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Obviously you're a Neanderthal who doesn't realize that healthcare and highspeed internet are basic human rights that the government MUST provide.

Jerk.

Robert........NOONE has a problem with women having access to birth control. Let them pay for it themselves......

Ummm...no.

There is a 72-hour rule when it comes to testimony. Dems pulled their submitted speaker and replaced them with Fluke, with less than 72-hours notice. In short, they (again) were trying to break the rules. The rule is there so that committe menbers have enough time to a) vet the speaker, and b) form questions to ask.

So the republican chairperson said: no. Obey the rules.

So the Dems went stamping off like little children, and had their OWN committe.

This whole thing was yet another democrat ploy, and Fluke as a law studen is a complete sham. She was a plant, and now they;re discovering she's had ties to the White House. So Robert, you're being scammed.

Try voting for someone next time who isn't a Deomcrat reprobate, OK?

Catholics aren't being asked to pay for contraception.

Your tax dollars are not nor will they go toward paying for her contraception.

She has not ever talked about her sex life, nor does her sex life have anything to do with this, nor is it anyone's business. She did not say too much sex, nor did she talk about sex.

She never presented herself as 23.

There has been no evidence to suggest she is a whore, slut or prostitute.

She did not say it costs her 3k a year for bc pills, she said with the insurance offered by Georgetown it costs 80/month or around 1k a year over 3 years of law school.

She was not complaining nor talking about rubbers.

She is not asking someone else to pay for her contraception any more than you are paying for my prescriptions over my co-pay.

It was not just two words, it's the entire rant and dozens of insults he threw her way while totally misrepresenting (ie lying) about her and her testimony. Conservatives need to learn context.

She did not write a 600+ page article, she edited one for the Georgetown law review. It is long because you and other addle minded conservatives with ADD are not the audience.

If you don't know or don't care what acronyms mean, why even bring it up?

Spelling absurdity 'Obsurdity' is hmmm, absurd?

And it's fun watching the 'take responsibility' 'conservatives' point at someone else and say, but mom!! He said it first.

Other than that, you guys are spot on.

“ “Leader [Nancy] Pelosi,members of Congress,good morning. And thank you for calling this hearing on women’s health and for allowing me to testify on behalf of the women who will benefit from the Affordable Care Act contraceptive coverage regulation. Sandra Fluke,a Georgetown University Law student,testifies before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on the importance of contraceptive coverage for students and employees at religious-affiliated institutions. Last week,Fluke was denied the opportunity to speak before the House Oversight Committee hearing on women's reproductive health. Instead,an all-male panel of religious leaders testified on why they should be allowed to deny women contraceptive coverage. SOURCE: C-Span.org Read more: Sandra Fluke draws attention to financial & health burdens women suffer without contraceptive coverage “My name is Sandra Fluke,and I’m a third-year student at Georgetown Law School. I’m also a past-president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice or LSRJ. And I’d like to acknowledge my fellow LSRJ members and allies and all of the student activists with us and thank them so much for being here today. (Applause) “We,as Georgetown LSRJ,are here today because we’re so grateful that this regulation implements the non-partisan medical advice of the Institute of Medicine. “I attend a Jesuit law school that does not provide contraceptive coverage in its student health plan. And just as we students have faced financial, emotional,and medical burdens as a result,employees at religiously-affiliated hospitals and institutions and universities across the country have suffered similar burdens. “We are all grateful for the new regulation that will meet the critical health care needs of so many women. “Simultaneously,the recently announced adjustment addresses any potential conflict with the religious identity of Catholic or Jesuit institutions. “When I look around my campus,I see the faces of the women affected by this lack of contraceptive coverage.

“And especially in the last week,I have heard more and more of their stories. On a daily basis,I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer,and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage. “And so,I’m here today to share their voices,and I want to thank you for allowing them –not me –to be heard. “Without insurance coverage, contraception,as you know,can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who,like me,are on public interest scholarships,that’s practically an entire summer’s salary. 40% of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggle financially as a result of this policy. “One told us about how embarrassed and just powerless she felt when she was standing at the pharmacy counter and learned for the first time that contraception was not covered on her insurance and she had to turn and walk away because she couldn’t afford that prescription. Women like her have no choice but to go without contraception. “Just last week,a married female student told me that she had to stop using contraception because she and her husband just couldn’t fit it into their budget anymore. Women employed in low-wage jobs without contraceptive coverage face the same choice. “And some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately,that’s just not true. “Women’s health clinic provide a vital medical service,but as the Guttmacher Institute has definitely documented,these clinics are unable to meet the crushing demand for these services. Clinics are closing, and women are being forced to go without the medical care they need. “How can Congress consider the [Rep. Jeff] Fortenberry (R-Neb.),[Sen. Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) and [Sen. Roy] Blunt (R-Mo.) legislation to allow even more employers and institutions to refuse contraception coverage and then respond that the non-profit clinics should step up to take care of the resulting medical crisis,particularly when so many legislators are attempting to de-fund those very same clinics? “These denial of contraceptive coverage impact real people. “In the worst cases,women who need these medications for other medical conditions suffer very dire consequences.

“A friend of mine,for example,has polycystic ovarian syndrome,and she has to take prescription birth control to stop cysts from growing on her ovaries. Her prescription is technically covered by Georgetown’s insurance because it’s not intended to prevent pregnancy. “Unfortunately,under many religious institutions and insurance plans,it wouldn’t be. There would be no exception for other medical needs. And under Sen. Blunt’s amendment, Sen. Rubio’s bill or Rep. Fortenberry’s bill there’s no requirement that such an exception be made for these medical needs. “When this exception does exist, these exceptions don’t accomplish their well-intended goals because when you let university administrators or other employers rather than women and their doctors dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, women’s health takes a back seat to a bureaucracy focused on policing her body. “In 65% of the cases at our school, our female students were interrogated by insurance representatives and university medical staff about why they needed prescription and whether they were lying about their symptoms. “For my friend and 20% of the women in her situation,she never got the insurance company to cover her prescription. Despite verifications of her illness from her doctor,her claim was denied repeatedly on the assumption that she really wanted birth control to prevent pregnancy. She’s gay. So clearly polycystic ovarian syndrome was a much more urgent concern than accidental pregnancy for her. “After months paying over $100 out-of-pocket,she just couldn’t afford her medication anymore,and she had to stop taking it. “I learned about all of this when I walked out of a test and got a message from her that in the middle of the night in her final exam period she’d been in the emergency room. She’d been there all night in just terrible,excruciating pain. She wrote to me,‘It was so painful I’d woke up thinking I’ve been shot.’ “Without her taking the birth control, a massive cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on her ovary. She had to have surgery to remove her entire ovary as a result. “On the morning I was originally scheduled to give this testimony,she was sitting in a doctor’s office,trying to cope with the consequences of this medical catastrophe. “Since last year’s surgery,she’s been experiencing night sweats and weight gain and other symptoms of early menopause as a result of the removal of her ovary. She’s 32-years-old. “As she put it,‘If my body indeed does enter early menopause,no fertility specialist in the world will be able to help me have my own children. I will have no choice at giving my mother her desperately desired grandbabies simply because the insurance policy that I paid for, totally unsubsidized by my school, wouldn’t cover my prescription for birth control when I needed it.’ “Now,in addition to potentially facing the health complications that come with having menopause at such an early age –increased risk of cancer, heart disease,osteoporosis –she may never be able to conceive a child. “Some may say that my friend’s tragic story is rare. It’s not. I wish it were “One woman told us doctors believe she has endometriosis,but that can’t be proven without surgery. So the insurance has not been willing to cover her medication –the contraception she needs to treat her endometriosis. “Recently,another woman told me that she also has polycystic ovarian syndrome and she’s struggling to pay for her medication and is terrified to not have access to it. “Due to the barriers erected by Georgetown’s policy,she hasn’t been reimbursed for her medications since last August. “I sincerely pray that we don’t have to wait until she loses an ovary or is diagnosed with cancer before her needs and the needs of all of these women are taken seriously. “Because this is the message that not requiring coverage of contraception sends: A woman’s reproductive health care isn’t a necessity,isn’t a priority. “One woman told us that she knew birth control wasn’t covered on the insurance and she assumed that that’s how Georgetown’s insurance handle all of women’s reproductive and sexual health care. So when she was raped,she didn’t go to the doctor,even to be examined or tested for sexually transmitted infections,because she thought insurance wasn’t going to cover something like that –something that was related to a woman’s reproductive health. “As one other student put it: ‘This policy communicates to female students that our school doesn’t understand our needs.’ “These are not feelings that male fellow student experience and they’re not burdens that male students must shoulder. “In the media lately,some conservative Catholic organizations have been asking what did we expect when we enroll in a Catholic school? “We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally,to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. “We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of ‘cura personalis‘ –to care for the whole person –by meeting all of our medical needs. “We expected that when we told our universities of the problem this policy created for us as students,they would help us. “We expected that when 94% of students oppose the policy the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for –completely unsubsidized by the university. “We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere. “And even if that meant going to a less prestigious university,we refuse to pick between a quality education and our health. And we resent that in the 21st century,anyone think it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women. “Many of the women whose stories I’ve shared today are Catholic women. So ours is not a war against the church. It is a struggle for the access to the health care we need. “The President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit colleges and the universities appreciate the modifications to the rule announced recently. Religious concerns are addressed and women get the health care they need. And I sincerely hope that that is something we can all agree upon. “Thank you very much.” ”

We needed a superhero like you to come to our rescue to explain to us that "fair" is a subjective term. Where would we be without your absolute brilliance? And, it is OK for you to call her a whore and a slut just because she opines differently than you on this issue? Would your wife or daughter be whores and sluts if they disagreed with you and agreed with what Fluke had to say? Bet they would love being called that and you would be oh so proud to do it! What a guy. Please remind me to respect you for the way you treat others!

Why shouldn't health insurance (not religious-based, self-insured and self-administered plans) cover birth control?


BTW, My wife has been out of college for 20 years. Either her employers or myself have paid for her health insurance. It has always been with big insurers like BCBS and United HealthCare. She said that birth control pills have ALWAYS been covered.

Health Insurers deny all sorts of medications prescribed by doctors because they simply don't want to pay for it. This happens all the time. Would this situation Fluke is discussing be more acceptable if that was the given reason or is the problem the fact that the call was based on religious grounds?

O’Reilly exposes possible WH connection to Fluke



I am not a big Bill O’Reilly fan, but as The Daily Caller notes, the FOX News Channel host may be on to something.

DC writer Jeff Poor points out that on Thursday’s show, O’Reilly offered a plausible theory of how an obscure activist named Sandra Fluke suddenly rose to prominence at a time when the Obama administration was at the center of a bitter tug of war between organized religion and defenders of the much-maligned HHS mandate that religious institutions purchase contraception for its employees.

In his Monday Best of the Web Today column, James Taranto reports that Fluke was not the initial choice to represent the Democrats in hearings before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Th was Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. But the standard arguments citing the so-called “establishment clause” didn’t make sense in this context. The HHS mandate is clearly a case of the government invading the church’s space.

A better argument was needed. The House Democrats, writes Taranto:

asked, too late, for Fluke [whose bachelor's degree is in “Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies"] to be subbed in for Lynn, then told Lynn not to bother showing up. When the hearing took place, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (this columnist’s congressman, but don’t blame us) demanded: ‘Where are the women?’ Although it was the Dems who chose Lynn over Fluke and the second panel of witnesses included two female members, liberal media dutifully propagated the ‘Republican sexism’ charge. A week later, House Democrats held a mock hearing where Fluke testified.

Which brings us back to the question: Where did they dig up Sandra Fluke? In this video of the “Talking Points” segment (partial transcript follows), O’Reilly offers his theory:

As we reported last night ‘The Factor’ believes Sandra Fluke contraception controversy was manufactured to divert attention away from the Obama administration’s disastrous decision to force non-Catholic organizations to provide insurance coverage for birth control and the ‘morning after’ pill. That might very well be unconstitutional.

Anyway, we’re having trouble tracking down just who is sending Sandra around to the media. It’s very strange. So far, the 30-year-old activist has appeared on eight national news programs where she was not challenged at all. Last week we called Sandra on her cell phone and invited her on ‘The Factor.’ She didn’t call back. Very unusual.

O’Reilly goes on to reveal that public relations firm SKDKnickerbocker is now representing Fluke. And who is the managing director of SKDKnickerbocker? That would be former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn.

It could all be one big unhappy coincidence. Or it could be that when the White House desperately needed a game-changing distraction to take the heat off, they turned to an old pal. It’s the Chicago way, don’t you know.

Alert skeptics will note that after leaving the White House, Dunn became manager of the Sensible Food Policy Coalition, a group of food manufacturers and media cartels that stood up against the administration’s strong arm tactics to bully advertisers of non-nutrient-dense foods into submission. But that’s the Chicago way, too.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/03/09/oreilly-exposes-possible-wh-connection-to-fluke/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRoh62wRgkc

Thanks to the Kenyan King...it's not so whatever point you were attempting to make is moot.

For those incapable of staying on point or dragging a straw-man into the discussion... :)

I didn't say NO government oversight. Our judicial system is a function of government, right? The problem is when we have TOO MUCH government oversight. Too much government involvement in contracts.

I was on point. The post I responded to had to deal with insurance contracts and government oversight/intrusion. Hell, I'd say I was directly on point.

As to my "feelings", why do you care so much what my independent thoughts are?

Hell yeah I voted for Obama- the old man and young chick were "greater evils" in my mind.

As to health care, you are damn right that I want there to be a minimum standard that Americans are entitled to. And, I am willing to pay for it when they truly cannot afford it. I am sick of seeing people use ER's as primary care doctors and my local tax dollars going to pay for it. I am sick of my health insurance premiums being so high because the hospitals need the additional revenue to remain afloat. Now, the cost of these problems is not being borne by all. I think it should and will be in due time.

Legislatures write legislation? Give me a break. Lobbyists and their interested clients industries write a boat-load of legislation, then the legislators tinker with it to form coalitions to get enough votes to pass it. The fact that you may not like that legislation has nothing to do with there being lawyer/legislatures. And, don't be so sure it is the legislators writing all the legislation. That's what lobbyists and special interest groups do.

My "feelings" as you put it, are not a straw-man argument. Straw man is a misrepresentation/mis-characterization of a position, which is then refuted in order to make it seem like the faulty argument defeats the original premise. it involves dragging new topics in to a discussion and then refuting them as well to make one appear to be the winner.

So, the way I see it it is your entire last four-line paragraph above that is a "straw man argument". You slid a couple new topics into the conversation that had absolutely nothing to do whith insurance contract and which governments should oversee and ajudicate them. Nice try- again.

What The Fluk ! I'm game !

It's only fair.

LOL!

F'n classic.


Have a Kleenex and a good cry.

Obama's "War On Women" Backfires

A trio of polls released yesterday shows the harsh reality from which the embattled President Obama and the media hoped to deflect by fabricating a "War on Women."

The newest Washington Post/ABC poll shows that the majority of Americans strongly disapprove of the way in which the President is handling a number of issues, chief among them the economy and gas prices. According to the March 10th, 2012 poll released yesterday a net 50% of those surveyed disapprove of how Obama is handling the job of president with 39% "strongly disapproving" and only 28% "strongly approving." This is up from the net 46% taken on February 4th of the same year.

On the economy, 50% "strongly disapprove" whereas only 20% "strongly approve" of the President's management. His negatives greatly outweigh his positives on everything from his handling of Iran, the budget deficit, Afghanistan, and on "the situation with gas prices" where 52% "strongly disapprove" of his job performance. It represents an increasing trend.

The latest New York Times/ CBS News poll:

At a time of rising gas prices, heightened talk of war with Iran and setbacks in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama’s approval rating dropped substantially in recent weeks, the poll found, with 41 percent of respondents expressing approval of the job he is doing and 47 percent saying they disapprove — a dangerous position for any incumbent seeking re-election.

The last of the trio comes from Rasmussen which illustrates how a full 59% of the country view Obama as "more liberal" than they are themselves.

It's a bad day for optics in the White House, and a bad day for the administration's strategy of deflecting from these awful truths with an elaborately-staged press conference on contraception designed to divert attention away from a two-pronged failure: the attack on the free practice of religion by way of abridging employers's freedom to choose faithfully against providing "free" contraception, and the sinking confidence in the President concerning his mismanagement of the nation's economy and energy policies.

These polls show that the administration's weeks-long assault with a trumped-up narrative has failed. The administration's "hurt and rescue" (cause a problem while simultaneously pretending to be the savior from the problem while acting as though your actions are mutually exclusive) tactic has failed in that the predictability and sheer silliness gave it away. For the Democrat party to reach into its bag all the way back to the 1960s for a strategy that can save this President from the misfortunate of his own executive choices reeks of desperation.

Many women see as a greater threat to their freedom the administration's insistence that employers -- many of whom are also female -- compromise their religious beliefs to provide for the contraceptive choices made freely by other women, women who can empower themselves by paying for their choices themselves. It's not "feminist" to demand that another woman carry the yoke of your free choices. Women see it as a threat the administration's refusal to ease the higher costs at the pump, costs which eat away at our budget for groceries, summer clothes for our children, and bills which go towards providing rooftops over our families' heads. The President's refusal to act on the Keystone XL Pipeline could bring a handful of jobs to my blue collar family members alone and give my aunts, cousins, and female friends greater financial independence with paid, private enterprise, free market work that wouldn't cost the public a dime. We also see it as a threat to our families the administration's failure to provide clear objectives in Afghanistan while our family members overseas perform their duties in the scorching heat as our President authorizes more of our grocery money towards propping up a publicly-financed and US trained Afghan military.

If we're going to talk about a "war on women," the only one I see is the one above, the policy decisions I've listed -- and I could enumerate further. If the incumbent wants to win a second term, focus on fixing what's broken -- the barrier between big government and private enterprise -- and staying out of what isn't. There's no need to purposefully victimize women for the sake of using them as pawns in an election. That itself is an act of war on women.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/03/13/Obamas%20War%20On%20Women%20Backfires







Why it's just like I wrote above in another post...one huge diversionary tactic by a not ready for Primetime player!

"They are sexual assault victims, who, in the midst of the horror and trauma they’ve experienced, find healing in the embrace of life and the love of a child."


I was with her 100% until this bit of insanity.

Probably a nod to the cultural conservatives in her audience (live or on tape) to try to avoid controversy.

"Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation."

Santorum

What is the total cost of birth control pills being paid for by health insurers v. the cost of pregnancies being paid for?

Don't think for a minute that health insurers and their actuaries are keenly aware.

I have no idea who Sandra Fluke is.