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?

Oh RNC, honestly (or not!)? How the RNC asks people to work the system against health care reform

This afternoon, I received the following message from the RNC:

Subject: Your Call Can Make the Difference

** URGENT CALL TO ACTION ** After months working in secret behind closed doors, Harry Reid this week finally unveiled his 2,074-page government-run health care plan. His plan would increase health care premiums, increase taxes on families and small businesses by half a trillion dollars, cut Medicare by another half trillion dollars, and allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Click here for 10 things you should know about the bill. Harry Reid has scheduled a critical vote this Saturday night that will allow the Senate to take-up his bill. If that vote succeeds, Harry Reid will be dangerously close to finally imposing President Obama's government-run health care scheme on America. Two Democrat Senators - Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) - are critically important to defeating Saturday's vote. The RNC urges every concerned citizen to call Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln TODAY and tell them to vote against Harry Reid's liberal bill when it comes up for a vote on Saturday. This is the best opportunity there will be to stop President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi from imposing their government-run health care plan on America. Again, please call Sens. Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln TODAY and tell them to vote against Harry Reid's health care bill when it comes up for a vote on Saturday. Republican National Committee | 310 First Street, SE | Washington, D.C. 20003 p: 202.863.8500 | f: 202.863.8820 | e: info@gop.com Paid for by the Republican National Committee. 310 First Street, SE - Washington, D.C. 20003 - (202) 863-8500 www.gop.com Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Unsubscribe Copyright 2009 Republican National Committee

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.

A Word on Gay Marriage

As everyone celebrates the one-year anniversary of the historic election of President Obama a lot of us, especially here in California are sadly reminded of another anniversary this week. The anniversary of the passing of Proposition 8, which was made even more painful after a similar vote passed in Maine on Tuesday. Writing this, I still can’t wrap my mind around the one burning question that keeps haunting my thoughts. Why?

Why are people voting on the right for other people to marry? Why do people care? And why are people so stupid? Yes, I said stupid. Sue me.

One of my favorite books in high school was The Crucible. I’ve always loved the subject of the Salem Witch Trials. The part of the story that was always so fascinating to me was the people in the community who were so easily taken advantage of. People who let their fear and ignorance become a tool that was used to make fools out of all of them.

This is perfect analogy to me of the poor fools who continue to vote against gay marriage in California and Maine and  every church that preaches against it. These people continue to have their own fear, their religion, and their ignorance used against them to take a stance against gay marriage.

I joke about these people and their ignorance with friends, but in truth, it’s not funny. In fact it breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart because for me when I think of gay couples and their families, I don’t see “gay couples.” I see my friends. I see family members. I see other PTA moms who fight with their kids to do homework. I see soccer games, I see vacations, and I see kids growing up in loving homes, just like my kids. No different.

So to you, the people who keep fighting the inevitable legalization of gay marriage, I ask you to face the sweet young faces of the kids who are being raised in these loving homes by loving gay & lesbian couples and tell them why their family is different. Why their family breakfasts, their trips to the supermarket, and their Saturday T-Ball games with the family are any different than yours.

Tell them, explain it to them. And then tell me, because I’m totally clueless.

This is proudly Meghan Harvey’s inaugural post at MOMocrats. When she’s not working hard to find a cure for ignorance she can also be found blogging on her personal blog, Meg’s Idle Chatter. 

"Off With Their Heads!" (Hey, They Aren't Using Them Anyway)

I'm sure by now most MOMocrats readers have seen the video of Billionaires for Wealth serenading Bill McInturff as he speaks to America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). But, if you haven't yet witnessed the spectacle, please feast your eyes:

I saw the video on Rachel Maddow. "Gleeful" might be too weak a word to describe my reaction. My husband, ever the professor, reminded me that I'd be all kinds of annoyed if someone interrupted a meeting of say, Trust for America's Health or the National Partnership for Women and Families.

I thought about that all evening. You know what? He's right. I would be FURIOUS. And if that makes me a hypocrite, so be it. I'm ready to fight for health care reform. 

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

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.

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.

Dear Max Baucus: Get out of my way

That's right, Senator Max Baucus. I'm talking to YOU. Let me tell you a little about the past 30 days of my life.

You see, I have this kid. He's a good kid. A great kid, in fact. He's my birthday present...born on my 31st birthday at 1:11pm (13:11 if you're number superstitious). He's really talented, too. He produced his first CD this summer, which he considers to be the beginning of his long and productive musical career.

For the past month, he's been really, really sick. He can't keep food in him, is in constant middle-bending just-shoot-me kind of pain, and has lost 20 pounds (he only weighed 165 to begin with). 

Hear My Story: Breast Cancer Twice, and My Only Choice Was Health Care in France

HOW BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD OF NEW YORK TRIED TO KILL ME

by Suzanne White  

America is no place to be old or sick.

I am an American health insurance exile. While living in New York in 1978, I got breast cancer and had a mastectomy. Blue Cross/Blue Shield summarily refused me coverage for my care and indeed cancelled my excellent paid-up policy without explanation.

I fought them. And I lost. Hospital bills, surgeons, anesthesiologists, endless tests and chemo absorbed all my savings. I had to sell my house and all my belongings. Then, bald, broke and severely weakened by a year of heavy chemotherapy, I gathered up my kids and took them to live in France where there is a national health insurance plan. I was lucky. My books were selling well in French so my publisher has been paying his share of my policy all along. I paid up my share; so I and my two daughters once again had full coverage health insurance.