Letter to the Editor in Rolling Stone

I have been thinking about the blog a lot lately, way more than I have actually been posting. It must be that time in the election cycle when the GOP and right-wingers really start grinding my gears.

For today, I just wanted to brag about my biggest accomplishment in life: getting my letter to the editor published in Rolling Stone (RS1203, the one with Philip Seymour Hoffman on the cover). I confess that I spent the better part of one Friday night and all of my brain power editing the heck out of this little paragraph in the hopes that it would be published. 

My letter is in response to "The Stealth War on Abortion" in the January 30th issue of Rolling Stone.

Enjoy the first day of Spring*!

*Offer good in the Northern Hemisphere only.

Affordable Care Act: Still a BFD

So the Supreme Court says the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as "Obamacare," is constitutional. As soon as the news broke, you probably noticed quite a bit of activity in your Facebook or Twitter newsfeed. I was as guilty as anyone, but I felt like my quick Facebook status update was somewhat appropriate seeing as how I only posted what NPR described as the "money quote" from the court's decision: "Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it." Aside from a sassy "mmm-hmmm" I didn't post any of my own thoughts or interpretations...in fact I started this blog so I could vent without flooding my friends' and frenemies' social media feeds, and at the same time force myself to stretch my thoughts beyond a 140-character rant.

My status update prompted a few questions and issues, from the right and the left, that I hadn't thought about in quite some time. Let's discuss!

The first topic that came up was the idea that the government "owns" you with the implementation of the ACA. I would be more on board with this logic if we were implementing universal health care. What we're really doing with the individual mandate, which I believe is the source of many people's Obamacare concerns, is balancing out the economics that allow insurance to function. See my previous post on health care from December 28. Currently, pretty much everyone receives some level of health care, but only some of us pay into the system. The individual mandate says that everyone will receive health care and everyone will pay into the system. So, while we as a population are probably going to be providing more health care services, we're also going to be taking in more money. 

People don't like this because they think their money is going to pay for treatment for some lowlife who doesn't deserve health care. There are two things I hate about this reasoning: one, all human beings deserve basic care especially in a resource-rich country like the Unite States, and two, that "lowlife" could be any one of us if our luck changes. When more people pay into the health care system, there are fewer unpaid medical bills (in general) and therefore costs go down for everyone. People have a hard time with this, and rightfully so, because providing and paying for health care is very complicated and you won't see a benefit to the individual mandate immediately or clearly. The benefit could be that health care costs only rise two percent per year, as opposed to seven percent. That's not very sexy politics, but it is a likely valuable outcome of the individual mandate and the complete ACA.

Please keep in mind: the government is not taking over the delivery of health care services. They are becoming more involved in the payment of such services. In this regard, the federal government is not doing anything more than your for-profit health insurance provider already does for you.

Another thing that came up was being tied to your employer under current conditions so you can have health care insurance. I made this point because I am no more "scared" of the government making health care payment choices than I am of the insurance companies. The insurance companies need to be reigned in; I love the idea of capitalism but I do not love companies who put profits ahead of people's health and lives. (Why are people afraid of the government but not an insurance company whose primary responsibility is to shareholders?) First, I think it's good for capitalism and entrepreneurship if you are free of the health insurance issue to switch to a new job or start your own company. Second, I have a little personal story about health insurance and switching jobs...

To my knowledge, I have only been without health insurance for a few months of my entire life, most memorably in July 2010. In June of that year, I left a wonderful job in Chicago to move to Denver and take an even better job with a different company. I am so fortunate to have survived the recession and the earliest stages of my career without any involuntary unemployment. My last day on the job in Chicago was a Thursday, and my new job in Denver started the following Monday, June 21. I would be unemployed for only one business day. However, my health insurance at the new company would not start until August 1. A typical delay when starting with a new employer. So, I applied for COBRA insurance to cover the gap. COBRA is slightly expensive, but it's better than paying for health insurance completely on your own. I didn't think twice about this arrangement until two weeks into my Denver residency, when I received a letter from the health insurance company. They regretted to inform me that they would be unable to insure me. It turns out that I had failed to complete a minor procedure a doctor had recommended prior to my insurance application. (I canceled the appointment for that procedure because the movers showed up a day early, the day of the appointment.)

Instead of charging me a higher amount for my "pre-existing condition," they just flat-out denied me coverage. My pre-existing condition was something that a majority of women experience in their lifetimes and usually requires a simple fix. I did not have cancer, a congenital heart defect, AIDS...I had a common condition, but I was un-insurable. I was out of luck, through no fault of my own, except perhaps making the mistake of telling the truth on my insurance application. And, OK, I suppose you can fault me for canceling the original doctor's appointment, but the movers were showing up to take my stuff to a new city where I was pro-actively moving to get a bigger and better job. Call me a lowlife, it was my fault I was un-insurable! I survived this short period of being without health insurance, but what would have happened if I had been in a hit-and-run accident, or I had been brutally mugged, or caught in a fire? I would either be dead or bankrupt.

As usual, I urge you to please leave comments if you find holes in my arguments or think that I am just plain making things up. Given my Ivy League degree, the legal studies classes I've taken and the countless nights spent arguing with some of the smartest people on the planet during my college years, I should be good at making my case...but I still have a long way to go before I reach Maddow-level logic and well-researched arguments.

I hope Rush is sleeping on the couch tonight

Rush Limbaugh, you have reached a new low. The twitterverse/blogosphere is all over this, and I don't have enough time tonight to add anything intelligent to the conversation, so I'll leave you with this: 

Never forget who's really in charge when it comes to sex. Mr. Limbaugh and like-minded misogynists often forget that, in order to have heterosexual intercourse, they need women. Ladies - be empowered. Gentlemen - be humbled and grateful for the women in your life.

Mr. Limbaugh has the audacity to call a young woman advocating for access to birth control a "slut"? See my previous post - this type of thinking is both repulsive and illogical. His behavior and comments are unacceptable. The saddest part is that Mr. Limbaugh has a decent resume of charity work, yet drowns it out with ridiculous hate speech.

You spoke of "Feminazis," Mr. Limbaugh? Well, your recent comments just increased their membership tenfold.

Doing real life stuff and easing into feminism

Hi friends! Just a quick post tonight, as I don't really have a specific point to make tonight (or ever).

I've been slacking on the posts because I've been doing far too much real life activism.

• The Colorado Democratic Party put on a fantastic Jefferson-Jackson dinner earlier this much, which I helped with a bit. (We were even protested by Occupy Denver! I think they are a little silly sometimes, but I support their right to be silly.) See the video of Cory Booker's keynote speech here:

• I'm now on the volunteer committee of the Democratic Party of Denver, and we're busy getting ready for Caucus on March 6th and County Assembly on March 31. Holla at a girl if you are interested in volunteering, especially House Districts 4 and 6, as I am your designated committee person, like it or not.
• I'm currently in the running for both Assistant Treasurer of the DPoD and Treasurer of the Denver Young Democrats. For DPoD I need to be appointed, and for DYD I need to be elected, but both of these, um, "races" are uncontested. If you're registered as a Democrat in the County of Denver and you are between the ages of 18-35, please join the Denver Young Democrats and come out and vote for me and my compadres tomorrow night at Tavern Uptown! Membership is only $10 per year. And tomorrow night, membership comes with a FREE DRINK! DAMN I love being a Democrat!
• And, most importantly, today I got a friend to register as a Democrat. Winning!

The main theme for my political thoughts over the past few weeks has been "there is no way the GOP is for real." They've turned me into a feminist! I'm the kind of girl who gets bi-weekly manicures, wears dresses every day that ends in "Y,"  and uses different hair conditioners and facial moisturizers depending on the humidity of a given day. And right now I'm wearing a FLANNEL SHIRT. The same flannel shirt I WORE YESTERDAY. Why? Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) held a hearing regarding the mandate to offer birth control to women, and this is what it looked like:

Thanks for inviting us, asshat. I'm so embarrassed that the head of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod even showed up to this thing. A few thoughts on the birth control access mandate:

• NO ONE is forcing anyone to take birth control. The mandate does require that you provide access to a birth control pill, which is a proven and safe drug for the prevention of pregnancy. If you are against birth control, you are free to continue practicing your beliefs by, wait for it, wait for it...not taking birth control.
• The birth control pill prevents abortions. If you are against abortions, then why the hell are you also trying to prevent expanded access to birth control? Oh, okay, I see, that leads me to...
• Some of these people define the beginning of a human life pretty damn early. We can all agree that a living baby existing outside of its mother is a real human life. I would even go so far as to say a fetus in its third trimester is pretty damn close to a real human life, as it has a good chance of surviving if suddenly taken from the womb. But what about fetuses in earlier stages of development? What about the egg and sperm immediately after fertilization? What about the egg right before that son-of-a-bitch sperm gets to it? We can see the baby being born: that's clearly "life." We cannot see the egg and sperm and little zygotes and know exactly when they start taking off on the path to being a real human. So, go ahead and encourage people to carry pregnancies to term, but let's legally allow people to make choices in that gray area we can't agree on.
• STOP referring to me and other like-minded individuals as "pro-abortion," or the supercute shortened collective term, "pro-aborts." It would be lovely if all pregnancies, intended or unintended, could be carried lovingly to term and live happy lives in emotionally and financially stable families. But that's not what we're talking about. I don't know of a single person who is pro-abortion. We are pro-choice.
• To the States that require a woman to view a sonogram or undergo an ultrasound before an abortion: why the hell doesn't the man have to participate? Do you think that woman got pregnant on her own?
• Stay the hell away from my reproductive organs, God-damn it! Why do so many people think the liberals are too involved in our daily lives?

I can't wait to walk into the pharmacy when the mandate takes effect, pick up my birth control pills without paying a co-pay, and turn to the other customers in line and yell "Thanks, Obama!"

Oh, health care economics...you CRAZY!

My little brush with Michele Bachmann on CBS' Early Show the other day has solidified my morning routine of listening to NPR's Morning Edition: the sweet, sweet sound of logic and facts told through soothing voices.

This morning, NPR did not disappoint: I nearly died when I realized Dr. Patricia Danzon, one of my favorite professors at Wharton, was on Morning Edition! She knows more about health care economics than pretty much everyone in the entire world. The NPR story was about Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney's vacillations on their health care platforms. Given the topic, I knew what Dr. Danzon would say. I had been waiting* for this since the Affordable Care Act sparked the debate over our nation's health care act into a full-on bonfire. The frenzied arguments have died down a bit in recent months, but they're back, baby!

I digress. As I listened to Dr. Danzon's speak, with her smooth British-with-a-hint-of-South-African accent, I thought, "please say it, please say it..."

And she did. Allow me to paraphrase: Health care is already socialized, in the least efficient way possible. And everyone pays for it.

The NPR piece highlights the fact that the individual mandate, vilified as a socialist idea, was actually a Republican concept when first introduced. Romney instated such a mandate in Massachusetts, leading to a population that was 98 percent insured, and Gingrich praised this plan in the past. Now that both candidates are catering to the extreme right, they are falling over themselves to lead the charge against the "socialization" of our health care system.

But our health care system is already socialized, in an extremely inefficient manner. Assume that everyone who walks into an emergency room will be given at least the basic level of care appropriate for their injury or illness. It's perfectly alright to assume this, since this is actually the case all over America. Now, for people who do not have health insurance, when they require medical care they must either pay out of pocket to see a primary care physician (PCP), where costs are more contained, or go to the more expensive emergency room if they are not able or willing to pay. Any of us could do this, but those of us with health insurance go to the PCP unless our condition is truly an emergency. On our health insurance plans, it's much less expensive to go to the PCP. That is, our health insurance plan incentivizes us to go to the PCP. Why? Because the emergency room is an extreme waste of money for any non-emergency health problem.

So who pays for the treatment of those uninsured people who go to the emergency room and then skip out on the bill? We all do. The way this happens can fill a textbook, but essentially we pay for their care through higher health insurance premiums, higher charges at the hospital, and so on. But we're not just paying for a doctor's visit and some antibiotics. We're paying all the costs of emergency care. Logically, we'd be better off if we paid for uninsured people to visit a primary care physician.

Sounds like socialism, but as a country we would pay less for health care and have better results. So, since health care is already socialized, as noted by Dr. Danzon, then what's the problem with a somewhat socialist solution (the Affordable Care Act) to making it more efficient? Is there a better solution via capitalism? I'm not sure if one really exists. This is health care. People's lives. We're not talking about manufacturing or bond-trading here. Different economic principles apply to each industry, and health care is by far the most confusing and rule-defying category.

Why do Romney, Gingrich, and their co-horts insist that the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed? Why is socialism a dirty word? And is socialism really so bad if, by efficiently providing health care to those who cannot afford it, you also lower your own costs?

*Seriously, every time health care policy was mentioned in any national media outlet, I wondered when they were going to bring on Dr. Danzon. She's THE expert! I took her class on the  economics of the pharmaceutical industry, in which my mind was blown repeatedly, and I worked in her office in the Health Care Management department at Wharton for three years during college.

Public health and your tax dollars

I am one of the lucky 250 million people in this country with health insurance. Today I went to an eye doctor for the first time in 2.5 years. I handed over my health insurance card to the woman behind the desk, who has the God-forsaken job of verifying health insurance coverage. Upon first review, she wasn't sure I was covered for vision care, but she began the long, sad process of getting in touch with Blue Cross Blue Shield to see what they would pay for and how much they would pay.

I needed to check my eye health and get an updated prescription regardless of coverage, so I went in to the doctor's office while she investigated my coverage. After the appointment, I walked over to the check out counter to see what I owed for this visit.

"Good news, your insurance covered the exam 100%, and you'll just need to pay for the contact lens assessment."

Now, there are at least 50 million people out there without any health insurance, let alone vision insurance. Because so many of us have reduced health costs as a result of the insurance coverage, demand is higher, which drives up prices.* So, aside from having no insurance, they have to pay a higher fee because some of us are insured! Seems a little unfair, right?

As a Democrat and bleeding heart liberal, I am proud to pay a few extra cents or dollars per year towards the goal of wider health insurance coverage. The alternative, lowering the number of insured people to weaken demand, seems neither progressive nor feasible, as most of us have connected health insurance with employment benefits since World War II. (See Slate's "A short history of health care.")

So pay a little now to insure your neighbor...neighbor goes to eye doctor and gets vision corrected through glasses...neighbor has laser-sharp vision and DOES NOT RUN YOU OVER when they drive down your street...you avoid week-long stay in the ICU, lowering your health costs in the long run.

See how great public health is?

*Another related factor in driving up prices is the fact that many doctors charge a higher fee knowing that the insurance companies will negotiate the price downward.

Etc.

Good news for gays and their allies: Obama is officially supporting the "Respect for Marriage Act" that bitch-slaps the "Defense of Marriage Act," which in reality wasn't defending a damn thing. One, I love that they're using the word "respect" in the title. The bill's short and sweet objective is "to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and ensure respect for State regulation of marriage." Fancy that. Democrats trying to give power to the States! ROMA respects the rights of consenting adults to decide with whom they will share their lives and marriage benefits. ROMA respects States' rights. There is much to like about this situation. I think that so many of the supporters of DOMA are looking at the situation illogically and think that they need to deny gays the right to marry in order to protect their own marriage or family. Or perhaps it is a religious issue, but I also find that silly because ROMA obviously does not compel churches to perform gay marriages. I'm so glad I was born liberal.

So...what are they really trying to accomplish? The Institute of Medicine is recommending that among other preventative health services, birth control should be mandatory on all health insurance plans. Without a co-pay. Which would increase access and therefore decrease unwanted pregnancies or unplanned pregnancies in which the mother was less than conscientious in her prenatal planning (i.e. boozing while the fetus was developing). Of course, someone has a problem with this. Jeanne Monahan, director of the Center for Human Dignity (seriously?) at the conservative Family Research Council lists two reasons to be against this: one, that requiring insurers to cover contraceptives violates the rights of people who don't believe in artificial contraception. Since insurance pools money as well as risk for all the policy holders, everyone would be paying for the "free" birth control, whether they believe in it or not. Two, abortion opponents argue that some emergency contraceptives (morning-after pills) can cause "very early abortions" by preventing the implantation of fertilized eggs into a woman's uterus. So these people would rather not increase access to birth control, which would prevent abortions, because the morning-after pill is kind of like an abortion? Because in some cases a sperm and an egg joined together but then had no where to go? Great plan. Something about this leads me to believe that the Family Research Council (another completely lame name for an organization) is not completely focused on reducing the number of actual abortions performed. I don't know what they are focused on, but it doesn't appear that the FRC is concerned with that.

Last night at the Denver Young Democrats Inauguration After Party I was chatting with some of the attendees when I mentioned that I live in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver. Immediately several people jokingly called me out on living in a fancy neighborhood and implied my Democrat card might get taken away. I love this mentality. Being a Democrat means appreciating what you've been given and also what you've been able to earn for yourself in this country. It means go ahead and live in a fancy house or drive a fancy car - just remember you have nice things because you live in the United States of America. Sure, I got decent grades and I earn my salary by working hard. But I am in my current situation because of my public school education and my federal college loans, to name just two big things that immediately come to mind. The government is so far from perfection, but if you think you got to where you are without the help of the government, you are not looking hard enough. (Note: I live in Cherry Creek because I work in Cherry Creek, and my dog demands that I come home for lunch every day. Had to shorten the commute. Democrat guilt compelled me to write this note.)

A few years ago, to widen my perspective I subscribed to the Republican National Committee email list. I started getting sassy with them immediately. They really irked me because one of the first emails I received was addressed "Dear Fellow Patriot." OMG. I started replying to the emails with full educated Democrat sass. And it occurred to me recently that I had not received an email from Reince lately...I got kicked off the list!!!