QUOTE OF THE DAY
“In a recent exchange with constituents, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) explained that as a man he should not be forced to pay for—either through his taxes that support programs like Medicaid or through a broader pool of insurance holders that include women—the maternity care of others now that he and his wife have decided to not have any more children.”
In the meantime, Happy Women’s Health Week. HEALTH
- It took the Times editorial board a while to pick up on ways in which the AHCA threatens women’s health. Helpful list of what the AHCA will do: (1) defund Planned Parenthood by taking away the right to use Medicaid to pay for its services (about 1.25 million women nationwide rely on Medicaid for these); (2) put essential services (EHBs, essential health benefits) at risk, including mammograms, birth control, prenatal and maternity care, while “plans that offer maternity care could become prohibitively expensive”; (3) cut Medicaid by $880 billion over ten years—more than one-half of all births are currently paid for by Medicaid; (4) allow states to opt out of covering pre-existing conditions, many of which affect women disproportionately (lupus, MS, depression). It may even become possible to deny coverage to women who have had a C-section or make such coverage so costly women cannot pay for it; (5) endanger abortion coverage by barring use of federal funds to pay for it—which, in turn, may prompt private insurers (individual, group, employer-sponsored) to no longer cover it.
After receiving criticism (not from the Times, though, which is late to this particular nuance of the repeal and replace undertaking), the boys did invite Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) to sit in on a meeting, though it’s not clear whether she’ll be invited back.
- There may not be any women on the Senate working group to hone a version of the AHCA that can pass with only Republican votes, but the defunding of Planned Parenthood via massive cuts to Medicaid is shaping up as a potential deal-breaker. There are Democratic senators who vote pro-choice but who are personally pro-life (Bob Casey, R-PA; Tim Kaine, R-VA); there are Republican senators who are pro-choice (Susan Collins, R-ME), and there are senators of both parties who are one or the other and facing a difficult choice when the Senate version of the AHCA comes to a vote. Also, “If the Senate bill embraces the House position, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has said she’ll seek to strip that provision. And if the Senate’s health care bill doesn’t take aim at Planned Parenthood, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) or another conservative is likely to pursue a vote to target the group.”
Meanwhile, see the previous link and comment—no women involved in decision-taking.
- This is Women’s Health Week (sic), and POTUS issued a glowing statement in support of enhanced healthcare for women: “Ensuring affordable, accessible, and quality health care is critical to improving women’s health and ensuring that it fits their priorities at any stage of life,” he noted. The AHCA is of a different opinion: “Under the House bill that was passed last month, the American Health Care Act, funding for Medicaid, which covers approximately 40 percent of pregnancies, would be slashed. In addition, federal funds for Planned Parenthood would be cut for a year. The bill would also prohibit the use of federal tax credits to buy insurance that includes coverage of abortion. States would also be allowed under the legislation to seek waivers of provisions of the Affordable Care Act that require insurers to cover maternity care.”
- More on POTUS’s statement with analysis of its multiple repercussions in Twitter-world, with some outstanding examples of 140-character take-downs.
Takeaway quote to commit to memory: “Its (the AHCA’s) benefits will go, first and foremost, to billionaires who make more money from investments than from work. The 400 highest-earning households in the country will get an average tax break of $7 million per year under the Republican plan” (political scientist Richard Eskow).
Second takeaway quote, possibly not to be committed to memory: “In a recent exchange with constituents, Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) explained that as a man he should not be forced to pay for—either through his taxes that support programs like Medicaid or through a broader pool of insurance holders that include women—the maternity care of others now that he and his wife have decided to not have any more children. Perry stirred the anger of many by invoking the concept of ‘personal responsibility’ and then equating the necessity of quality maternity care with the desire by some to own luxury automobiles.”
We’ve heard Perry’s argument a hundred times before, usually applied in the case of taxes for public schools: “I don’t have any children/my children are adults. Why should I have to pay for other people’s children’s educations?”
Er, that’s what’s called a public service, sir. And because it’s in the long-term interests of everyone—including the childless—to benefit from an educated citizenry, everyone contributes to its support.
Perhaps Perry and his colleagues don’t really believe it’s in his interest to have a healthy female population, or a healthy child population in the U.S. It’s sauve qui peut in Scott Perryland.
More on Perry’s Town Hall meeting in mid-March.
- Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell turns to Ted Cruz (R-TX) to figure out an ACA Repeal and Replace bill that will pass the Senate.
Details: the 13-member (all-male) Senate working group is a way of bypassing the relevant Senate committees who would normally discuss the bill (Finance, HELP) and taking it directly to the floor; Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) wants a 100% repeal but would be satisfied with only 80%; there is only one moderate Republican (Rob Portman, R-OH) on the working group.
This doesn’t look good. The results will be lack of transparency and a quick vote.
ENVIRONMENT
- The EPA decides that Pebble Mine (owned by the Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd.) can proceed with its permit request for a gold-copper-lead mine in Alaska near the wild salmon fishing grounds of Bristol Bay.
- Additional details on l’affaire gold in Alaska’s Bristol Bay: “The legal settlement was reached late Thursday, the Washington Post reported, and reverses an Obama-era determination that Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. could not apply to a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers for the project because Pebble Mine would cause ‘significant near- and long-term risk to salmon, wildlife, and Native Alaska cultures’ in the region. The EPA’s 2014 decision has now been removed from its website.” The fisheries of Bristol Bay provide nearly 50% of the world’s supply of wild sockeye salmon. “More than 65 percent of Alaskans, 80 percent of Bristol Bay residents and Native communities, and 85 percent of commercial fishermen oppose the mine.”
- Pebble Mine would become the largest open-pit mine in North America, extending across an area the size of Manhattan: The EPA has agreed to withdraw its suit against the mining company, which makes it possible to initiate a new permit process.
- Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante are the Big Prize for drillers, developers, mining corporations, lumber companies: 90% of Bears Ears and 42% of Grand Staircase Escalante (which is on a large coal seam) sit above potentially-exploitable fossil fuel reserves. “Months before the designation the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining approved drilling applications by EOG Resources — one of the largest independent oil companies in the US — on land that is now within the monument boundaries. EOG has retained its rights to explore and drill in Bears Ears because the designation only restricts new leasing.” Other declared monuments which rest atop fossil fuel deposits include: (1) Carrizo Plain (California); (2) the San Gabriel Mountains just outside Los Angeles; (3) the Upper Missouri River (MT), and (4) Canyons of the Ancients (CO).
- The Secretary of the Interior flies to Utah, dismounts, er, deplanes, mounts horse, rides around part of Bears Ears, accompanied by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) (not on horseback), forgets to speak with representatives of the Navajo.
JUSTICE
- The Post looks, again, at violence in Baltimore, against the background of a baby girl who survived her father’s killing in March. Baltimore is facing a severe uptick in its murder rate this year, and nobody seems able to envision a way out of the crisis, which involves the population, the city’s leadership, and the BPD.
- Scotusblog reviews a retrospective discussion held in Washington on Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), the landmark case which deemed that all defendants throughout the U.S. were entitled to counsel at their trials, regardless of their ability to pay.
- A federal judge in Illinois grants class action status to a case, Lippert v. Baldwin, being brought against the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) by inmates in Illinois state prisons. “Illinois has endangered the health of thousands of people locked in our prisons for many years. Prisoners are provided care which is so inadequate that serious illnesses are left untreated, people are forced to live in pain for months with easily treatable conditions, and in some cases have suffered permanent damage, had legs amputated, and even died as a result” (Alan Mills of the Uptown People’s Law Center, one of the attorneys representing the state’s 45,000 prisoners).
EDUCATION
- Thanks to North Carolina, which—just when you thought they couldn’t do anything more blatant— cuts education funding from Democratic districts only. This came about in the middle of the night, literally (3 am), in the form of a rider to what appeared to be a bi-partisan bill to make more funding ($1 million) available to fight the state’s opioid epidemic. But the money to do so will come from programs that support teachers and students in Democratic, largely African-American school districts, and included cuts to funding for early college high schools, a STEM program that assisted many low-income students, and a ban on financial support of teacher assistants working towards degrees in seven Democratic counties. This is only the latest in a “continuing Republican assault on public education in North Carolina, which in the past five years has included severe budget cuts, the promotion of charter schools and school vouchers without sufficient oversight, and the elimination of due-process rights for many teachers.”
- The charter-school scene in heavily charterized Minnesota is a veritable playground for billionaires. The group “Minnesota Comeback” goes after Diane Ravitch, Rob Levine, and Sarah Lahm, the author of the post. h/t Peter Greene (curmudgucation)
- Morna McDermott writes a letter in response to the New York Times’ recent piece “How Google Took Over the Classroom”. Among the negative consequences of over-exposure to electronic devices: (1) increased risk of obesity; (2) loss of socialization and social (emotional) cuing; (3) physical damage to eyes, hand/wrists, back/neck; (4) loss of data privacy; (5) increase in ADHD-like symptoms (loss of focus); (6) an adrenaline-driven attitude towards learning.
That’s quite a list, and each negative consequence is in itself worrying.
MONDAY MISCELLANY
- …is being replaced today by “Food for Thought”: POTUS is preparing for his first international trip, which will include Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Brussels and Sicily.
- … and by a short foray to the other side, for which see Kurt Schlicter’s opinion piece, “The Liberals are an Inferno of Flaming Crazy and We Should Pour Gasoline on the Fire.” A representative excerpt: “All this insanity is going to help us normals retain power, from your gyno-hat marches to the fake hate crimes to your insistence that the Russians are responsible for everything from Hillary losing the election to the rarely-discussed but well-known liberal epidemic of ED.”
Well, we learned something today—medical conditions run not only in families, but in political parties.
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