Middle Aged White Guys Stuck Together in a Blizzard Get in Mischief
December 19, 2009 by Michelle Kraus
What’s with these middle aged white guys? Why in every compromise on health care reform do they throw women under the bus as the proverbial road kill? By gosh, maybe they could pick on another group for once, and give us all a break!
The concessions made to Democratic Senator Ben Nelson are enormous, maybe bigger than those made to the highjack girls — Senators Landrieu and Lincoln! Nelson made out like a bandit. The people of his home state Nebraska should be very proud of the deal he cut on Medicaid dollars for eternity. Majority Leader Reid gave away the kitchen cabinet to get Nelson’s vote – yet left some discretion for inclusion of anti-abortion language in the final bill to be voted upon Monday morning at 1 AM. What’s that all about?
According to NOW, “The provision was drafted to gain the vote of abortion rights opponent Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and is a complicated variation of Stupak-Pitts. It allows any state to prohibit abortion coverage in health insurance exchanges. In addition, all funds that would pay for abortion services would have to be segregated from other private funds and federal subsidies. This requirement would apply to the tens of millions of women who would buy their insurance under the new exchanges and, in the opinion of expert health policy analysts, would mean that insurers simply would not provide abortion coverage in the exchange plans. Eventually, insurers would stop offering abortion coverage altogether.”
And if this is not bad enough, rumor has it from Politico that Congressman Bart Stupak is back colluding with the GOP about abortion coverage. He is like the gift that keeps on giving. The irony is that all of these middle aged white guys are all snow bound together. The airports are closed. DC is at a stand still. One would hope that they could reframe the conversation without getting into any more mischief that jeopardizes the health and well being of millions of US women.
Please keep women’s health care fair, safe and covered.
