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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Troubling Statistics
Posted by Bob | 9:57 PM
Fewer N.J. women receiving prenatal care

The number of women receiving early prenatal care in New Jersey has declined slightly during the last decade, largely because many do not have regular access to doctors or cannot afford to pay medical bills, according to a report released today.

The Prenatal Care Task Force report, released by State Health Commissioner Heather Howard, found teens, minorities and unmarried mothers are at higher risk of poor birth outcomes, including low birth-weight babies. Yet they remain less likely to receive early prenatal care, according to the report.

Uninsured mothers in New Jersey had the lowest rate of trimester prenatal care - 73 percent - while women with private insurance had the highest rate - 96 percent - across all racial and ethnic groups.

The overall average for prenatal care in New Jersey was 89 percent, according to the report, based on birth and infant death certificate data from 1990 to 2004.
These are troubling statistics. Successful early prenatal care programs would show a continuous steady rise. We can guess at a few of the causes. One would be that poor women & teenagers wait longer before confirming a pregnancy, from denial or any number of reasons. Another would be the fear many undocumented women have of entering the public health care system & calling attention to themselves. Prenatal deportation? Sounds cruel, but it's happened. It could be up there on the right wing agenda along with overturning Roe v. Wade & ordering teenagers to stop having sex or else suffer the consequences. Let's call it the Sarah Palin Agenda until we hear otherwise.

These numbers are discouraging, but they they don't have to stay that way. The expansion of SCHIP to all uninsured children & a greater attention to child health in schools will bring many more families into contact with regular health care, & those families will become accustomed to using the resources & more likely to urge others to do the same. For those families, we need more family care clinics conveniently located in the neighborhoods where they are needed, not two bus rides away on the other side of the city, phasing out hospital emergency rooms as primary care providers.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

On the other hand, when did "sense" have any relevance to conservatives?
Posted by Jill | 9:56 AM
Yesterday Amanda wrote about how the new meme that characterizes the new "child swiftboating" -- that the parents of Brittany Wilkerson should not have had their child because they didn't have health insurance -- is inconsistent with the equally right-wing agenda that all pregnancies should be carried to term and that doctors and pharmacists opposed to contraceptives need not prescribe and fill prescriptions for them.

Fresh on the heels of the right having yet another working family to kick around, one with a child not old enough to talk back yet, comes Captain Codpiece to try to keep the world safe from fucking:

The Department of Health and Human Services appointed Susan Orr — who has spoken out against contraception — to a post responsible for U.S. contraception programs.

Orr, who will be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, has been directing child welfare programs in another branch of HHS. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Orr was senior director for marriage and family at the Family Research Council, a conservative group that favors abstinence-only education and opposes federal money for contraception.

In 2001, she was quoted in the Washington Post favoring a Bush administration plan to drop a requirement that health insurance plans for federal employees cover a broad range of birth control.

“We’re quite pleased because fertility is not a disease,” she said at the time. “It’s not a medical necessity that you have it.”


So let me see if I have this straight....you shouldn't have access to contraception if you work for the government because contraception isn't a medical necessity and you should produce lots of babies. But if you don't work for the government; say, for an employer that doesn't provide insurance, then you should let your baby die.

Or is it that fucking, like health insurance, is only for the wealthy too?

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Monday, October 08, 2007

The most loathsome administration in history
Posted by Jill | 8:38 PM
Just when you think the Republicans can't stoop any lower, here comes the virtues of early minority death rates and the swiftboating of a twelve-year-old.

I kid you not.

Alan Breslauer at BradBlog reports on how the chief of the Voting Rights division of the U.S. Department of justice says that restrictive voter ID laws give minorities a greater voice:

The NLC kicked off their 2nd Annual convention over the weekend, including an expert panel titled, "It's Not Over - Defending the Right to Vote Against Disenfranchising Tactics". While many issues were covered over the course of 2 1/2 hour panel, the most hotly debated subject was the current rash of GOP-pushed Photo ID laws sweeping the nation, just in time for the 2008 Presidential Election.

Tanner --- and we'll repeat it again, he's the Chief of the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice --seems to believe that restrictive Photo ID laws are not only non-discriminatory but actually favor minorities (at least in Georgia). All of the other expert panelists, audience members and even one particular vocal cameraman (that would be me), were incredulous, and found Tanner's comments absurd and objectionable.

In the first of several video clips below (5:45) Tanner states that Voter ID laws "very much [are] a state by state issue" that come down to "who has the ID and who doesn't." Tanner goes on to contend that Photo ID issues really only impact the elderly. There is a racial link however, because "our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first," he told those of us in the room. And things that disproportionately impact the elderly have the opposite impact on minorities. In other words, Tanner concludes that Photo ID laws actually negatively impact non-minorities and seemingly give them a greater voice.


Video here.

Meanwhile, the family of a 12-year-old who gave the Democratic rebuttal to Captain Codpiece's weekly radio address is being harassed by freepers and wingnuts:

The Frost's are a family of six living in a working class neighborhood in Baltimore MD.

The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.

They bought their "lavish house" in 1991 for $55k at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe. Sixteen years later, the house still needs work.

Halsey Frost is a self-employed carpenter/woodworker.

Bonnie is a part time researcher/editor for a medical research firm.

Last year, the Frost's made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined depending on Halsey's ability to find work

The children and their education

Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.

Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred do to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.

Right wing bloggers have been harassing the Frosts calling numerous times to get information about their private lives.


More here and here.

What the hell kind of monsters ARE these people?

UPDATE: Here's more about the Frosts (via Digby):

Graeme and his 9-year-old sister, Gemma, were passengers in the family SUV in December 2004 when it hit a patch of black ice and slammed into a tree. Both were taken to a hospital with severe brain trauma. Graeme was in a coma for a week and still requires physical therapy.

Bonnie Frost works for a medical publishing firm; her husband, Halsey, is a woodworker. They are raising their four children on combined income of about $45,000 a year. Neither gets health insurance through work.

Having priced private insurance that would cost more than their mortgage - about $1,200 a month - they continue to rely on the government program. In Maryland, families that earn less than 300 percent of the federal poverty level - about $60,000 for a family of four - are eligible.


Now before anyone says the Frosts can't afford their mortgage, consider that their mortgage is payment is 32% of their gross monthly income -- well within long-established guidelines in the mortgage industry that pre-date the recent bubble; which usually regard 28-33% as what one can afford. Another $1200/month or more for health insurance, and you're looking at nothing left after taxes for utilities, food, and clothing. It simply should not be necessary for families to spend a third of their pre-tax income for health insurance.

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