MSNBC'S Thomas Roberts speaks with Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., about her opposition to the Blunt Amendment.
BREAKING: The Senate has defeated a Republican effort to roll back President Barack Obama's policy on contraception insurance coverage.
The measure sponsored by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican, was defeated 51-48. The measure, an amendment to a pending transportation bill, would have allowed employers and insurers to opt out of portions of the president's health care law they found morally objectionable. That would have included the law's requirement that insurers cover the costs of birth control.
Republicans said it was a matter of freedom of religion;Democrats said it was an assault on women's rights and could beused to cancel virtually any part of the law.
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Olympia Snow was the only repub to cross party lines to vote with the democrats.
do the repubs really think this vote will help them win elections?
Thank You, Olympia.
ben nelson, joe manchin, and bob casey voted with the repubs.
Oh, you mean the fake democrats, bbj I wished I lived in their state, I'd be out looking for some new REAL Democrats to run.....not these blue dogs.
yeah, TM, the blue-dogs.
We need to keep those names in mind around November, Suzette:
BEN NELSON, JOE MANCHIN, and BOB CASEY. DINO'S.
Well, I am ashamed to say that Manchin is our senator. I voted for him. We all know here that he is a DINO, but here in WV having a D behind any politician's name doesn't mean that the politician is a true democrat. We had one of two choices to vote for. Joe Manchin or John Raese. Raese would make Sick Rantorum look like a flaming liberal. We don't have much to choose from here. Manchin has a well oiled machine behind him and to defeat him with another democrat is next to impossible. We are going to be faced with the same two people to choose from in the 2012 election. It makes me sick to think about it.
I just called Manchin's office and gave them an earful.
I would have guessed that Nelson and Manchin would have voted for the amendment but Casey seemed smarter than that. He's always with the Democratic party on most everything.
So what did they attach this to? OBAMA sees our future as developing clean energy. YOU GO OBAMA, AND WE WILL BE WITH YOU. No presidential candidate who promises he can lower or have anything to do with gas prices is a liar.
Ben Nelson isnt running again.
Actually the president can, in effect, lower gas prices. Opening the SPR would do it. So would the approval of the pipeline.
Also do demoncrats always have to vote with the other demoncrats? They are just supposed to toe the line and do what they are told. I am glad that some of them actually used their brain and tried to stop this assult on religous freedom in this country.
Mr. Masters...
Neither opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserves nor building the Keystone Pipeline would have more than a negligible effect on gas prices, period!
The Keystone Pipeline would carry oil sands oil to the Texas coast, where it would be destined to be processed, refined and shipped off to other nations for a profit. None of that oil is going to American pumps.
The United States currently has a glut of gasoline. The supply is off the charts. Demand has been dropping, as auto owners move to more fuel-economic cars and people are staying home for stay-cations. Oil companies are actually shutting down refineries, considering them obsolete, to justify slowing down supply...
The economic laws of supply and demand don't apply to gasoline any more. Rich speculators, mainly Republicans like the Koch brothers, are buying up oil futures, gambling on the price of oil going up and, in the process, forcing the price of oil to go up. 80% of the price at the pump is being caused by speculation, not supply/demand.
Oil companies and speculators keep getting richer and richer, and people like you just keep making it easier for them to screw us over...
You, of course, are going to ignore everything I say, dismissing it as a baseless, Democratic rant...
Which is, of course, exactly how the future masters of the world want you to think...
david,
the repubs are much MORE in LOCKSTEP than the democrats will ever be.
Would it be possible to be honest about this whole contraception issue? It has been twisted by both side into an issue of fredom as well as a a women health issue which are both just talking points and deception that is masking real concerns that I have. If I understand the issue it is not that the contraception would be made available but instead the removal of the co-pay. So there would still be a co-pay for brand drugs and life saving drugs say if I had cancer, diabetes, hypertension and seniors who we are supposed to be helping are benefiting how since this does not effect hormone replacement therapy which people have lumped into this conversation and would still be covered.
Want to throw a few other points in the discussion that since I have been developing these products with the largest generic manufacturer of oral contraception products for twenty years. First, these products do have an impact on the environment with the majority of the contraception products being excreted. There are a significant number of published and peer reviewed studies that indicate that ground and surface water is contaminated by these products. Where are all the people worried about DDT and antibiotics in these discussions? Maybe we should sale them from the states using a co-pay and use the funds to fix our inadequate sewage treatment plants that do not remove these materials from thier discharge much like we use tabacco taxes for other purposes?
Does everyone realize that there is a discussion of risk to benefit of using many of the most popular oral contraception products such as Yaz and Yasmin and thier generic equivalents concerning breast cancer and blood clots. Would it be possible that these oral contraceptive that we are talking about and our government could be involved in the distribution for political gains could they also be listed as liable? Think the FDA is going to rule against these or since they are politically invested in the products now, will avoid lawsuit by allowing the drugs to stay on the market?
I have also read where that pharmacies are charging students and others $100 a month for the contraceptives. Does everyone realize that the wholesale price for the most expensive oral contractive is approximately $26 for a three month product and for an individual generic oral contraceptive compact is approximately $6. This is a scam by distributors and pharmacies to continue to recieve large sums of cash and the federal government getting involved to insure thier contributions being placed in the hands of the right politian.
Some of the largest contracts for these products owned by the company I work are for individual states that purchase these products and distribute for free.
billsunderstanding-
where insurance companies COVER viagra and vasectomies, there has always been discrimination against women's health care because our bodies are more complex.
a FEW insurance companies now cover contraceptives, but not many, and not the way they ALL cover viagra and vasectomies. it is MUCH MORE than just the removal of the co-pay. most women HAVE to pay for their contraception and sexual pleasure (without getting pregnant) while men just take it for granted that their sexual needs and desires WILL BE PAID FOR.
there are forms of birth control, though not perfect, they all have their risks, that don't cause blood clot or increase breast cancer risks (the IUD, intrauterine device) that the catholic church and the religious extreme right don't like either and would disapprove. hell, they disapprove of condoms for christ sake.
contraception will stay on the market. women will demand it, even with the risks involved with taking it.
Yes, Senator Snowe was courageous here. Apparently she was the only Republican who was listening when there was such enormous blowback after Susan G. Komen tried to defund Planned Parenthood. It is beyond me how tone deaf the GOP is on these issues. And, sorry, but the Blunt Amendment was so wide open to abuse that it beggared logic altogether.
We women should all send her THANK YOU NOTES.
lush called Sandra fluke a slut.....he is a hateful bully.
I know this is a thinly disguised attack on women's health care and the Patient Protection Act. However, ff taken to the extreme this amendment could lead to any employer denying health care coverage for any reason.
What if someone felt that people shouldn't have more than two children to avoid taxing our environmental resources and only provided maternity and child care coverage for no more than two children? Could someone who said they were morally opposed to gluttony not provide insurance coverage for overweight employees?
ATG,
this is the way the repubs want it. paying for real health care does not make the insurance companies money.
we have seen what they have done in the past, denying coverage for all kinds of reasons. this would leave them wide open to do even more of that.
With the wording of the bill, it would include the same "employer" decession for males and females alike. Depending on the treatment. So it's not just a "womans" issue with this wording.
This is not over yet and it has nothing to do with "religious freedom". It is about doing damage Obama's healthcare plan any way they can, with the overall goal of making Obama a one term president. The phony charge of a "war on religion" is nothing more than an attempt to mobilize the base that refuses to support their substandard candidates.
I would not be jumping for joy in a 51-48 vote it should have been 98-1 with the 1 being Blunt
But just because that high percentage of catholics (if those are true numbers) use it does that make it right for the government to force religous hospitals to cover things they are against? The catholic church is against concraception and are now being forced to pay for it. Wouldn't you say that is against the first amendment?
The local catholic hospital bought out the other local hospital. Now you only have one option to obtain local healthcare. Now they want to push their religious beliefs on everyone here who cannot afford to drive 80 miles to the next nearest hospital. This decision has more repercussions than simple birth control. What about MY freedom to choose my own religion or lack thereof? Where are MY First Amendment rights?
The Catholic Church would not be paying for contraception!
Catholic schools , as the employers of non-Catholic teachers, would...
Catholic hospitals, as employers of non-Catholic doctors, nurses and support personnel, would...
These are employers, dealing with employees... Not churches, dealing with nuns...
Why should schools and hospitals force their workers to follow their dogma, when the Catholic church is NOT their religion?
You can say, "they should just quit, then they won't have this problem?" True, but they would have to find new jobs of equal worth and equal pay, a rare commodity in these times. In addition, the schools and hospitals wouldn't hire these people, if they didn't NEED these people...
This has never been a matter of religious freedom. It's been about employees' rights, and demogoguery against President Obama and his Affordable Health Care Act...
BTW... Who is running the 'Death Panels', deciding who gets health care or not, now?
It also exempts religous organizations. Therefore no religous freedoms are impossed upon.
A special Thank You! to Barbara Boxer..
Leading the opposition to the Blunt proposal, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D- Calif., said “right-wing Republicans” were “trying to take away women’s health care.”
Jodi,
thank you calling attention to Barbara Boxer. she is not my senator, but i love her, and how she speaks out for women.
i am so glad she is there, one of the best, IF NOT THE BEST fighter for WOMEN.
Here's to sanity, such a rare commodity in congress.
It's the exception that proves the rule.
TM, Roy Blunt is a birther, too.
http://www.firedupmissouri.com/content/sarah-palin-more-reasonable-roy-blunt-birther-conspiracy-questions
I am grateful to Snowe. They all pander to their base unless they are not up for reelection, as Olympia Snowe. Hey, we'll take what little bones they throw our way and say, "THANKS"! We don't mind the reason for doing it.
They get so much more reasonable when they aren't running for reelection!!
Hey India, Obama has a new campaign cup, you can get with his birth certificate printed on it. Neat!
Romney has guns, guns, and more guns. Of course he supports the blunt stuff. He is a small rodent and varmint hunter....hey we could us him to clean up the kochroaches on the vine.
More than an attack on women, it was more like sacrificing women to please the insurance companies and the evangelical right.
The amendment, as Sen. Boxer said, would basically allow any insurance company to decline coverage for whatever reason, the only thing they had to do is cite a "moral objection". Nothing else. The objective was to go back to the status quo when insurance companies just took money and then decided wether or not to provide a service, legalized fraud basically, and the GOP was willing to sacrifice women rights in order to achieve that.
Shame on them! And Sen. Snowe, you set a brave example, and I hope others in the GOP could see that and LEARN from it.
OR,
the last 8 words in your last sentence:
that is wishful thinking, and you know it :-)!
I know! Sad, isn't it?
Pathetic democrats...nothing more than parasites that feed off a host. Can't accept responsibility or pay for their own life choices.
LMAO you made a funny.
Oh my, what that silly comment.
If you were trying to be funny....fine and dandy...if not....
Please explain how paying insurance premiums and expecting adequate medical coverage is being a parasite or was your comment meant to be sarcastic.
Thank you
Oh my, what that silly statement or was your comment meant to be sarcastic?
If you were trying to be funny....fine and dandy...if not....
Please explain how paying insurance premiums and expecting adequate medical coverage is being a parasite.
Thank you
Why not free Chemo drugs? Why not free surgeries?
How about just getting what you pay for?
And there goes another troll calling names. Please explain how, when a person pays for insurance, they are not paying for services. Even employer provided, the employee pays their share, which contiually increases. But then you stupid rightie tighties believe the dems just want a free ride. You're probably still hopeing to be included in the 1%. You'll never make it.
larry
I do not consider supporting a personal lifestyle choice of somebody else is my expense anymore than you should have to pay for my lifestyle choices. Insurance is a simple business it estimates what it is going to have to pay out next year in benefits. Divides that number by the number of insured persons then ads 3 percent for profit and that is what they charge the policyholders in the form of premiums. IF due to a mandate the insurance company has to proved a benefit of $1000 per year for each female policy holder then they multiply the number of policy holders that will demand that benefit and add that to to total to be paid out and again divide by the number of policyholders. That means that those who are going to get that benefit because they are men or women who do not use are going to have to pay for those that will get the benefit. It is patently unfair to the policyholders. To put a social spin on it it is a benefit that will not be used by lesbians and is unfair for them to have to pay for something they won't get.
What birth control method helps to prevent the spread of venereal diseases? sure ain't birth control pills or an IUD. So if I have to now pay for girls birth control, then why not pay for my condoms.
Liberals, always want someone else to pay their way in life.
Birth control has nothing to do with health care.
Oh my, another uniformed man.
Thanks for sharing?
hope your comment represents your anger and not your intelligence!
The ignorance in trafdlo's statement is evident. Sad actually.
He brought it here.....that should clue you in.
trafdlo,
you are pathetically UNINFORMED AND IGNORANT, just like rush limbaugh. i am sure you are proud of that.
old white republican men want liberals to pay for their viagra, which is covered, even by catholic churches and catholic businesses. republican men also want their vasectomies paid for, which would CERTAINLY take away the purpose for SEX which is to impregnate your wife, and keep her barefoot and in the kitchen. they want their viagra and vasectomies, but refuse women the same benefit; to enjoy sex without getting pregnant.
will a repub/bagger here please address the hypocrisy of that? of course you won't, because how will you defend that without sounding even more chauvinistic than you ALREADY ARE?
your ignorance is INTOLERABLE and it pisses us off. birth control is NOT just for preventing pregnancy, it is also used as a "treatment" medication for cysts, and for horribly painful menstrual periods, AND OTHER THINGS. it also allows women to enjoy sex the same way that men are "allowed" to without the fear of getting pregnant. look it up, but i'm sure you wish to remain uneducated, unenlightened,, mindless, moronic, empty-headed, sophmoric, and a male chauvinist pig.
Again do birth control pills help prevent the spread of VD??? answer is NO.
so how can birth control pills be considered health care???
there was no birth control pill until the 1957, how did women survive before then?
This will drive up the cost of health insurance thanks liberals..
How did people survive before penicillin? How did people survive before physicians learned to wash their hands? Are those also not to be considered healthcare because they haven't been around forever? What a useless straw-man argument.
Hi feral!
Great rebuttalts to a ridiculous question.
traf:
Birth Control and VD are apples and oranges.
Look it up....read posts....there are many medical reasons that the pill is used for. Pain for those with cerebal palsy and stopping seizures for those with epilepsy. That's just two that I'll bother to give you.
.
Why do people come on here unarmed with knowledge? Oh, ya....their trolls.
traf,
how IGNORANT are you?
why do you think that the only purpose of birth control pills is to stop the spread of VD? that is the only thing that REGISTERS in your small narrow mind? if the pill doesn't prevent VD, it is good for NOTHING?
please educate yourself.
And you're as stupid as the rest of the trolls. Please explain, the right never has answered, how me paying an insurance premium is asking anybody to pay anything. I'm buy insurance. Should I not be able to expect something in return? I know, you probably think we should all donate our time a work as well.
Insurance works on the theory of large numbers.
Your premium is based in part on the group you are in.
You liberals, always looking to get someone else to pay your way in life.
larry
what you should expect from your insurance company is insurance against an illness or accident. why would you want to pay for a kickback amounting to about $1000 paid to someone else out of your insurance payment??? That is what you are defending and apparently you are willing to pay for a benefit for someone else who is not even sick or injured. Are you really willing to pay another grand a year in insurance payments? I doubt it you would be the first to cry when your policy is raised to pay for this benefit.
suzette
i had addressed your issue in a previous post which i am reprinting here you said you wished someone would address the issue you mentioned I have and here it is below
If the Romney's win the White House, the poor & middle-class will have to ride on the roof of their car!!!
ROFL!!
Dogs, for whatever reason, are always glad to see us. They don't care what mood we are in, what we look and smell like, or how crummy a day we may have had. Their love is unconditional. All good dogs go to heaven when they die, I'm not sure about mitt.....guess the Mormons can fix that.
Ed, I am not sure I understand the assault on women's rights in this issue. I have heard repeatedly that 98% of women have or current use contraceptives. The issue as I see it is who will pay for it, the woman that benefits from it or the some one else, i.e. the tax payer, insurance company, or the employers. I can't see how continuing current practices is an assault on women. If the reports are correct and 98% of women use contraceptives, I would say we have yet another case of the government attempting to fix something that is not broken.
But the republicans are trying to change the current practices. Did you even read the Blunt amendment? If your employer is a jehovahs witness, do they have to pay for your insurance to cover blood transfusions? This is an assault on everyone's healthcare. Women are just the first target.
feraltwinkie, Prior to Obama Care the vast majority of Americans had Health Care Insurance. Obama Care was intended to address the individuals that either didn't want it or couldn't afford it, as well as a few other issue, i.e. existing conditions, maintaining coverage while between jobs, children until 25 years of age etc... Never was there a mention of mandatory contraception coverage nor its infringement on religious organizations. Only now that it has become law we are finding out what the bill actually contained. Obama said prior to being elected he would have a transparent administration yet the bill was created behind closed doors with little if anything known about its contents.
Now I ask, did you have these same fears about insurance coverage provided by an employer prior to the Federal government's involvement? Like I said, 98% of women already use contraception, but now it seems to be a major problem. You asked about Jehovah Witness employers. Will here it my question, Why would a religious organization that doesn't believe in the medical profession purchase medical insurance for themselves or their employees? Is the next step for the government to mandate the Catholic Church hire female Priests? After all the US Code prohibits discrimination based on sex. The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, but it the government not superseding our religious freedom by dictating participation in such programs that violate our religious beliefs and teachings?
This is not about women's rights, it is about power, the power of the church and the power of the Federal government. Allow the constitution to be trampled on now and we will all lose in the future. Lastly, if you are correct, and this is not about women's rights, why present it as such?
Hi suzette!
I see LJ is fond of spam.
Maybe she's Orly Taitz's sister-in-law.
orly taitz is ground zero for this ignorant racist sh!t.
bloggers who post here believe this. anything to say, capt.?
i don't get it.
how can they believe this crap?
Birthers adore Orly like tp'ers adore Palin. This one adores Orly. Maybe Palin too. Don't care.
What *really* gets to me is that a white Russian immigrant demands that our black American President of the United States of America show her his papers. I get livid when I think about that. I say send her back to Russia.
At last count, Newsvine and its affiliates have been spammed 25 times. Could it be....?