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Health Care
Republicans against healthcare expansion now worried about outcome if expansion doesn't happen
- Brian Chilson
- Meeks
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
What's going on
Saturday: Trout Fishing in America, March Against Monsanto and more
In Eureka Springs, the May Festival of the Arts continues with a concert from veteran folk duo Trout Fishing in America, The Auditorium, 7:30 p.m.
Anyone with an interest in sustainable food systems and fighting against the forces of Big Ag will probably want to be at the March Against Monsanto at the Arkansas State Capitol, 1 p.m.
Nashville indie-folk duo Elenowen (married couple Josh and Nicole Johnson who were on season one of NBC's "The Voice") play a free show at Juanita's with Cliff Hutchison, 7 p.m.
Maxine's has an evening of burly rock, with Opportunist (featuring members of Holy Shakes), Booyah! Dad, Tiger High and Black Horse, 8 p.m., $5 adv., $7 door.
In Fayetteville, space-rock riffmeisters Mothwind play an 18-and-older gig at The Lightbulb Club with locals Dying, $5.
Psych-pop quartet Tsar Bomba plays with Bombay Harambee at White Water Tavern, 9:30 p.m.
What's going on / Music / Tattoos
Saturday To-Do: 7th Street Underground Festival
- Lily Darragh
- Jab Jab Suckerpunch plays the 7th Street Underground Festival Saturday.
7TH STREET UNDERGROUND FESTIVAL
1 p.m. 7th Street. $10.
Little Rock's 7th Street has long held a special place in the city's cultural landscape. Within a few blocks of each other, you've got The Weekend Theater, 7th Street Tattoos, Art Outfitters and Vino's, all of which qualify as institutions at this point.
So what better way to celebrate the spirited artistic hub than with an annual festival featuring art, music, food, beer and more? An outdoor stage in the lot just east of 7th Street Tattoos will host a raft of bands and other entertainment, including magic tricks, sideshows, fire spinners, spoken word performances and music from Austin Jones and Smooth Spirit, Itinerant Locals, Go Fast!, Jab Jab Suckerpunch, Peckerwolf and This Holy House.
Inside Vino's, they'll be screening episodes of "The Ren & Stimpy Show" and other cartoons from 5-9 p.m., followed by live music from Flameing Daeth Fearies, Sam Walker, Neon Skin and Flint Eastwood. There will be beer, margaritas and carnival food vendors in the lot next to 7th Street Tattoos and Vino's, naturally, will be serving up beer, wine, pizza, sandwiches and more.
What's going on / Music
Saturday To-Do: Collective Soul
COLLECTIVE SOUL
8 p.m. Timberwood Amphitheater. $50-$60.
Magic Springs gets the live music rolling at Timberwood Amphitheater with a concert from erstwhile bubble-grunge megastars Collective Soul.
The Georgia quartet has kept things rolling all these years. After splitting with Atlantic Records back in 2001, after several hits and millions of units sold, Collective Soul came back in 2004 with "Youth," which is a real head-scratcher for anybody who hadn't thought about the band since "Shine" was blasting out of car stereos all over the country long about 1994. No lie: it sounds a hell of a lot like Bowie singing for, say, Supergrass (for real, singer Ed Roland sounds eerily similar to the Thin White Duke at times — eerily similar).
They dialed the power-pop/glam sound back a bit on subsequent albums, but Collective Soul is clearly a band that is much more than a one-hit-wonder grunge-lite nostalgia act.
As with all the Timberwood concerts, the show is free with admission or $5-$10 for reserved seating. In other Magic Springs news: At 10 a.m., the park hosts a grand opening ceremony for its newest attraction, the four-story water complex Splash Island. Radio Disney star Tiffany Thornton will be there.
Event Calendar
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Re: Republicans against healthcare expansion now worried about outcome if expansion doesn't happen
Those guys give dumb a bad name.
- on May 24, 2013
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Re: Gun control group to spend against Pryor
Ah - Ozarkrazo! - I see you have come back to my altar once again…
- on May 24, 2013
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Re: Vote fraud: Myth-busting in Ohio
When the only choices on the ballot are between D vs R bribed and beholden…
- on May 24, 2013
Arkansas Reporter
Sister who opposed Faubus dies
Editorials
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Fox16 Local News and Weather
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Teen Boy Hit by Car in Pulaski County Dies, Suspect Drove Away
May 24, 2013Deputies with the sheriff's office are looking for the hit and run suspect after the incident on Willow Springs Road. The vehicle is described as a white 4-door sedan, possibly... fox16.com /more/ -
Earthquake Reported Near Morrilton in the Overnight Hours
May 24, 201317th earthquake for the week reported in Arkansas. fox16.com /more/
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