HEALTH CARE: After a long, hard debate and, according to the people on the teevee, a lot of reading, the Democratic Health Care Package has passed the House by a vote of 220-215!!! It must be a unicorn! Oh, um, except that the passing is thanks to the anti-abortion Republicans who sided with the anti-abortion Democrats. I feel like this is a “you win some, you lose some” situation. Yeah, it sucks that the pro-choice movement had to take a hit. But government is about compromise, after all, and the amendment that ended up getting the bill passed isn’t much different than the current laws restricting the use of federal money to fund abortions. It could have been a lot worse, but it’s unfortunate to see (per ushe) a healthcare reform bill being used to push a hotbutton conservative cornerstone issue (abortion). Always a pleasure to have men telling women what to do with their bodies written into the constitution.
Democrats say the House measure, which will be paid for via taxes and Medicare cuts, would extend coverage to 36 million people now without insurance while creating a weakened public insurance company. It will end insurance company practices like not covering pre-existing conditions and dropping sick patients.
We feel excitant that this happened!!! But we also feel scared that it will be taken from us, as we have Maine/California PTSD extending to everything the government grants us. Now we get to see what damage the Senate can do.
As you know we have a lot of feelings about health care. What’s your take on the health care reform bill? (@gawker @reuters)
REPUBLICANS: Someone let Rep. John Shadegg (R) near their baby, and he used it to oppose healthcare reform. “Mattie believes in freedom! She says, ‘If you want health care, pay for it yourself!’” (@joemygod)
GAGA: “I am exactly who I say I am.” Lady GaGa talks about herself, David Bowie, and her new album The Fame Monster. (@vibetv)
GLAMBERT: Queerty thinks Adam Lambert might have a new boyfriend, but Adam appears to find it hilarious that anyone might think he’s dating LA cutie Ferras Alqaisi. Or else this is one of those fun sexual games they play. (@queerty)
FACEBOOK: Slate’s Farhad Manjoo explains how Facebook knows you’re gay. It turns out it’s not because you’re a member of the “Team Lindsay” facebook group or your fruit tattoo. (@slate)
MICHAEL JACKSON: Michael Jackson’s posthumous movie This Is It has passed the $100 million mark. I still haven’t seen it and I don’t plan to, but maybe Alex Vega will when she gets back from the lesbian cruise. (@hollywoodreporter)
LOHAN: Comic Confrontations – Judge Judy vs. Michal Lohan! “If I had two idiots for parents, I’d probably want to escape reality too! You both need to care about your daughter more than you care about your press! Goodbye!” (@jezebel)
BOLLYWOOD: Bollywood actresses Kareena Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, and Shilpa Shetty have all said they wouldn’t be willing to pull a Charlize Theron and kiss a women for charity. This is disappointing, but Rani Mukerji and Priyanka Chopra apparently didn’t answer, for which some of us are grateful. There is still hope. (@afterellen)
GLENN BECK: What lurks within Glenn Beck? Well, an amazing Glenn Beck imitation clearly lurks within John Stewart:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Comments
Yay for health care! I’m VERY excited about outlawing pre-existing condition discrimination. It’s hard out there for a diabetic, you guys, and my parents’ insurance runs out very soon.
i’m excited about progress on the health care front, but i’m really fucking tired of women’s reproductive rights being treated as disposable. who cares if we throw women under the bus, it’s for the GREATER GOOD.
Well it’s not like they are all the sudden going to outlaw abortion as a result of this. I realize funding is imperative, but there is funding elsewhere so I really doing think women’s reproductive rights are in danger. That being said, I think it was a necessary compromise in order to get the bill passed the House which I am so glad that it did!
but there won’t be “funding elsewhere” if this passes. from planned parenthood:
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[The Stupak/Pitts amendment] would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’ the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.
I realize it’s crumby that this compromise is unfair and that we shouldn’t have to choose but the reality is that it would have been difficult to garner the necessary support without a concession such as this one. I know it sucks but at least its a very small step in the right direction although I agree that we have a long way to go.
i agree, ultimately; that was kinda my original point i guess – that it’s tiring that when push comes to shove, in order to get the right things in motion, access to abortion gets the shaft.
I wish that a woman’s right to choose was not so often the Democrats’ bargaining chip, but that’s reality. Thank god organizations like Planned Parenthood exist.
http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2009/11/111209.html
Why not? It goes along with Obama’s campaign pledge, that he believes community interests are far more important than are individual interests, a well respected Rousseau to Marx position where individual freedom is an enemy of the state, the few elites who manage the many, like Obama (see THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon and claysamerica.com). The free market evolved from individual freedom and gave America all that evil prosperity which makes Americans so different from the 80% of the rest of the world who are barely surviving each day. It makes sense to spread the wealth around, and if that means denying health care to those not useful to the state, so be it. It’s just more modern Democrat socialism.
oh em gee you guys. That was the best Glenn Beck impression evah! Jonny, you are the only one of the male species I would allow a platonic cuddle. For you, I might even forgive you an accidental boob graze. And to you Judge Judy, you are like a piercing nightlight (perhaps in the shape of a hula girl or santa clause) that gives off nerve gas in a dark room filled with Ilene Chaiken scripts and relatives of Ann Coulter.
I am obvs very excited/relieved about healthcare, but I am almost as excited about Judge Judy. I feel like having her tell off my parents for raising me wrong is a secret dream of mine, and I’m glad that Lindsay gets to live it. (Sort of. I’m still sorry her dad’s a dick.)
I’m glad this this healthcare reform happened so then maybe I won’t have to experience what I experienced last night outside of a club while having a cigarette…. A social worker was on the phone because one of her kids was shot (a 13 year old boy) whom the hospital was denying care because he was a ward of the state and they weren’t sure if his insurance would cover it. I sat there listening and thinking what is wrong with the world? that a kid gets shot and he is being denied care because they don’t know what his insurance is? what is the world coming to? Needless to say the social worker tore whoever was on the phone a new one and handled her business! I was so in awe of the whole situation. It shouldn’t be this way. It is still nevertheless a bitter sweet victory women’s rights are always so overlooked it’s such a shame.
That’s shocking, really upsetting, I’m lost for words. Good ones, at least. The state of despair that the US healthcare system is in continues to blow my mind, I hope this healthcare pass is going to be the turning point.
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