many wonderful elected representatives who truly want to help Americans were able to move mountains and pass the bill.

It's just that, well, that was quick. We had a wonderful feminist moment there, didn't we, when we realized that women are treated differently than men by health insurers. We finally exposed the widespread practice of gender-rating--or disparate pricing by gender--for health insurance coverage that unfairly requires women to pay more than men with similar health status. We learned how eight states still allow insurers to consider domestic violence as a "pre-existing condition" to deny women coverage. We saw documentation of how common it is for women to be uninsured and underinsured whether it's employer-based coverage or self-procured, and how this made health insurance reform of particular interest to women. A quick statistic from the Commonwealth Study linked immediately above:

Six in ten women with moderate incomes (between $20,000 and $40,000) report being unable to pay medical bills, being contacted by a collection agency for unpaid medical bills, changing their way of life to pay medical bills or paying off medical debt over time, as did almost half (46%) of middle-income women.

Women rallying support around health insurance reform, I maintain, helped lift poll numbers for the public option and lift some of the curse extremist Teabaggers had tried to cast on the bill.

Go Watch It: Rachel Maddow Takes on Americans for Prosperity

In August, I wrote about how astroturfing groups funded by big business and staffed by GOP political operatives and corporate lobbyists — like the Koch Industries-funded group Americans for Prosperity — are influencing the national debate on health care by helping to organize and promote Tea Party gatherings and town hall protests at the local level.

Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow took on Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips in a scathingly direct interview. If you're concerned about the involvement of corporate lobbyists in the health care debate, don't miss this interview! Watch parts one and two below (part two is after the jump).

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I Hate to Break it to the GOP, but We ARE in Our Place!

Oh those crazy people at the Republican National Congressional Committee!!  When there's something they're not happy about, they can't help themselves from saying something silly!

The RNCC tried to chide Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with this:

If Nancy Pelosi's failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope [General] McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

Her comeback?

I'm signing up for the Speaker's next class on political zingers!

30 Senate Democrats Stand Firm for a Public Option in Letter

Thank you, Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI), Tom Udall (D-NM), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Roland Burris (D-IL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Al Franken (D-MN), Bob Casey (D-PA), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Ted Kaufman (D-DE), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ),  John Kerry (D-MA), Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Paul Kirk (D-MA), and thank you Bernie Sanders, the Independent Senator from Vermont.

Today, by signing a letter written by Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown supporting the inclusion of a strong public option in the Senate health insurance reform bill — a measure of health care reform that the majority of Americans support — you stood up on behalf of the American people and put the interests of ordinary working American families ahead of the interests of multimillion dollar insurance companies. You put people ahead of profits, put principles ahead of politics, and brought the United States of America one step closer to joining the other developed nations of the world in recognizing access to basic health care as a human right that should be granted to all of a nation's people.

You promoted the general welfare, just like the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution says our government should. Your mothers should be proud.

The MOMocrats extend our gratitude, and encourage more Senators to join you.

Readers, if you support the public option like nearly two-thirds of your fellow Americans, and your Senator has not yet signed this letter, please encourage him or her to do so.

Full text of the letter after the jump:

Just Being Alive Will Soon be a Pre-existing Condition

Domestic violence isn't a subject I talk about much, but it's something I feel very strongly about because I have a very personal connection to the topic.

I was a victim of domestic abuse.

Many, many years ago I was married for a very short time when I was an incredibly young (19) and stupid college student (while 19 might be a good age for some to marry, it was not a good age for me).

I was smart enough, however, to get out of that very brief marriage quickly before I suffered too many injuries. But it was scary -- I had bruises from being pushed down stairs and I was anxious about lying to cover up why there was a big hole in the wall (where my ex-husband kicked it in in a rage), among other things. When he pulled a butcher knife on me when I said I was leaving, I really knew it was the right choice to save my life. But I was terrified that he would come after me and hurt me more. He tried, but I was lucky that I had friends who sheltered me and kept me safe, even when I had to go to work.

Hear My Story: I Chose Sight for My Daughters Over Preserving My Own Vision

This story of a mother in Florida could be anyone unlucky enough to be born with the hereditary syndrome that makes her progressively blind. The family's health insurance can only pay for the mother's treatments, or that of her daughters. What a choice to make, eh?

To think that in developed countries all around the world, no other people are forced to make these kinds of unbearable choices. The full story's here, in the St. Petersburg Times.

Go Listen: BlogHer Call with Senator Amy Klobuchar on Health Care Reform

BlogHer recently hosted a conference call on health insurance reform with Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar. MOMocrats writers Karoli, Jaelithe and Joanne participated in the call, which included several BlogHer members with various backgrounds and political opinions, and was moderated by Nancy Watzman from the Sunlight Foundation, a non-partisan organization dedicated to improving government transparency

Senator Klobuchar, a Democrat, a mother, and one of only 17 women Senators currently serving in Congress, supports health care reform and has expressed a preference for a plan that would end exclusions for pre-existing condition, include a health insurance exchange that would allow small businesses and independent contractors to use collective bargaining power to access lower health insurance prices, and include a public option that would give Americans the choice of buying into a non-profit government-run insurance plan.

During the call, the Senator discussed her views on the best ways to reduce health care costs for both consumers and the government, spoke about the need to provide better support to families caring for elderly relatives, and expressed her outrage at learning that some private insurance companies have been denying coverage to victims of domestic violence.

Senator Klobuchar also talked about ways that ordinary citizens who support health care reform can help make a difference by promoting reform in their own communities.

Visit the BlogHer website to listen to the BlogHer conference call with Senator Amy Klobuchar or read a partial transcript. And don't forget to check back next week for a BlogHer conference call with Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers.

Will Ferrell "Defends" Health Insurance Companies

Well, sort of.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

I could really laugh at this if it wasn't spot on.

Aside from thinking about health insurance reform here, Joanne Bamberger is also trying to get her head around it at her place, PunditMom.