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Health Care
Republicans against healthcare expansion now worried about outcome if expansion doesn't happen
You would figure that a legislator who voted against the “private option” legislation expanding healthcare coverage would be happy if that law was never enacted, or was stopped. But if you so figured, you do not know the mind of Rep. David Meeks.
At the joint committee hearing on the "private option" plan for healthcare expansion yesterday, Meeks asked about a Plan B. "Are we anticipating what we would do if something happens and we don’t get the private option?"
This is a question we certainly ought to think about because the plan is dependent on federal approval of a waiver. The law was designed as a take-it-leave-it offer to the feds and has various triggers in place to halt the legislation if the feds don't hold up their end of the bargain. In other words, Plan B is nothing.
Because of the way current law is structured here's what that means: 1) People between 100-138 percent of the federal poverty level would have to pay a little out of pocket on premiums but they would be eligible for heavily subsidized insurance on the exchange. 2) But uninsured people under 100 percent would be out of luck — without expansion, there isn't a backup. If you're worried about low-income people not having health insurance, Plan B is awful.
But Plan B — do nothing — is exactly what Meeks voted for. It's what he argued for on the House floor and elsewhere, as a vigorous opponent of both traditional Medicaid expansion and the "private option." Does Meeks realize this? Unclear, because he asked that they consider "what can we do with the [uninsured below 100 percent*] so they're not just kinda left out there."
Again, just kinda leaving them out there is indeed the result if expansion doesn't happen — and Meeks voted against expansion.
Meeks continued: "Is there any talk about what to do with the [uninsured below 100 percent] if in fact the private option goes away? I would like to encourage folks to come up with a Plan B for them. I know that you have a lot on your plate with just going forward and doing what you’re doing, and that may be something us as legislators that maybe we need to discuss."
Yeah, maybe so! Of course we just had that discussion, and this particular issue escaped Meeks's attention at the time. If you've been following the healthcare debate in Arkansas, you'll want to pick your jaw up off the floor. Well, Meeks contains multitudes.
Rep. Kim Hammer made sure to join in the lunacy, asking "if Plan A goes away, the federal government doesn’t cover the [uninsured below 100 percent], they’re just hung out to dry?" You guessed it: Hammer voted against Plan A, leaving those folks "hung out to dry."
Rep. John Burris said he was "confident in Plan A" but noted that if it fell through, the state would revert to "the default position that would have happened otherwise." Burris did not mention that this was the default position that, just a month ago, Meeks and Hammer said they wanted.
*Meeks and Hammer actually referred to this group as “the 18-100s” because parents below 18 percent are already eligible under the traditional Medicaid program. For childless adults, without expansion, 0-100 would be uncovered.
Little Rock Government
Neighbors oppose pregnant teen home in old Job Corps center
The Pettaway Neighborhood Association is organizing opposition for a proposal before the Little Rock Planning Commission May 30 to convert the abandoned Job Corps Center building at 20th and Vance along I-30 to a home for pregnant teens.
Its letter objecting to a rezoning plan says, in part:
At a public forum held at Winthrop Rockefeller Elementary and Early Childhood Magnet School on March 2, 2013, residents asked Paradise Group LLC to share their business and community engagement plan. To date the Paradise Group LLC has failed to share their solid business and community engagement plan with our community the very place where this proposed planned development will be housed. We know of no letters or confirmed intent of support from Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS), Division of Children and Family Services (DCFS) or Transitional Youth Services (TYS) or any other organizations or entities that would directly impact the specific services being provided to these pregnant teens.Presently, the property at 2020 Vance Street has remained vacant and a nuisance for a number of years. This boarded and dilapidated historic structure is visible from Interstate 30 and has proved to be a hardship for those residents whose homes are in close proximity to this structure.
It has been the expressed wish of the PNA that the structure be demolished. However, if the structure is to be rehabilitated, the PNA requests proof that the proprietors have a solid business and community engagement plan to ensure the sustainability of whatever business is housed in this particular structure.
The Pettaway community along with MacArthur Park Historic District and the Main Street corridor is experiencing growth. People are moving in, buying vacant lots, restoring older historic homes, and building new structures. This growth is directly related to the sustained community effort to embrace community by making it safe, clean and supporting one another in our desire to live in a vibrant downtown. As much as the residents would like a positive and effective planned development at 2020 Vance Street (like the new Children's Library in the 12th Street corridor) we want to make sure that the property is not left vacant again after a short period of use.
Abortion
UA prof writes on the 'junk science' of 20-week abortion bans
Here's a valuable piece of writing for Science Progress from the classrooms of the University of Arkansas by Dr. Lisa Corrigan, co-chair of the gender studies program of the Fulbright College.
It's about the proliferation of abortion bans beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy, such as Arkansas just passed. It aims at a tiny number of abortions, she notes — just a few dozen a year in Arkansas. Advocates base the laws, she writes,
...on junk science based on the pseudoscience of fetal pain to warrant the state laws prohibiting third trimester abortions. Their claims stem from erroneous assertions that the fetus feels pain at 20 weeks, despite several comprehensive literature reviews demonstrating no credible evidence of fetal pain until the third trimester. Likewise, the case for “fetal pain” rests on the argument that the rights of the fetus should take precedence over the civil rights of the mother.
One of many other problems, is that late abortions are inevitably the product of grave medical problems. Sometimes, they can't be known until after 20 weeks.
While ultrasounds administered prior to 20 weeks are generally adequate to assess major organ systems, they fail to detect major cardiac, skeletal, and craniofacial anomalies, particularly those that are lethal to the fetus.
The Arkansas law provides no exceptions for these cases or for rape and incest victims. It was passed over the veto of Gov. Mike Beebe, who said it was unconstitutional because it banned abortions at a time before a fetus could survive outside the womb, in clear contradiction of U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
For many families who have never dealt with the trauma of fetal anomalies, it may seem difficult to understand why third term abortions are necessary. But when abortion care is restricted at 20 weeks, women are often forced to carry nonviable fetuses, often to term. In the case of lethal fetal anomalies, this requirement means countless appointments, treatments, tests, and conversations about the imminent death of their fetus, inflicting preventable trauma on families who want to carry a healthy fetus to term.
You may remember a gripping first-person account of this situation in the Times during the legislative debate. It went unheeded by most Arkansas legislators. Other points by Corrigan:
* STRESS: The restrictive laws put enormous psychological burdens on families, as well as the physical stress on forcing a mother to carry a fetus to term without likelihood of survival of the fetus.
* DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACT: Economic circumstances mean poor and minority are less likely to get early medical intervention.
* REJECTION OF SCIENCE: Climate change anyone? Creation science?
The reliance on junk science instead of data on fetal anomalies leads to laws that ignore double-blind, peer-reviewed science in favor of laws that punish women and doctors unnecessarily. These laws complicate the ability of doctors to provide timely and complete prenatal care for women and they elevate the fetus, regardless of viability, over the rights of women and their families....Legislation prohibiting access to reproductive health care at any arbitrary point alienates women from the policymaking process by objectifying them and attempting to erode their right to physical autonomy by privileging the fetus over the needs of the mother.
The 20-week bans have been struck down in several states. As yet, the Arkansas law has not been challenged. It will be, when a woman in desperate straits finds her highly personal and scientifically rooted desire to end a pregnancy comes up against Arkansas religious preference, masquerading as science. Lawyers are at work drafting the necessary request for an injunction, which, inevitably, will be granted as others have been. As a judge wrote in Idaho:
The State’s clear disregard of this controlling Supreme Court precedent and its apparent determination to define viability in a manner specifically and repeatedly condemned by the Supreme Court evinces an intent to place an insurmountable obstacle in the path of women seeking non-therapeutic abortions of a nonviable fetus at and after twenty weeks’ gestation.
Rock Candy
Music / Coming soon
ZZ Top to Fayetteville
Get out your cheap sunglasses, 'cause "that little ol' band from Texas" is headed to Fayetteville's Arkansas Music Pavilion for an Oct. 4 concert. Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Thursday, May 30 and they're gonna run you $37-$102. Here's where to go to get 'em. Or you could call 479-443-5600.
The 'Top recently got the Rick Rubin treatment with last year's "La Futura," a gettin'-back-to-their-roots collection with real drums and a gritty, mean guitar tone.
After the jump, one of my favorite ZZ Top tunes, from 1973's "Tres Hombres." No, not "La Grange" (though that one is totally the jam).
What's going on
Friday: American Guild of Organists benefit recital, Wes Jeans at Denton's and more
If you're looking for something not quite so Riverest-y to do Friday night, The American Guild of Organists presents a recital to benefit the Pediatric Injury Prevention Program at Arkansas Children's Hospital, Christ Episcopal Church, 8 p.m., free, donations accepted.
Texas-based blues-blaster Wes Jeans brings the 12-bar tube-amp jams to Denton's Trotline, 9 p.m., $10.
The Sideshow Tragedy and Damn Arkansan offer an evening of Americana/roots rock at Maxine's, 8 p.m., $5 adv., $7 door.
Up in Fayetteville, A Concert for Campers has performances by John Henry & Friends, Brick Fields, Houston Hughes, Dividend and Joey Largent, with proceeds helping to send children to Camp Quest Oklahoma, Nightbird Books, 7 p.m., donations accepted.
If you want to keep the good times going after things wind down at Riverfest, check out Lawler and Ewell's 5th Annual Bday Bash with Raydar and Shaolin, Joe C, Noodles and JDawg, Revolution, 9 p.m., $5 adv., $10 day of.
The Center for Artistic Revolution's Rainbow Camp is a sure bet for LGBTQ and ally youth, Ferncliff Camp and Conference Center, Friday-Monday. More info here.
What's going on / Music
Friday To-Do: Mad Nomad
MAD NOMAD
9:30 p.m. White Water Tavern.
Mad Nomad is one of the newer entries on the Little Rock musicscape, having formed in September. But they're not exactly taking the leisurely route, having already finished up their first full-length, the nine-song "Black Out," available at this album-release show.
The group plays an amped-up sort of indie rock that's informed by the classics (Replacements, Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr.) and unabashedly guitar-centric. They remind me a bit of the Springsteen-gone-punk sounds of Against Me! circa "New Wave." Most of the tunes are of the fist-pumping, triumphant sort, but they slow down the pace a bit on the Southern-rock-riffing "Me Tarzan, You Jane" and they break out the acoustic guitars on the wistful "When You Were Here."
The band includes Joe Holland, Jacob Mahan, Jesse Bell, Adam Hogg and Chris Honea. Hogg's piano playing adds some nice texture to the guitar squall. The album, good on its own merits for sure, is also a promising indicator of things to come. Good-time party-rockers Booyah! Dad and The Bootheel of Springfield, Mo., will open the show.
Event Calendar
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Re: UA prof writes on the 'junk science' of 20-week abortion bans
Saline, I think we can all agree that Gosnell is a POS. Really not relevant…
- on May 24, 2013
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Re: Neighbors oppose pregnant teen home in old Job Corps center
Let's assume the Paradise Group does their additional homework. Let's assume the support is there,…
- on May 24, 2013
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Re: Sister who opposed Faubus dies
This is what we've come to: Fighting among ourselves over points in an obituary.
- on May 24, 2013
Arkansas Reporter
Sister who opposed Faubus dies
Editorials
Misquoted
Slideshows
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What's there, what's coming.
Fox16 Local News and Weather
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Earthquake Reported Near Morrilton in the Overnight Hours
May 24, 201317th earthquake for the week reported in Arkansas. fox16.com /more/ -
Busy Beavers Causing Huge Headaches In Lonoke County
May 23, 2013Lonoke County formed a special committee to find out how to deal with a beaver overpopulation. fox16.com /more/
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