Health Bill Might Direct Tax Money to Abortion

[tricky]

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration official refused Sunday to rule out the possibility that federal tax money might be used to pay for abortions under proposed health care legislation.
Peter R. Orszag, the White House budget director, asked whether he was prepared to say that “no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions,” answered: “I am not prepared to say explicitly that right now. It’s obviously a controversial issue, and it’s one of the questions that is playing out in this debate.”
Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who along with Mr. Orszag was asked about the issue on “Fox News Sunday,” said it had the potential to complicate the legislative battle over health care. “I would hate to see the health care debate go down over that issue,” Mr. Gregg said.
Abortion has been simmering behind the scenes as an issue in legislation to guarantee access to health insurance for all Americans. The debate affects not only the public health insurance plan that Democrats want to create, but also private insurers, who would receive tens of billions of dollars of federal subsidies to cover people with low and moderate incomes.
Under the House bill, for example, most insurers would have to provide an “essential benefits package” specified by the health and human services secretary, who would receive recommendations from a federal advisory committee. Opponents of abortion want Congress to prohibit inclusion of abortion in that benefits package, while advocates of abortion rights say the package should be left to medical professionals to determine.
In an analysis of the House bill, the National Right to Life Committee said that ordinary principles of administrative law could allow the Obama administration to determine what would be included in the benefits package. “There is no doubt,” the group said, “that coverage of abortion will be mandated, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of federal authority to define ‘essential benefits.’ ”
Even if the health secretary did not require coverage of abortion, the group said, “federal courts would interpret the broadly worded mandatory categories of coverage to include abortion.”
Susan M. Pisano, a spokeswoman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, said that most insurance companies offered benefit packages that included abortion coverage but that many employers decided not to buy such packages.
Douglas D. Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said the House bill, like one approved last week by the Senate health committee, “would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade,” the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion.
In the three House committees that approved comprehensive health care bills last week, Republicans tried unsuccessfully to restrict coverage of abortion.
Since 1976, Congress has imposed sweeping restrictions on the use of federal money for abortions. The Hyde Amendment, for instance, prohibits the Medicaid program from spending federal money on most abortions.
But opponents of abortion said the proposed federal subsidies to be provided for coverage of the uninsured would not be subject to these restrictions.
Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary, was asked about the issue in April when her nomination was being considered by the Senate Finance Committee.
“Most private plans do not cover abortion services except in limited instances, but do cover family planning,” Ms. Sebelius said. “And Congress has limited the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan to covering abortion services only in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/he...0abortion.html



it's about time the fed gov decided to step in and help control the pet population

[HomoSexualPredator]

In other news, abstinence only education has been a smashing success:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthd...8105118&page=1

Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens
Trend Threatens to Reverse Years of Positive Change, CDC Researchers Say

By ROBERT PREIDT
July 19, 2009 —

Birth rates among U.S. teens increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991 to 2005, according to a new U.S. government study.

It found that previously improving trends in teens' and young adults' sexual and reproductive health have flattened or may be worsening in some cases.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers analyzed national data from 2002-2007. Among their findings:

About one-third of adolescents hadn't received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18.
In 2004, there were about 745,000 pregnancies among females younger than age 20. This included an estimated 16,000 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14.
Syphilis cases among young people aged 15 to 24 have increased in both males and females in recent years.
In 2006, about one million young people aged 10 to 24 were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis. Nearly one-quarter of females aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent of females aged 20 to 24 had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
From 1997 to 2006, rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15 to 24 increased.
In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among young people occurred among males and those aged 20 to 24.
From 2004 to 2006, about 100,000 females aged 10 to 24 visited a hospital emergency department for nonfatal sexual assault, including 30,000 females aged 10 to 14.
"This report identifies a number of concerns regarding the sexual and reproductive health of our nation's young people," Janet Collins, director of CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a news release.

"It is disheartening that after years of improvement with respect to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, we now see signs that progress is stalling and many of these trends are going in the wrong direction," she said.

The study also identified a number of racial/ethnic disparities in the sexual and reproductive health of young Americans. For example, Hispanic teens aged 15 to 19 are much more likely to become pregnant (132.8 births per 1,000 females) than non-Hispanic blacks (128 per 1,000) and non-Hispanic whites (45.2 per 1,000). The study also found that non-Hispanic black youth in all age groups have the highest rates of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses.

The study appears in the July 17 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the CDC.

[tricky]

where's the outrage?

[Hey Bubu]

how about, if you are on welfare for more than (x) amount of time and already have more than one dependent, you must be sterilized.....yes, no, maybe so?

[HomoSexualPredator]

Originally Posted by Hey Bubu

how about, if you are on welfare for more than (x) amount of time and already have more than one dependent, you must be sterilized.....yes, no, maybe so?

I second this! Or I would rather see folks have to get a license before they can have a kid, but I doubt that would ever happen.

[tricky]

Originally Posted by Hey Bubu

how about, if you are on welfare for more than (x) amount of time and already have more than one dependent, you must be sterilized.....yes, no, maybe so?

LaBruzzo: Sterilization plan fights poverty

Tying poor women's tubes could help taxpayers, legislator says
Wednesday, September 24, 2008 By Mark Waller
East Jefferson bureau

Worried that welfare costs are rising as the number of taxpayers declines, state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, said Tuesday he is studying a plan to pay poor women $1,000 to have their Fallopian tubes tied.
"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out," LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."
LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.
"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare," he said.
He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.
It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.
LaBruzzo, 38, is white, married to a lawyer, has a toddler daughter and holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University.
He is serving his second term in the Legislature, where he drew attention this year for advocating the controversial legislative pay raise and for trying to abolish the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway Commission and its Police Department.
His 81st House District runs from Old Metairie north to Bucktown and west along Lake Pontchartrain to the Suburban Canal. In a somewhat different configuration, it is the same district that sent white supremacist David Duke to the Legislature in 1989.
LaBruzzo described the tube-tying incentive as a brainstorming exercise that has yet to take form as a bill for the Legislature to consider. He said it already has drawn critics who argue the idea is racist, sexist, unethical and immoral. He said more white people are on welfare than black people, so his proposal is not targeting race....
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital...730.xml&coll=1

[Deff Gordon]

i think if you want a kid you must have a certain GPA or income level. if not, then you must take a test. there are far too many stupids running around and they must be exterminated. the world would be a far greater place. poor neighborhoods should have a clinic on every corner... right next to the liquor store.

[kELSEY]

lol. Idiocracy is real.

[Tyler Durden]

All the trailer parks in Arizona are gated communities.


We're trying the containment approach.

[tricky]

Originally Posted by Deff Gordon

i think if you want a kid you must have a certain GPA or income level. if not, then you must take a test. there are far too many stupids running around and they must be exterminated. the world would be a far greater place. poor neighborhoods should have a clinic on every corner... right next to the liquor store.

Don't forgot the check cashing store and the gun store

[vinnie97]

Originally Posted by HomoSexualPredator

In other news, abstinence only education has been a smashing success:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthd...8105118&page=1

Pregnancy, STDs on the Rise Again Among U.S. Teens
Trend Threatens to Reverse Years of Positive Change, CDC Researchers Say

By ROBERT PREIDT
July 19, 2009 —

Birth rates among U.S. teens increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991 to 2005, according to a new U.S. government study.

It found that previously improving trends in teens' and young adults' sexual and reproductive health have flattened or may be worsening in some cases.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers analyzed national data from 2002-2007. Among their findings:

About one-third of adolescents hadn't received instruction on methods of birth control before age 18.
In 2004, there were about 745,000 pregnancies among females younger than age 20. This included an estimated 16,000 pregnancies among girls aged 10 to 14.
Syphilis cases among young people aged 15 to 24 have increased in both males and females in recent years.
In 2006, about one million young people aged 10 to 24 were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea or syphilis. Nearly one-quarter of females aged 15 to 19, and 45 percent of females aged 20 to 24 had a human papillomavirus (HPV) infection during 2003-2004.
From 1997 to 2006, rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15 to 24 increased.
In 2006, the majority of new diagnoses of HIV infection among young people occurred among males and those aged 20 to 24.
From 2004 to 2006, about 100,000 females aged 10 to 24 visited a hospital emergency department for nonfatal sexual assault, including 30,000 females aged 10 to 14.
"This report identifies a number of concerns regarding the sexual and reproductive health of our nation's young people," Janet Collins, director of CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, said in a news release.

"It is disheartening that after years of improvement with respect to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, we now see signs that progress is stalling and many of these trends are going in the wrong direction," she said.

The study also identified a number of racial/ethnic disparities in the sexual and reproductive health of young Americans. For example, Hispanic teens aged 15 to 19 are much more likely to become pregnant (132.8 births per 1,000 females) than non-Hispanic blacks (128 per 1,000) and non-Hispanic whites (45.2 per 1,000). The study also found that non-Hispanic black youth in all age groups have the highest rates of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses.

The study appears in the July 17 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published by the CDC.

Is this any surprise? The media is constantly glorifying sex mostly ignoring the consequences...abstinence education has little effect on a culture in free fall (love ain't free, sex has consequences, et. al).

[tricky]

Originally Posted by vinnie97

Is this any surprise? The media is constantly glorifying sex mostly ignoring the consequences...abstinence education has little effect on a culture in free fall (love ain't free, sex has consequences, et. al).

The media? How about the fact people have been fucking for 200,00 years and that's not gonna stop anytime soon.

[matt]

abortions for everyone! i for one cant wait until i can get all of my abortions for free!

[vinnie97]

No shit but you cannot tell me with a straight face that rampant sex on TV and in movies does not have an effect, especially on those who are not of legal age. Yea, some blame can go to the parents also.

And I don't disagree that baby mommas should get their tubes tied...or that sugar daddies should get the snip, starting with this idiot, and all of his hoes: http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/45871127.html

[vinnie97]

Originally Posted by matt

abortions for everyone! i for one cant wait until i can get all of my abortions for free!

You have ovaries and a uterus?