What We're Reading - June 29
Spread the word
|
|
After two years of back and forth legal battles, the Supreme Court ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act — one of the greatest advancements in women’s health in a generation. But already, opponents of women’s health are threatening to repeal it. Here’s what we’re reading this morning…
Women will benefit under the new health care law. “Why The Obamacare Decision Is Very Good News For Women” – “SCOTUS has spoken: The U.S. Supreme Court just upheld the Affordable Care Act, saying that the individual mandate is constitutional as a tax. This is fantastic news for the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans. Women in particular should pop the champagne and celebrate. Of those millions of uninsured, 19 million are women. Up to 10.3 million of the low-income among them will now be covered by Medicaid by 2014 when the law goes into full effect. Although the uninsured tend to use less medical care, and therefore spend less than the insured, altogether they spend about $2.64 billion out of pocket each year. (Not to mention that being uninsured leads to a greater risk of death.) They can rest assured that the Supreme Court won’t get in the way of their insurance coverage, which should mean more accessible and affordable care. Women are big financial winners in this decision in other ways. The first is the elimination of gender rating, or charging women more because they’re women, pure and simple. The National Women’s Law Center recently found that in states that haven’t banned the practice, over 90% of the best selling plans charge women more than men, even though only 3% of them cover maternity services. In fact, even when maternity care is excluded, almost a third of plans charge women at least 30% more than men for the same coverage. One plan even charges 25-year-old women 85% more than men. All told, the practice costs women about $1 billion a year.”
The Supreme Court may have ruled, but the Catholic bishops will continue to fight. “Supreme Court ruling promises religious fights for the forseeable [sic] future” – “The Supreme Court’s decision Thursday to uphold the core of President Obama’s health care law guaranteed that the law and its potential impact on abortions and contraception will remain a powerfully divisive issue for religious groups for the forseeable [sic] future. Attorneys already challenging the law on behalf of mostly Catholic institutions said the decision opened the door for more future litigation. The decision immediately electrified religious progressives, including many Mainline Protestant and Reform Jewish leaders, who believe expanding coverage meets a core priority of Scripture to heal the sick. ‘In designing a health care system that was intended to include almost all of us and work better for everyone, we believed we were responding to a moral imperative to collectively care for one another. We saw the passage of health care reform as a statement about reclaiming the moral compass of our country,’ read a statement from two dozen national religious movements, including the United Methodist Church, the Reform Jewish movement and the Islamic Society of North America. Some who have worked on the issue of health care reform for years were in tears as they spoke to reporters. But others, primarily religious and political conservatives, said more litigation and activism against the law was essential to protect religious freedom.”
A lifelong Republican writes a letter to the editor in support of Planned Parenthood. “Republicans in Defense of Planned Parenthood” – “In ‘Planned Parenthood’s Self-Destructive Behavior’ (Sunday Review, June 24), Campbell Brown writes that the organization is ’driven by blind partisanship.’ That’s simply not true. As lifelong Republicans who have belonged to various party organizations, held leadership positions in the party and contributed to G.O.P. candidates, we are honored to lead Republicans for Planned Parenthood. For us, and for many other Republicans, Planned Parenthood reflects our values of individual responsibility and personal freedom. Presidents Richard M. Nixon and George H. W. Bush were stalwart advocates for family planning. Many Planned Parenthood affiliates were started by Republicans, and some are still led by Republicans today. The Planned Parenthood Action Fund has supported Republicans for years. Earlier this year, the organization changed its policies so that its federal political action committee would be able to donate to candidates who don’t have a 100 percent voting record on the organization’s issues, a change that was explicitly intended to make it easier to support moderate Republicans.”
