Health Care

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

At least 10 individuals attending Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” event to protest health care reform have been arrested outside an office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The protesters were among the several thousand Tea Party activists that Bachmann invited to storm the Capitol on Thursday.
“They were inside an office and didn’t leave,” Sgt. Kimberly [...]

Democrats blasted Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” rally against health care reform at the nation’s Capitol on Thursday. Dr. Maureen Reed’s campaign attacked Bachmann for sticking up for the health insurance lobby while the Democratic National Committee tried to paint Bachmann as the voice of the Republican Party.

On Nov. 9, the Citizens Council on Health Care will host a fundraiser with a woman who says Obama’s policies are similar to those that brought the rise of Nazi Germany and that Obama could be paving the way for the Antichrist. On Thursday, Rep. Michele Bachmann taped a glowing endorsement of the fundraiser.

Although medical marijuana use is still illegal on the federal level, the Obama administration said today that it won’t go after patients or their providers in states where it is legal.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar is one of several female Democratic senators demanding that health insurance disparities that impact women be eliminated as part of the health reform packages being debated in Congress. For the past two weeks, the senators have been ensuring the issues unique to women don’t get last in the vigorous debate.

The New York Times noted on Monday that rightwing opposition to the Democrats’ health care reform plans contains plenty of references to Nazis. On Wednesday, a Minnesota-based, rightwing health care group offered a local example, announcing a former Hitler Youth who has compared Obama’s policies to the rise of Nazi Germany as its headliner at [...]

At the Bruce Vento Dinner on Sunday, Rep. Betty McCollum lashed out at those who say a health care reform package in Congress should be bipartisan. Hosted by the 4th Congressional district DFL, the dinner remembers Vento’s two decades representing the district in Congress until his death in 2000.

On the House floor Wednesday night, Rep. Michele Bachmann warned that the health insurance reform package currently being debated by Congress would set up “sex clinics” in schools where students “taken away” to have abortions.

A report by the Guttmacher Institute released on Wednesday shows that women are choosing to delay having children due to the recession. At the same time, the cost of family planning and reproductive health services have put a strain on those women’s finances.