Monday evening, after a rousing speech in Philadelphia pushing for health reform passage, President Obama will celebrate International Women’s Day with a White House reception honoring women around the world for their achievements.

This recognition is important. However, International Women’s Day – the brainchild of a group of predominantly socialist women with revolutionary dreams of equality and basic human rights for all – presents an opportunity for a little more expansive thinking on the part of the Obama administration.

One item that’s ripe for rethinking, ASAP: the gender discrimination that is burning a hole through the Senate health reform bill that’s headed for a House vote next week.

Though the Senate bill lacks the Stupak stamp of shame, it certainly doesn’t come up short in the department of reactionary anti-choice provisions. Currently, the vast majority of private health plans cover abortion procedures. The Senate plan endorsed by President Obama would severely complicate payments for abortion-inclusive plans, requiring individuals covered by those plans to write two separate checks – one to cover abortion procedures and one for all other coverage. Insurers then must deposit abortion payments and everything-else payments into two separate accounts.

Chances are, the new regulations would drive insurance companies to drop abortion coverage from their plans, according to health policy analysts. These eliminations would impact millions of Americans: more than one-third of adult women in the US have had at least one abortion. When it comes to choice, the health reform plan in its current state marks a dangerous step backward.

The bill’s shortcomings for women don’t stop at abortion. Earlier in the health-care-push season, Obama promised a plan that would eliminate “gender rating” – the practice of charging more for women’s coverage than for men’s. Gender rating is still going strong in 40 states. Insurance companies rally around the excuse that the policy is “actuarially based”; that women cost more to insure than men, mostly due to pregnancy- and birth-related medical care. Beneath that flimsy statistical veil, it’s blatant discrimination:
Insurance companies acknowledged that themselves 40 years ago when they abandoned race as a price-determining factor.

Despite the president’s promise, the Senate bill upon which we’re pinning our hopes for health reform would not eradicate gender rating. It would openly permit the practice for employers of businesses with 100 employees or more, giving large employers an obvious incentive to hire men over women to keep down insurance costs.
Gender rating also puts businesses with a mostly female workforce – childcare centers, some school districts and nurse associations – at a disadvantage. According to the National Women’s Law Center, “One such employer with a predominantly female workforce estimated that, due to gender rating, her annual premiums were $2,000 higher per employee.”

As the health care debate drags on and on, there’s a lot of shushing going around. Many leading Democrats are hoping to sweep the Senate bill’s discriminatory flaws under the rug. After all, health reform is desperately needed, and it would be really nice to finally push a passable bill through before we all lose our sanity (not to mention our insurance).

However, as it stands, the health reform bill would endanger the basic human rights of many women. This International Women’s Day, it’s time for Congress and the president to stop ignoring the bill’s consequences for women’s health coverage – and start discussing options for averting them.

Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards calls for Congress to fix the legislation’s abortion caveats during reconciliation – a move that could prove very difficult, since reconciliation is designed to address only items that are relevant to the budget. Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check notes that the only route to a true repair job may be a “future bill aimed at making technical fixes to health reform.”

Either way, the work to protect women’s health coverage from these sweeping restrictions and limitations must begin now. As the International Women’s Day reception festivities wind down at the White House tonight, the president should do some hard thinking about how to ensure the basic human right of health care for women here at home.

Creative Commons License

Questions to Ponder from Choice Matters
Where are the leaders of 2010?
When did we forget how to demand to be counted?
When will women say “No More” and mean it?

 This is NOT the Pro-Choice  President we were promised in November 2008!

 The stark reality is that the President’s bill which is modeled after the Senate bill, as it now stands, will result in greater restrictions to access to abortion than any federal law.

 By adopting the Nelson Amendment, the President has basically incorporated  the Stupak Amendment!

The President’s bill, if adopted as it is now written, is a betrayal of all women, and specifically targets middle income and lower income women, and students.

Say NO! Click here to send a post card to President Obama, your senators, and your House delegates telling them No to the Nelson and Stupak Amendments. 

 The President’s Proposal=the Nelson Amendment=the Stupak Amendment

 If signed into law, abortion coverage that women can now obtain will be gone. Insurance companies are already on record saying they will not provide abortion coverage because they cannot afford the onerous obstacles this proposal puts in their path.

 The end result is the same: no abortion coverage in health care reform.

For details about these two amendments click:

The Stupak and Nelson Amendments – Know the Facts

 We must demand that the President drop the Nelson/Stupak amendments from his bill AND that our Senators refuse to support any bill that includes these amendments.

“Peter Harckham has stood up for women’s reproductive health as a County Legislator and will continue to do so in Albany. Harckham is a strong fresh voice for women. He supports a woman’s right to choose and understands the reproductive health issues confronting women.”
Catherine Lederer-Plaskett, President, WCLA – Choice Matters

Tuesday, February 9th, there is a Special Election in the 89th Assembly District to determine who will represent YOU in the New York State Assembly if you live in Mount Kisco, Bedford, Pound Ridge, Lewisboro, Harrison, North Castle, New Castle, and White Plains.

This seat became vacant when Adam Bradley was overwhelmingly elected Mayor of White Plains.

Please remember to vote if you live in this district, and, if you know anyone who lives there, please let them know how important this Special Election is.

In a Special Election–where the turnout is historically low–every vote matters.

Your one vote could change the outcome of this election.

Please share this post!

But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Not much was getting done because the extreme right wing of the Democratic Party was holding the rest of its Senators, and thus the country, hostage. Just look at how effectively Nelson and Lieberman used the threat of withholding their votes to decimate health care reform. That’s exactly why the Senate bill includes the Nelson Amendment—and they were just getting started.

In an interview with LifeSiteNews.com, Nelson announced he would have held the health care bill hostage once again when another 60 vote threshold was required, demanding that to get his vote, the Senate would to have incorporate an even harsher, anti-choice, anti-abortion rights amendment which he refers to as Nelson/Hatch/Casey.

Here’s a little insight: Perhaps more than anything else it was a matter of bringing Coal to Newcastle.*

Why would anyone go to Massachusetts and try to sell health care reform as the reason to elect a candidate?? Massachusetts is one of the few places in this country that actually has a mandated health care plan. Its residents know up-close and personal the pros and cons of mandated care. Why would a Massachusetts voter think it was a great thing to use his or her tax dollars to pay for health care reform in Nebraska? Massachusetts is already paying for Massachusetts!

Yes, Scott Brown ran a good campaign, but it wasn’t perfect! The Democratic machine simply failed to do its homework. Had they talked about the tax savings for the nation at-large if the uninsured no longer had to use emergency rooms for medical care, perhaps the unemployed, under-employed, and the simply-making-it-by would have stopped and listened. The Democrats failed to listen to the issues particular to the people of Massachusetts.

There are national issues, local issues and universal ones. The Democrats tried to make national concerns local ones without defining the universal elements and truths.

*For those who are unfamiliar with this reference: Newcastle Coal

In 2006, when running for Senate, Ford unequivocally stated that he was anti-choice.

Please click on the video below and listen to Ford in his own words.

Now, Ford wants you to believe differently.

He knows that New York voters are pro-choice voters so he has decided to rewrite the past.

In an interview with the New York Post (1/13/10), Ford said, “I am pro-choice — have always been since I entered politics almost 15 years ago.”

Children have an appropriate chant, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

Here’s a little more:

That provision would likely mean that in many conservative states, there would be no abortion coverage in the commercial insurance plans that would be sold to consumers through these state exchanges. (Please see below for more details on this amendment.)

We, the pro-choice community, stand together in the belief that women should not lose ground in the new health-care system. That is not health care reform.

As NOW president Terry O’Neil said, “Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care, and health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.”

Although the Senate bill includes other provisions that stand to improve women’s access to reproductive-health services, the language of the Nelson amendment regarding abortion coverage comes at too great a price for reproductive health.

What Next
Remember this is not the end. The Senate will reconvene at 1 a.m. Monday for a procedural vote, with the final vote scheduled for Christmas Eve.

Then the Senate bill must be reconciled with the House bill.

What We Can Do
First, keep up the pressure on the Senate!
Get on the phone and call your Senators TODAY at 1-877-264-4226 OR 1-202-224-3121.

For Senator Schumer:
Telephone: 202-228-3027
Fax: 202-224-0420
http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm

For Senator Gillibrand:
Telephone: 202-224-4451
Fax: 202-228-0282
http://gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/

If you don’t know who or where to call or email? Visit http://www.senate.gov/.

Let Your Senators Know:
1. You Vote and You Oppose the New Nelson Amendment;
2. The Senate bill already contained the abortion restrictions of current law, and the New Nelson amendment must go.

Next, Contact Your House Representatives!
Get on the phone and call your Representatives TODAY. They are back in their districts. You can also click here to find their contact information.

Let Them Know:
1. You Vote and You Oppose the New Nelson Amendment and the Stupak-Pitts Amendment;
2. The Capps Amendment already contained the abortion restrictions of current law, and the New Nelson amendment and Stupak-Pitts Amendments must go.

While you have their attention, ask your Senators and Representatives:
1. When did it become the right of individual states to pick and choose which federally recognized civil rights they will enforce and which ones they will ignore or obstruct?
2. What would they do if a state refused to enforce anti-Jim Crow legislation or desegregation laws?
3. States that only provide exchanges that do not include abortion are doing just that. They are picking and choosing!

Your House members are now home in their districts, and your Senators will be soon, as well. The holiday season is a good opportunity to drop by their district offices or call them. Demand that they stand strong against the new Nelson Amendment and the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

Details about the New Nelson Amendment
(from Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need)

“Legislative experts are still evaluating what the new language on abortion will mean in practice, but here are some bullets on what we think we know so far:
* States can choose to prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges they will be setting up. That would affect private plans offered through the exchange, and it would affect all women getting insurance through the exchange whether they receive subsidies or not.
* Federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortion services except as allowed by the appropriation for the Department of Health & Human Services. This is confirms that as long as the Hyde amendment restrictions — prohibiting use of federal funds to pay for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or threat of life to the mother — are in place, federal funds cannot be used to pay for abortion services in this health insurance plan either.
* Any person who enrolls in an insurance plan that covers abortion will have to make two separate payments – one to pay for the cost of the abortion services in the plan and another for the rest of the services. It’s not a rider, but it’s likely to create some of the same barriers that making abortion coverage available through riders would have. For example, people may be less likely to choose the plan that covers abortion, just as they would have gone without the abortion rider, because the separate payments will highlight their decision to buy abortion coverage, something they might like to keep private, and because they don’t anticipate needing the coverage.
* Insurance plans have to estimate the cost of abortion coverage and segregate the funds received to pay for that coverage. The estimate must not be less than $1 per enrollee, per month. State insurance commissioners must ensure that plans are complying with the requirement to segregate funds.
* Plans that cover abortion must provide consumers with notice of that coverage as part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment.
* When information is provided about plans in advertising or by the exchanges or by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, it will report the payments in a combined way, rather than dividing cost of the abortion coverage from that of other services.
* Health plans cannot discriminate against providers or facilities because they’re unwilling to provide abortion.
* No state laws are pre-empted by abortion provisions of the bill, and no federal laws on abortion will be affected either.”

ELECTION 2010
This Health Care Reform Process is a clear example of the importance of the election of only 100% pro-choice candidates to office.

In Congress and the New York State Senate anti-choice lawmakers still outnumber pro-choice leaders.

Choice Matters needs your help to change this.

We have made progress over the years, but in local elections we saw success by anti-choice forces with the election of a Right-to-Life County Executive and an anti-choice County Vice-Chair.

Support Choice Matters through contributions and volunteering. The battle over the 2010 elections has already begun!

Thank you for standing by your pro-choice convictions and supporting women’s access to abortion.

Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who proposed the Senate version of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, says he will not vote for the final bill without additional restrictions on abortion coverage.

Yesterday, President Obama met with anti-choice Senator Robert Casey (D-Pa.) to discuss options for the handling of abortion coverage.

(Remember the Stupak-Pitts Abortion Ban Amendment came in the 11th hour, in the middle-of-the-night negotiations!)

Another problem facing the Senate Leadership is Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn) who has stated that he will not support a public option or a Medicare buy-in. He has threatened to vote to sustain a filibuster if the buy-in option is included.

The “buy-in” is a provision, negotiated last week as an alternative to the public option, that would allow people ages 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare.

However this problem may have been resolved. Senate Democrats met Monday night and appear to have decided to omit both the public option and the Medicare buy-in to appease Senator Lieberman.

Even if the bill passes in the Senate, it is unclear how they expect to sell a no-form-of-public option health care bill to House Democrats who have demonstrated their commitment to the public option.
In an effort to unite the Senate majority around health care reform, President Obama invited all Senate Democrats to the White House this afternoon.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

Call your Senators and Tell Them:
1. Not to compromise any further on abortion restrictions in order get the vote of anti-choice Senator Ben Nelson. The Nelson-Hatch amendment which mirrored the Stupak-Pitts amendment has already been defeated, and an abortion compromise should be off the table!

New York’s Senators are Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand.
For Senator Schumer:
http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm
Telephone: 202-228-3027
Fax: 202-224-0420
For Senator Gillibrand:
http://gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/
Telephone: 202-224-4451
Fax: 202:228-0282
If these are not your senators, you can reach your senators through the Capitol switchboard — 202-224-3141

Their amendment closely mirrored the language of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment included in the House bill which bans abortion coverage from any health care reform-even in insurance coverage that now provides it.

You Made This Happen! This success is due to each and every one of us who spoke out. Our Senators heard us loudly and clearly.

Please take the time to thank Senators Schumer and Gillibrand for voting for the motion to table this amendment.