glitter-femin1sts:

ladylarrie:

I mean, honestly. The baby can’t thank you if he or she is dead. Let’s get real.

You dingbat.

Fun fact- Planned Parenthood does much more than abortion! They actually have prenatal care, among other things.

You should do research before you spew things off.

Abortion services only account for roughly 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s operations. Planned Parenthood offers contraception and STD testing (for both men and women), cancer screenings and preventative services, information on a wide variety of reproductive health care topics, and for a lot of low-income women, Planned Parenthood is their only health care option.

And guess what? Federal law forbids the 3 percent that does cover abortion services to use money Planned Parenthood receives from the federal government. Ever heard of the Hyde Amendment? It outlaws government money being used for abortion services; the very thing “pro-lifers” gripe about is already against the law.

So the next time the “pro-life” crowd wants to attack Planned Parenthood, remember: it’s not really about abortion. They just want to deprive women (particularly those with lower incomes) of access to health care.

Not very pro-life of them, is it?

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

Because he wants to dismantle Medicare and toss senior citizens back into the private health insurance market — with coupons.

My grandmother is 78 years old. In the last four years, she has been diagnosed with lymphoma and colon cancer. She’s had surgery, two bouts of chemotherapy, and radiation. While undergoing treatment for her lymphoma, she developed congestive heart failure.

But today, she is cancer-free and her heart failure is under control via medication. Throughout her entire ordeal, my grandmother has paid nothing for her treatment. She has not received one bill. Not once have doctors told her something can’t be done because it won’t be covered.

With that peace of mind, my grandmother was able to just focus on getting better.

I want senior citizens to continue having that peace of mind that Medicare promises them. In fact, I hope one day this country will be able to extend that promise to everyone.

If Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan move into the White House in January, that promise is in serious, serious jeopardy. And I will be damned if I’m going to let that happen.

justinspoliticalcorner:

Via Jed Lewison at Daily Kos: Obama: ‘The law I passed is here to stay’

I will work with anybody who wants to work with me to continue to improve our health care system and our health care laws, but the law I passed is here to stay. …

We will not go back to the days when insurance companies could descriminate against people just because they were sick. We’re not going to tell six million young people who are now on their parents health insurance plans that suddenly they don’t have health insurance. We’re not going to allow Medicare to be turned into a voucher system.

Now is not the time to spend four more years refighting battles we fought two years ago. Now is the time to move forward and make sure that every American has affordable health insurance and that insurance companies are treating them fairly. That’s what we fought for, that’s what we’re going to keep. We are moving forward.

One last thing worth pointing out is that President Obama linked his Obamacare with his opposition to the Republican plan to replace Medicare with vouchers. Romney will try to claim that Obamacare represents a $500 billion cut to Medicare benefits, which is not true. But what is true is that Romney supports ending Medicare as we know it, and if and when Romney makes that claim in a debate or a television ad, Obama already has his response ready—and it’s an effective one.

Further elaborating on the point about Mitt Romney supporting the eradication of Medicare: that’s one of the main tenets of the budget advocated by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) — a budget that passed the House of Representatives and failed in the Senate (as anyone who’d been paying attention knew it would). Rep. Ryan’s plan replaced Medicare with a program in which senior citizens were offered vouchers (think coupons) with which to purchase health insurance.

Romney has endorsed and supported Rep. Ryan’s plan.

It’s no coincidence that Romney and his supporters have been mum about the Ryan budget in recent months. The budget itself is out of the news now that it’s clear that it can’t pass both houses of Congress, and Romney knows advocating a plan that would eviscerate Medicare would prove disastrous for him as he pivots from the primary to the general election.

But if the above comments are any indication, the Obama campaign may not let him forget those words. Make no mistake: Romney advocates a budget that would place an unbelievable burden on senior citizens — the health insurance market, even with President Obama’s reforms, is a brutal place for seniors, which is a large part of what makes Medicare so important (and popular).

That’s why I think President Obama will win re-election; there is nothing Romney can throw at him that he doesn’t have a response to. Let Romney hit him on health care; the president can show a) that it’s working, and b) that it’s virtually the same plan Romney signed when he was governor of Massachusetts.

Let Romney claim President Obama is weak on national security; the president can point to the SEALs’ killing of Osama bin Laden, the fall of Gaddafi, and the drawdown of the war in Iraq.

Let Romney hit President Obama for unemployment (which he will, over and over and over again); the president can point to 27 straight months of private-sector job growth, as well as the fact that he offered a jobs plan — only to have it blocked by a Republican-controlled House of Representatives more intent of restricting access to abortion, gutting environmental regulations, and repealing health care reform.

It appears the president is going on offense a little as the campaign heats up, and if that’s the case, then I feel confident about President Obama’s re-election chances — assuming people actually go out and vote.

Now, about giving Congress back to the Democrats…

(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)

Rachel Maddow (via many-worlds)

The real reasons health care reform matters so much.

(via historynerd91)

Truth be told, health care reform (known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — henceforth, I will refer to it as ACA) is far from perfect. It’s as far from perfect as I could ever craft a piece of legislation designed to expand access to health care.

If I’d had my way, the private, for-profit health insurance industry would no longer exist, and Medicare would cover everyone in this country. We’d have a national, universal plan — like just about every other industrialized nation in this world — and no one would have to worry about going broke because of medical bills ever again.

However, such a plan (known as single-payer) was never politically possible; in fact, it was taken off the proverbial table before the debate even begun. To find out why, Google political donations from health insurance companies and you’ll have your answer.

When this bill was being debated, a compromise to single-payer was discussed called the public option. Essentially, this bill creates insurance exchanges, available starting in 2014, designed to increase competition in the market and drive down prices. One of the plans that would’ve been available in the exchanges — the public option — was a government-run alternative available to those who were not already covered.

Because of political malfeasance (from Republicans and a couple Democrats in the Senate), the public option never passed, either. This left us with a long, complicated piece of legislation that prompted people to buy insurance (the individual mandate), without offering a profit-free alternative.

On the surface, the ACA appeared to be a bailout of the insurance industry.

But there’s a say in politics: “Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” A lot of liberal voices were apoplectic when the public option died, saying health care reform was no longer worth the effort. Without the public option, they argued, there was no point.

Never mind what the ACA, which survived today when the Supreme Court decided 5-4 the law — and its individual mandate — was constitutional, actually does.

There is no single payer, there is no public option. But the reforms housed within the ACA are worthwhile, and they serve as a check against the private insurance companies. If some liberals had their way, and the ACA died when the public option fell through, we’d be in the same state we were before the ACA passed.

Pre-existing conditions would still be a problem, both for children (who are now protected) and adults (who will be protected once the exchanges are formed in 2014). People could still lose their policies simply because of getting sick (called rescission — no longer legal thanks to the ACA).

Because of the ACA, young people can remain on their parents’ insurance plans until they turn 26 — a godsend for recent college graduates struggling in a difficult job market. Because of the ACA, senior citizens are receiving rebates as the law slowly closes Medicare’s doughnut hole.

Because of the ACA, insurance companies how have to spend 80-85 percent of premiums on actual health care — and refund you the difference if they don’t. Because of the ACA, insurance companies have to inform you (and regulators) if they plan on raising premiums.

If President Obama and the Democrats packed up and went home once the public option bit the dust — as many suggested — none of those advances would be possible. There is plenty of work to be done — the ACA does not offer universal coverage — but this law does good things.

More importantly, assuming we re-elect President Obama and the Democrats can regain control of both houses of Congress (which means we have to vote), we can build on this law down the road. No one ever said the ACA was the end-all, be-all of health care law in this country.

The reason we haven’t seen additions to the ACA is that we’ve spent so much time defending it the last two years — both in court and against repeal attempts in the GOP-controlled House.

The ACA is helping people, and it will continue to do so over the next few years while more and more of its provisions take effect. There is further work to be done, both in terms of expanding access and reducing costs, but the ACA is a solid start. I’m glad the Democrats didn’t abandon the bill, and I’m glad conservative attempts to undo it have, to this point, failed.

You want to scream about all the things wrong with the ACA? Fine, go right ahead. There are flaws with this law — no piece of legislation is ever perfect — but it is doing good things, and there is opportunity to do more in the future.

Keep fighting for single payer; just don’t disregard this law along the way.

If Health Insurance Mandates Are Unconstitutional, Why Did the Founding Fathers Back Them?

(submitted by ladiesmakingcomics)

Well, now…learn something new every day, huh?

I’d like to think this was part of the Obama administration’s defense during Supreme Court deliberation, but somehow I doubt it.

truth-has-a-liberal-bias:

foulmouthedliberty:

~le sigh

Republican “logic”

The depressing part is how accurate this is…

Posting this not just because it’s Rachel Maddow published in The Washington Post, but because it’s an important piece in light of the current (asinine) debate going on in D.C.

liberalsarecool:

It took 400 years for the Vatican to apologize to Galileo, the “father of Physics and Modern Science”, for his views on heliocentrism. How many years before they figure out protecting millions from disease would have been a worthy cause?

Human suffering is a cause worth fighting. Correct?

Wholeheartedly agree. It’s a shame that institutions trusted with spreading the word of their particular faith have perverted said faith beyond recognition for their own dangerous, hedonistic needs.

Birth control is not just about having sex without the purpose of procreation; condoms are also effective against STDs (including HIV/AIDS). Female contraceptives also have other benefits; I know of several women who take birth control pills for reasons completely unrelated to sex and/or pregnancy.

This isn’t a case of being able to have sex without consequences; that is what the religious right (which is neither) refuses to understand. This is about health, and when you tell a woman she cannot have access to birth control, or she can’t have access to the abortion she wants or needs, then you’re telling her she can’t have health care.

And that is wrong on SO MANY LEVELS.