Dear Nate Silver...

Nate Silver, over at FiveThirtyEight.com has 20 questions for people who are coming out against the health care reform bill currently pending before the Senate.

Over the medium term, how many other opportunities will exist to provide in excess of $100 billion per year in public subsidies to poor and sick people?

Subsides don’t make coverage affordable nor do they guarantee access. The penalty for noncompliance – that is, for not obtaining coverage – in some versions of the bill have been significantly lower than the cost to actually buying a plan. Baucus tried to get round this by including a “young invincible” plan since it is critically important for risk-spreading that young healthy people become part of large insurance pools. The “young invincible” plan morphed into the “catastrophic plan” (Section 1302(e) in the Senate bill) and would be available to those aged 30 or younger. Nevermind that this is when preventive care is most important and this plan limits it to three visits.

And furthermore: Coverage does not equal access. Opening Medicaid up to poor people someplace around 150% of the federal poverty line does not mean that they suddenly will have good health care. Will they be protected from catastrophic injury? Yes. Will they be able to find a dentist, psychiatrist or other health care provider in a timely fashion? Doubtful. Look at the story of Deamonte Driver and remember that Maryland is a population-dense state with loads of medical providers and yet a 12-year-old boy died for want of dentist.

2. Would a bill that contained $50 billion in additional subsidies for people making less than 250% of poverty be acceptable?

At this point, real health reform would be acceptable. The federal poverty measure is a joke. It hasn’t been retooled in decades and $55,125 for a family of four isn’t a lot of money, particularly when you consider that under some provisions in the bill, a family could be stuck paying 3:1 for older members, 1.5:1 for tobacco users, etc. And the subsidies would reduce the cost of insurance to 2% of income for those at 100% of the FPL but could be as much as 9.8% of income for those at 400% of the FPL.

And the deductible for small employer plans could be as much as $4000 (Sec. 1302(2) of the Senate bill). That’s almost 10% of the above family’s income.

The Season of Giving

A terrific blogger, Alias Mother, is doing a blog-link-y thing where she's writing about her favorite charities and encouraging readers to do the same.

To that end, a couple of MOMocrats will be posting about our favorites charities - ones that help women and their families - in the coming weeks.

APOPO - HeroRat
Apopo was founded in the 1990s and it works with rats. Special rats. Rats that detect land mines. Following the long civil war, many areas of Mozambique were virtually uninhabitable due to heavy mining -- children cannot play in open areas for fear they will lose a limb or worse.

The rats find the landmines (they find scent from the TNT) but aren't heavy enough to set off the mine. The mine then can be removed or detonated. And, just in case you think this sounds...odd...keep in mind that the rats passed official licensing tests according to IMAS standards under supervision of the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD).

You can watch a great video about the rats from PBS/Frontline here

UNIJECT
PATH, a non-profit with offices in Seattle and DC/MD, is devoted to improving the lives of women worldwide. To that end, they created Uniject.

Uniject can be used my minimally-trained people to deliver vaccines (Hep B, mostly) and drugs to prevent postpartum hemorrhage. It is single use, so helps lessen the worry about proper sterilization and transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Again, a great video is here.

My husband and I are tremendously lucky that our daughter will never have to run a gauntlet of land mines to attend school. And while childbirth carries risk, the likelihood that I or any woman in the first world would die from postpartum hemorrhage is infinitesimal compared to women in the developing world. And we won't lose our daughter to neonatal tetanus, a major killer in areas without access to vaccines.

"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. 

Kay Hagan Embarrasses Me

This week the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee wrapped up their multi-week debate on the Affordable Health Choices Act -- passed 13-10!.

Yesterday, the committee approved, by voice vote, an amendment by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC). The amendment that would exclude “temporary or seasonal agricultural workers . . . for the purposes of determining the size of an employer.”

What does that mean? It means that large agricultural employers wouldn’t have to count the tens of thousands of farm workers (sometimes called Immokalee, after the town in Florida) as employees. If they manage to exclude enough folks, then they – voila! – become a small business, exempt from the employer mandate to provide health insurance benefits.

Hagan was already on my radar after voting against the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Now she’s earned a place on the sh*list for, essentially, denying health insurance coverage to some of the most vulnerable workers in the United States.

Farmworkers have the worst health indicators of any US subpopulation. Since we’re about helping other mothers, I’ll start there: 97% of farmworker mothers are accompanied by their minor children; only 42% had any sort of prenatal care (compared with 76% nationally); infant mortality rates among farm workers are at least 25% higher than the national average (around 10 per 100,000 births); irony alert! 82% of farm workers households experienced food insecurity and 49% went hungry; 88% of children were exposed to toxic pesticides; women farmworkers are more likely to be depressed and attempt or commit suicide.

Think this is a travesty? Call Hagan’s office at 202-224-6342 (if you’re a constituent, you might also want to call either her Greensboro office at 336-333-5311 or the Raleigh office 919-856-4630). You can email her here.

Maybe we should start a campaign. Mail Sen. Hagan a pack of seeds and ask if she thinks the people who plant them, water them, and pick the resulting fruit and vegetables that feed her and the nation deserve health care.

Photo credit: Korean Resource Center on Flickr. Creative Commons License.

Cynthia Davis is right: hunger is a motivator

Missouri State Representative Cynthia Davis, a Republican from O'Fallon, a St. Louis suburb with a median income 60% higher than the state average, recently criticized the state of Missouri's summer free lunch program for impoverished children in her monthly newsletter, saying that she thinks "hunger can be a positive motivator" for kids. Cynthia Davis argues that parents who have been laid off during the recession ought to be able to make do without government assistance:

Most parents put their children first, even ahead of themselves no matter what. If parents are laid off, that doesn’t mean they stop feeding their children, at least not any of the parents I know. Laid off parents could adapt by preparing more home cooked meals rather than going out to eat.

And she maintains that, if Missouri shuts down the free lunch program, children who find themselves going hungry will just be that much more motivated to feed themselves at no cost to the state by getting jobs at fast food restaurants:

Anyone under 18 can be eligible? Can’t they get a job during the summer by the time they are 16?  Hunger can be a positive motivator. What is wrong with the idea of getting a job so you can get better meals?

Tip: If you work for McDonald’s, they will feed you for free during your break.

No word from Ms. Davis yet on what those Missouri families who were already unable to afford regularly going out to eat before losing their income to recession ought to do to "adapt" to their new lack of funds to buy food. No word either on what teenagers are supposed to do if there are no jobs available at the local McDonald's because all positions there have been taken by recently laid-off adults. Or on how these kids are supposed to get to work if they cannot afford, say, a car, given that the local public transportation system recently cut bus services. No direction from Ms. Davis on what "motivated" younger children who cannot work at McDonald's are supposed to do to feed themselves.

Facing criticism by political bloggers and local and national press, Cynthia Davis continues to defend her position. I think Representative Davis is right about one thing: hunger is a motivator.

You never forget going hungry. Being hungry, well. That happens every day. As in, it's lunchtime. I'm hungry. Let's go out for a bite. I know a great little taco place down the street with fresh guacamole. That sort of feeling is commonplace. Forgettable. You don't always remember today what you ate for lunch three days ago, let alone the craving that drove you to eat in the first place.

Go Read It: Fixing health care - ideas from Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz

Pennsylvania Representative Allyson Schwartz, previously interviewed here at MOMocrats about her visit to BlogHer 2008 on behalf of the Obama campaign, has made fighting for Americans' access to quality health care a top priority during most of her professional and political career. As an executive director at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the 1970s and 1980s, she fought to improve low-income women's access to contraception, cancer screenings, and reproductive health care. As a state legislator, she was one of the principal architects of the of the Children’s Health Insurance Program in Pennsylvania, and in the late 1990s went to Congress to testify in favor of creating a federal CHIP program. And as the Representative for Pennsylvania's 13th Congressional District to the U.S. Congress, she has worked to expand the original SCHIP program to extend health care benefits to millions more uninsured children.

So when Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz talks about how she thinks we ought to go about implementing meaningful health care reform in the United States, we listen. Go read Congresswoman Schwartz's op-ed, Fixing Health Care.

Mother's Day Every Day Post Roundup

Happy Mother's Day, MOMocrats readers!

Many thanks to everyone who participated in our Mother's Day event to promote the Mother's Day Every Day initiative on behalf of The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. Here is a list of posts from bloggers (and politicians!) who participated to help raise awareness about maternal mortality, and save mothers' lives. If we've missed or forgotten you, please add your post in the comments below and we will add you to the list in this post.

Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner

Houston's First Lady Andrea White

Women with Big Dogs and Infertility by Julie Pippert

Once Upon a Time, When You Were a Little Baby by Cynematic

How I Became a Mother by Glennia

Mother's Day Every Day: My Story by Jaelithe

Birth: A Love Story by Catherine Connors

Birthing Babies by Robin

Birth Story by Joie

Peeper's Birth Story by Whozat

Geekery and Pregnancy by Nicole

And we would also like to thank Morra Aarons Mele of MomsRising for promoting our event in her BlogHer post, Three Great and Good Ways to Celebrate Mother’s Day Online.

Unite for Hunger and Hope

Bloggers Unite and Heifer International have teamed up to raise awareness about world hunger today with the Unite for Hunger and Hope project. Bloggers Unite invites bloggers everywhere to join the effort and write a post about world hunger.

Previously on MOMocrats.com, we have featured several organizations that fight hunger and poverty both in developing countries and here in the United States:

Share our Strength fights childhood hunger in the U.S. by raising public awareness about hunger, organizing fundraisers, and awarding grants to hunger organizations and food pantries. MOMocrats partnered with Quaker Oats last year help to raise money for Save our Strength. 

Meds and Food for Kids is an organization that saves children from starvation in Haiti, one of the countries hit hardest by last year's spike in global food prices, by providing families with nutitional supplements created using locally grown ingredients; the group also teaches the local Hatian farmers who provide ingredients for their product new and better agricultural techniques and food safety methods. MOMocrats interviewed the founder of Meds and Food for Kids, Dr. Patricia Wolff, last December. 

Unicef also fights childhood hunger and poverty worldwide; in January, MOMocrats interviewed Dr. Brandao Co, UNICEF's chief of nutrition in Afghanistan, a country where agricultural production has been devastated by two decades of war, and current conflict makes it difficult for agencies to move food and medical supplies to the communities that need them. 

You can help fight world hunger by joining today's Bloggers Unite event, by donating to or writing about one of the organizations listed above, or by donating nonperisable items to your nearest food pantry.

Will Efforts to Halt Spread of Swine Flu Be Hampered By U.S. Sick Leave Policy?

As part of their effort to contain the spread of the strain of swine flu that has reportedly killed at least 149 people in Mexico, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is advising Americans who feel sick with flu-like symptoms to avoid public places and stay home from work or school. Parents are advised to keep sick children out of schools and daycare centers until they have been symptom-free for at least 48 hours.

But with no federal regulations requiring employers to grant their employees paid sick leave, many American workers may find it difficult to take such advice. Due to exemptions for part-time employees and employees of small businesses, only about half of all working Americans are even eligible for unpaid medical leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act.

In contrast, worldwide, 145 other countries mandate that employers provide their employees with some sort of paid sick leave or emergency medical leave; the United States has one of the least generous medical leave policies in the industrialized world, ranking 21st among industrialized nations. 

Low-income, hourly wage workers like retail store employees, restaurant wait staff, and child care center workers — some of the very people most in contact with the public on a daily basis as an integral part of their jobs — are among those least likely to have paid sick leave, or even the ability to take unpaid days off to recuperate from illness or care for their children without seriously risking their employment. What will these workers do if they or their children become ill, and they are forced to choose between having enough money for rent and food, or following the CDC guidelines?  

MomsRising recently posted about the potential negative impact of U.S. sick leave policy on government efforts to control the spread of the swine flu, and has created an online petition asking the U.S. government create new legislation to require employers to allow their employees time off for legitimate health emergencies in the interests of public health.

Health Reform: Sputter, Sputter, Stop?

 This is a hellacious week for many folks inside the Washington Beltway: budget resolution time. On Wednesday, the House and Senate Budget Committees started marking up -- Hill-speak for editing -- the FY2010 budget resolutions.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, "said he would leave out new spending for Obama's proposed expansion of health care coverage, a program likely to cost in excess of $1 trillion over the next 10 years, as well as the president's proposal to make permanent an $800 tax credit for working families. Lawmakers would be free to adopt those policies as long as they did not increase the deficit, Conrad said."

What does that mean exactly? Well, it means that any spending for health care reform -- for the program itself, to support workforce shortages, to improve infrastructure for health IT, etc. -- would have to be completely offset; that is, by a tax increase or spending cuts equal to the entire cost.

Now, the House is taking a different approach. They are piking the bipartisan approach and going for health reform via a budget reconciliation (BR) provision. BR was created in the 70s to rejigger spending or taxes within the budget resolution. Clinton used it in 1993 to raise fuel taxes and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit; Bush used it to pass his tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

So why is the budget reconciliation regarded as partisan?