Karen Minnis did not vote Yes either -- she was Excused. Apparently, she's been out with pneumonia for a week.

Let's also make one thing crystal clear: Those nine legislators voted to increase the number of abortions. Of course, they're not thinking that way - but that's the core logic of their vote.

By voting against providing access to birth control, they are voting for unwanted pregnancies.

Anybody who claims to be against abortions should be in favor of birth control. It really is that simple.

Flores, Nelson, Scott and Thatcher better watch their backs next year--this vote won't help them at all.

I too had expected to see Minnis' name on the list. I was hoping she's actually grown a backbone and voted for something good. I guess not.

I moved into her district late last year and have yet to get a response from her office. I plan to continue to contact her (as well as my wonderful State Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson, whose office is quick to reply) in various ways -- e-mail, letter, and phone. We'll see if I ever get a response... even a canned response is better than none at all.

Joe12Pack:

Right. And when they preach abstinence, they often times mean outside the marriage. They don't seem to have anything to say about avoiding pregnancies inside the marriage. Maybe that's because they're still into the whole "a woman belongs at home, pregnant and barefoot" mantra.

They tell married couples who are poor to not have kids unless they can afford it, but don't want to make it feasible to avoid the pregnancy in the first place.

My freshman year in college I become engaged to a man who lived here in Oregon (I was in Houston at the UofH). Since I knew you needed to start it months ahead of time if you wanted to be fully protected, I went to Planned Parenthood shortly after getting engaged so that by the time he was in Texas the pill would be effective.

On my way in I was harassed by pro-lifers. They yelled all kinds of things at me. When I responded that I wasn't pregnant and was there for an exam and birth control, they then began yelling things about abstinence being the only answer.

You'd think they would be happy that I was taking the initiative to do everything I could to ensure my future husband and I didn't have a child before we were ready.

The question, Moderate, is whether sticking to their radical fringe, these legislators are helping or hurting themselves. (And, while "radical fringe" is a charge leveled all too often in a partican fashion, it really does describe what's going on here: Kari is right - this law will REDUCE the number of abortions in Oregon.)

These GOP lawmakers' kneejerk opposition may please the fringe base, but it may not help them to get all the way back into office. The Republican party has so besmirtched its reputation these last few years, "RINO" is no insult. It's close to being a merit badge. Even traditional cultural-conservative evangelicals are reevaluating their party affiliation right now.

Which is why, of course, all sorts of Republicans, including Senator Smith and his near 100% voting record in supporting Bush, are now trying to style themselves as "independent".

But of all the mainstream conservatives out there, I'd say only Chuck Hagel can wear that mantle. Gordon's just scamming the voters, and around here we all know it.

One more time, GT. If you're AGAINST birth control, you're FOR unwanted pregnancies.

(Though it just occurred to me - why do we call it birth control? We should call it pregnancy prevention medication.)

Every time they are required to pay for something, they raise premiums to reflect the actuarial cost of the mandatory coverage (plus a nice extra profit for themselves).

Yes. But imagine how much more you're paying on your premium for all those unwanted/unplanned pregnancies. Thousands of dollars in prenatal care, the birth, well baby visits, etc. cost a lot more than the pill each month. Yes, it is an ongoing expense. But so are well child checks, your child getting sick, needing immunizations, etc.

And that's just for a pregnancy and birth that goes as planned and a child that is reasonably healthy. Have an emergency c-section like I did? You're looking at $15,000-20,000, depending on how long you and your baby end up staying at the hospital, how bad things are, etc.

When we had our daughter, we paid $100 for all our prenatal care and $100 for the hospital. There was likely well over $15K in expenses, from the monthly check ups, blood tests, ultrasound, almost weekly visits in the last 8 weeks, almost daily visits in the last 2 weeks, three visits to the ER for being extremely sick, an emergency c-section, four days in the hospital, etc.

I'd imagine the entire cost of birth control for my lifetime is likely less than that.

gt--

That's what happens when there are cut backs to services. They have to take those with the greatest need first. My sister, who has been unable to work for months because of her health and before that only sparingly, can't get help either. There just aren't enough funds to go around.

But this thread isn't about abortions or the government paying for them. It's about making insurance companies cover a legitimate health need-- birth control. And making emergency contraception available so that those who are raped don't have to suffer a second time as they try to find someplace where they can get help to stop a pregnancy from happening.

It's pretty bad when drug companies can cover medicines like Viagra, but refuse to cover birth control.

And something men don't seem to get is that birth control is for a lot more than "birth control."

Many women need it to regulate their hormones, cut down on the instances of endometriosis or cysts, regulate their cycles, etc.

"It really pisses me off that the government helps themselves to my paycheck all the time and now that I'm in severe hard times with my own health they deem me "too rich" to give me any help at all."

If I recall correctly, you paid $12,000 in taxes last year. You ARE too rich to deserve help from the government.

Ignore the troll. He forgot to take his meds.

Buh-bye.

gt The government doesn't pay a DIME for my care!

Obviously, GT. If it did, you'd be paying a hell of a lot less. America's system of nearly total privitized care is one of the most expensive on the planet. It manages, never the less, to also be the least efficient, covering fewer people, leading to worse outcomes on average, than every other industrialized nation.

The reason is simple. Most of that $2000 per month you're paying doesn't go to medical professionals - it goes to middlemen: insurance companies, hospital billing agents, lawyers to work out contracts between them (ironically, malpractice lawsuits are the one thing that have actually declined in the last decade). It also goes to cost-shifting. Because in American we don't let people die on the street, you're already paying for poor people's medical care. You're just paying for emergency treatment, which is extremely expensive - rather than preventative care, which is overwhelmingly cheaper.

In total, your bill would be a lot less if we went to a single payer system. Yes, there'd be a lot of corporate bureaucrats out on the street - which is why they push these scare tactics - but again, you'd save money.

People think that Republicans are cheap. No. I'm cheap. What they really do is worship the market like it's a religion. This isn't really new. You can't serve both God and Mammon. But there are always people who will try.

Health care is already rationed, GT. In fact, it's rationed by people (insurance companies) who have a vested self-intrest in denying medical care. That's why insurance companies employ people to closely check contracts to see if they can weasil out of paying. And also why American hospitals, on average, employ more claims people to negotiate, and implicitly threaten, insurance companies than they do doctors. And who is paying all those salaries? You and I are.

But even a slippery slope argument doesn't really work. Every industrialized nation which follows a national health care model (which is nearly all of them), not only don't make it illegal for private doctors to operate, they all have thriving private industries. Most are in fields that their governments believe the taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for because they're not health related, such as cosmetic surgery, things they don't consider scientific, like homeopathy and aroma-therapy, and experimental treatments.

One thing to keep in mind, GT, is that despite conservative propaganda, Democrats are not Socialists. We worship neither at the alter of corporations or the government. We simply want what works the best at the cheapest possible price.

Because of their generally good track record, we always give businesses first crack at solving problems. We just recognize that in some cases (involving natural monopolies and/or tragedy of the commons situations, or simple basic morality), direct government involvement is simply more efficient. But even then, we don't - like Socialists - try to drive people out of business. Our efforts usually help: free public libraries help bookstores, food-stamps help grocery stores.

If the free-enterprise based health care system was working in the U.S., we would have no complaint about it. But clearly, it's not. And clearly, from the experience of every single first world Democracy around the world (including all of our closest allies), we know there is a cheaper way that results in a much healthier population. And none of it involves them sliding into Dictatorship.