The GOP’s War on Women, (and everyone else who isn’t them…)
This is long, but it’s imperative everyone understands this, so please read. In fact, go get a beverage……
The GOP is dangerous. I know that sounds alarmist, but I don’t say that lightly. For me to illustrate just how dangerous, I need to explain some basics.
First, how did so many Americans get so stupid?
[Chips raises her hand.] “I know Tally! Pick me! Pick me!”
Yes Chips?
“The Republicans have been cutting Public Education funding for the last thirty years, and now globally, we’re ranked 14th for reading, 17th for science, and 25th for math!”
Excellent answer Chips! Correct. I love being surrounded by smart people!
We all pay taxes. Taxes go to millions of different things. No one person can specify where and how their tax contribution is spent. That is the government’s function.
Pretty much everyone has some form of insurance. If you drive a car, you have auto insurance. If you have a job, you pay into state disability and unemployment insurance programs. Even Social Security and Medicare are types of insurance. Even your taxes are a kind of insurance, and pay for Police and Fire departments, among a bazillion other things that most people take for granted.
The most important thing I learned since President Obama’s Birth Control Punking last Friday, is that 99% of America (and apparently 100% of the media), have ZERO knowledge of how insurance actually works.
I really feel that everyone needs to understand this clearly, because if we don’t, we’re going to attack back in the wrong direction out of ignorance, and lose ground instead of gain or hold it. So please bear with me - I’ll make this simple:
Insurance works the same way taxes do. You pay premiums that go into a giant pool of money, and it’s the Insurance Company who then disburses that money to pay claims. Just as you have no right to tell the government it cannot spend tax money on National Security, you cannot direct the insurance company not to pay for your neighbor’s house that burned down.
Insurance BASICS: Many people put money into a shared pool of funds to protect against potential loss. “Potential” being the key word, as you may never suffer a loss. You might not live long enough to collect Social Security, or be sick and need Medicare. You may never get into a car accident. Your house may never burn down, etc. You pay for insurance in case it does, and you do not get a refund if you never use it.
The money you pay into the pool is called a PREMIUM. If you do have a loss, the insurance company pays money out of that pool to cover that loss, which is called a CLAIM.
Everyone with me so far?
Health Insurance is a little more complicated because it involves HEALTH CARE PROTOCOLS (how they treat your illness or injury) which are provided by a doctor or other medical professionals, which if done… incorrectly, or haphazardly, can lead to BAD THINGS, which result in MALPRACTICE SUITS. (Tuck this fact away - it will be important.)
Some “employers” (including churches), offer their employees insurance coverage as a job perk. It’s important to note that the Employer is NOT an Insurance Company. This insurance is provided by outside PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES that have zero affiliation with the “employer.”
Some employers pay all or part of their employees’ premiums, while some merely offer it and make the employee pay 100% of their premiums.
The plans that exist are as varied as there are grains of sand on a beach. Some cover maternity, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc., and some do not.
No matter what is offered by the plans, the employer doesn’t EVER directly pay for actual medical CARE given to a patient. That is done by the insurance company (who controls the pool of money that contains money from thousands of employers, not just one) - when they pay the CLAIM. The patient might be responsible for paying their deductible and copays depending on their plan, but the ONLY thing the employer directly pays for - if they pay anything at all, are PREMIUMS.
Under no circumstances do the employers have any say whatsoever on MEDICAL CARE PROTOCOLS, including drug formularies (list of medications that are covered by the insurance company.) For example, they cannot deny a patient chemo, transplants, or blood transfusions, or have any say on what specific medications your doctor prescribes for you. They cannot direct anyone’s doctor how to treat a patient. (Remember Sarah Palin and her Death Panels?) Can you even fathom how many more malpractice cases there would be if they did??? But no, those calls are up to the medical professionals, and unfortunately some of the douchebag medical consultants at the insurance companies, but thankfully there is stuff in the ACA that will change that, and get it all in the hands of the doctors.
Still with me? Then let’s start with the GOPChurches™ and not wanting to “pay” for birth control.
Make no mistake; it’s not about money. Birth Control costs pennies compared to the average medical costs of maternity, pre/post natal care, and delivery of a child, which runs on average $10k per birth. Covering birth control keeps everyone’s premiums low. More maternity claims drive costs up, and in turn will drive up premiums. No. Money has nothing to do with it. They wouldn’t care if it all fell from the sky. It doesn’t matter to them that it lowers the abortion rate and saves lives. It’s not about any of that.
For centuries, in their view, any woman who enjoys sex, and has it for any reason other than to make a baby, is a SLUT, and bad. And this is not limited to Western cultures. It’s why women are circumcised in Africa, and made to cover themselves from head to foot in the Middle East.
They claim it’s about Morality, but that’s a lie. It’s about CONTROL.
To be specific, it’s all about controlling women’s sex lives, because most men know the biological facts, (even though most male egos are in serious denial that it applies to them personally), that female libido just keeps getting stronger with age, while a male’s peaks at 18, and then declines. (It’s 2012, you’d think we’d have a patch for that now….. ) And if they can’t satisfy their women, their women will find someone who will.
For all their religiosity, I’m surprised they don’t ever consider that God, who they believe made everything, designed sex as one of the most pleasurable experiences on Earth, and thus it’s meant to be enjoyed, and celebrated. But these people thrive on shame, even of the human body, also designed by God….. (Sorry…. I could scream about that for hours but that’s another discussion entirely ….)
Like most things in the GOP ideology, they’re cowards about how they present it, so they start with not wanting to “pay” for birth control, while they really mean they don’t want to OFFER it in the plans they offer their employees, which comes down to not allowing women ACCESS to it at all.
Think about that. They’re not talking about condoms, or not allowing men access. They’re not trying to close down condom companies, or ban their sale. They’re not trying to ban coverage for Viagra. Anything that has to do with MALE contraceptives or sexual dysfunction, isn’t even so much as mentioned, (unless it’s about protecting children, and then they’re against condoms being given out free in school, or teaching sex education. Best to keep everyone ignorant and in the dark……. and not know that they should report being abused by adults who should be protecting them.)
For the last two weeks, even during the Komen/Planned Parenthood firestorm, the GOPChurches™ cried and had a tantrum about being required by the ACA to allow women free birth control because it’s considered preventative care, and all preventative care is now covered IN FULL by the insurance plans. (That means the insurance companies pay that claim IN FULL - not even a copay from the patients.)
The GOPChurches™ even went as far as to say they want NO EMPLOYERS (not just religious organizations), to be forced to have to “pay” for birth control as part of the insurance plans, even though it’s the law in 28 states, and has been for some time.
Important Sidebar: I find the dishonesty and deception of the GOP astoundingly evil. That they claim birth control akin to abortion is a blatant lie. Although this also goes back to how stupid Americans are.
In 2012 it’s hard to believe that so many have no idea how conception and basic human biology works, and that people think that a fertilized human egg = embryo. It doesn’t. It’s just a fertilized egg unless it can attach itself to the uterine wall. Without the mother, there is no possibility of it ever becoming a fetus. If it could, we’d be growing babies in giant factories like the Matrix probably - especially if people like Romney could make a buck on it.
They also don’t understand how birth control works, or how hard it is to actually get pregnant and how long that takes. (If you want to see one of the best documentaries ever made, check out The Great Sperm Race:
Birth Control Basics:
- The Pill (and other hormone implants/shots) makes the female body think it’s pregnant so no ovulation takes place. Eggs stay in the Ovarian No Entry Fortress. No egg to fertilize. PERIOD.
- IUDs have been used for centuries - a foreign object in the uterus doesn’t allow a fertilized egg to attach itself to the uterine wall. Modern ones also kill sperm.
- The Morning After Pill not only makes the uterus even more of an hostile environment against foreign bacteria like sperm, it also doesn’t allow a fertilized egg to attach itself to the uterine wall. It’s like a chemical IUD.
Zero of these are equivalent to an abortion. To claim otherwise is to deny facts.
On Friday, President Obama made a statement that the Religious organizations do not have to PAY for birth control (which they never had to anyway), and he smoothly allowed them to believe otherwise, because they’re too stupid to know better), and reiterated that birth control WILL be fully paid for, for ALL WOMEN WHO WANT IT by the insurance companies (as stated in the ACA, which was signed in to law TWO YEARS AGO next month) - which was the plan all along. But of course the GOP had no clue since none of them have read one sentence of the ACA, because anything that the President comes up with or supports, they will hate. If he cured cancer, they’d claim he was trying to put doctors and BIG PHARMA out of business and destroy jobs.
It’s astounding that no one in the media pointed out that all the President did was restate what the ACA already says. It’s also a tragedy of epic proportions that our press is so broken, lazy, and stupid.
Remember Sarah Palin and her “Death Panels?” What is even more tragic and downright alarming is that the GOP wants to create their own Death Panels, and impose them on the rest of us. Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) and his new amendment to the ACA, would allow any employer or insurance company to “exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it.”
THAT is certifiably insane. More about that here
Remember when they were trying to allow pharmacists the right to not sell certain medications if it went against their religion? (I’m sorry, WHY THE FRAK are you a pharmacist????)
If anyone thinks this kind of insanity can’t happen here, I’d like to point out that Tehran once was the Paris of the Middle East.
Another thing happened on Friday. Not that the Catholic Church is smart enough to take advantage of it, but President Obama gracefully, and unselfishly came up with a way for them to save face, prevent them from going off the cliff and facing a PR shitstorm of epic proportions. A disaster they, of all organizations, cannot afford in light of the fact they’re still trying to clean up their own on-going, centuries old scandal of sexually abusing children.
A lesser man would not have done that. But then President Obama will never ever need to land on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, and make a speech underneath a banner reading Mission Accomplished.
Please understand what’s at stake here. Of course President Obama is on the right side of this, he is in a family made up of a majority of women. But unless the rest of us have his back, and gets everyone to understand that if every last one of us doesn’t VOTE come November, no matter how batshit insane the GOP candidate is, we could easily end up in an American that is as religiously insane and restrictive as Iran.
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