Women And Children First?

“Women and children first!” That’s the stereotypical cry from the chivalrous men of literature and the silver screen. When the ship is sinking, you save the most vulnerable first. Unfortunately, this ideology seems to matter primarily in the annals of fiction – in the real world, the practice of saving the most vulnerable first is rarely implemented. Especially evident in today’s economic climate, women and children are being allowed to drown, while the captains of their fate continue to prosper. No, America does not save women and children first, and captains do not go down with their ships.

When financial institutions are facing hardships due to the decisions the companies have made in the last decade or so, the government gives them hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. The captains of these industries then enjoy spa treatments and end-of-year bonuses presumably footed by hard-working Americans, while the citizens they employ are laid off, their positions are terminated, or pay and benefit cuts are sweeping.

And women and their children feel it the most. Take a look at this report from the National Women’s Law Center: http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/WomenEconomicRecoveryJuly2008.pdf. It details how women are in need of targeted assistance, especially during recessionary times, because they’re often the first to be tossed overboard. And because women are often the primary caregivers for American’s children, the youth of America is likewise cast aside.

Some facts from the report:

Women earn 23% less than men
Women are 40% more likely to live in poverty than men, and one in every eight American women is poor
Women are 10% less likely to receive unemployment benefits after losing a job
Women are 30 to 40% more likely to have subprime mortgage loans, despite comparable credit scores to men

These factors, combined with a lower average compensation, make it more difficult for women to maintain and care for their families and households. Single women with children face the toughest times of all, especially when state legislatures are considering slashing Medicaid budgets (four out of every ten single mothers receives Medicaid assistance).

America, the ship is sinking and women and children are drowning. Our captains, those who have steered us in this direction, are not subject to the consequences of a sinking ship. Instead, the American people are struggling to keep the ship afloat, bucket by bucket, and their collective efforts ensure the livelihood of their captains – who no longer have fear of financial ruin because public funds are readily available to assist them.

Do the heads of industries need assistance more than the heads of households? Of course not. Our women and children need assistance now more than ever, yet these are the last to be attended to. Greed and corruption are in abundance, while millions of women and children nationwide suffer as martyrs for their cause.

The Road to Perdition (HELL)

Ok, I understand my blog is about uninsured and underinsured pregnant moms and their unborn babies but I continually keep getting questions about healthcare, our government, the presidential race and most disturbing question is “Who is best going to take care of us?” I am so tired of hearing this. It is time we stand up and take care of ourselves. I also think it is time that we erect a new statue right next to the Statue of Liberty and it needs to be the Statue of Personal Responsibility. (REALLY)

When I think of the office of the President of the United States; indeed, when I think of my country, I think of big things. I think of a nation born out of a quest for freedom. I think of struggles for liberty that include the deaths of 600,000 Americans in order to end slavery. I think of millions of people, considered refuse in their native lands, coming to this nation for a chance to succeed. I think of billions of dollars sent to other countries partly in a bid to protect them and us from socialism and the totalitarian tendencies inherent in that corrupting ideology. I think of the self-sacrifice of thousands of American lives spent all over the world to safeguard the single most precious inheritance we have – liberty.

That’s why I lament the state of our political discourse today. It makes us so – small. It seems we can’t balance our own checkbooks, take out a loan for a house, handle a credit card, keep our own tires inflated, or keep our kids from stuffing their faces into Type II diabetes without the government holding our hands. Listen to the candidates. All too often, that’s what’s implied.

It doesn’t matter what party we’re talking about, although the party of Obama does seem to be the worst transgressor. Still, Texas’s current Comptroller, Susan Combs, a Republican, when she was Agriculture Commissioner, made it her mission to fight childhood obesity. She still makes noise about it every now and then. I mean, come on, I don’t mind if politicians make a little social commentary on occasion. It helps us learn about them and their judgment. But really, is Susan Combs going to appear at our houses like Santa Claus and tell our kids to get their butts out of the chair, stop playing video games, and get outside?

Both of the presidential candidates make sure to empathize with the plights of Americans struggling to pay their bills in the midst of uncertain economic times. During the Democrats’ convention we got to enjoy the spectacle of Joe Biden figuratively sitting down with us at our kitchen tables poring over our finances. Barack Obama spent time instructing us all how we need to learn foreign languages and properly inflate our tires to save gas.

Obama promises to rescue us from the need to save for retirement or health emergencies. Just about everybody is promising to rescue us from dumb and unaffordable home purchases. And, Lord knows we can’t make our own decisions about what to listen to on talk radio. They promise to make us play fair in that arena too, with the reimposition of the so-called “fairness doctrine” in broadcasting.

This is my question, now that we’re into small things. When will the government step in and make sure toilet paper doesn’t rip? Don’t they know that there are unscrupulous toilet paper producers making cheap, shoddy paper that fails to be both absorbent and tough? Others make cheap stuff that can’t get you clean. And, not all toilet paper is rated for septic systems! Some even has perfume that causes allergic reactions in people.

Now that my government is into small things, besides making sure that each of my children has enough to eat along with 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals, perhaps a federal agency could make sure their underwear is clean. I need a haircut. My cars need oil changes.

All this stuff about a war on terrorists, preventing a lunatic regime from getting nuclear weapons, and helping others to gain their freedom. That’s so not now. People are suffering right here, after all.

This is the kind of thinking that frightens me. It’s the kind of thinking that makes it difficult to afford bridges and roads. It’s the kind of thinking that makes it hard to secure our borders. It’s the kind of thinking that makes us all dependent. It’s the kind of thinking that makes us all slaves.

A Spark of Light in New Jersey

New Jersey’s uninsured pregnant women – and their unborn children – have an ally in the statehouse. Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver is sponsoring a bill that would allow for continued prenatal care for young and minority women if a clinic closes. In effect, the bill would give “the commissioner authority to determine whether to dedicate funds from the Health Care Stabilization Fund to support obstetrics at a financially distressed health care center” (http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj-xgr-legislativepr0111jan11,0,6201915.story).

While this might not be the state’s long-term solution, if passed it will at least lend hope that legislators are paying attention to the crises faced by many uninsured pregnant women – and are willing to take strides to end it. In New Jersey, African American and teenage women are especially vulnerable to economic conditions that lead to a lack of maternal insurance, and therefore a lack of prenatal care.

Nobody wants to be without health insurance, and many people simply cannot gain access to it due to economic conditions beyond their control. Even worse, the medical community often turns away those who need their help the most, and insurance companies refuse to write policies for those with a “pre-existing” condition such as pregnancy. And, even more heinous, are those insurance companies who refuse to cover pregnancies conceived within six months of policy initiation.

In New Jersey, at least one person who is in a position to affect change is listening. Let’s hope that the rest of the state’s assembly is listening, too. Let’s hope this bill passes, and we can continue moving our cause forward, baby step by baby step.

Economy Trumps Mother Nature

Read this story (http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090111/LOCAL18/901110401).

What can we say about a society that defies the course of nature in order to pay the bills?

“I can’t afford to get pregnant.” It’s said so many times, it’s almost a cliché. Eve couldn’t “afford” to get pregnant, either. But she did, and we are here.

Money should not dictate the perpetuation of the species, should not delay the creation of life or stifle the gratification of being pregnant, having a newborn, being a child, starting a family, etc.

But that is what has become of our society. I am not against capitalism; I am against oppression – and when greedy enterprises threaten the very existence of humanity and take away the only pure and true thing that has been necessary for all of us – pregnancy and birth – then it is time to take action. There can no longer be concern for those who deny pregnant women and their unborn children proper maternal care. They have lost the right to have a say in how, and when, our society moves forward.

It is time for Congress to stand up for natural laws, those unalienable, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution – a right to life.

A right to life is not possible without a right to birth, which is not possible without a right to become pregnant. And with a mother’s right to become pregnant, a child has a right to life. It’s a beautiful cycle; but economic forces – those completely man-made, little more than concepts of measurement that have no real value whatsoever in the natural world – would destroy the sanctity of life and the right to a good life by stealing proper prenatal care from our nation’s children.

Couples are afraid to have children in this environment, and for what reason? Money. Many other reasons can be cited, but money is at the root of all of them. Money buys health care. Money buys formula and diapers. Money buys food.

Without money, our society has no life.

Ironic, isn’t it, how those who would espouse the teachings of the Bible in public actually believe it is better to profit as a company than to prosper as humans?

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Labels: advocate aaron, healthcare, maternity, uninsured

Government-subsidized Health Care In A Year?

Could the U.S. government be voting on government-subsidized health care a year from now? They will be if Pete Stark has his way. The health care reformist and sometimes-cantankerous California representative was quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article as predicting that it would take a year to clear a public health care plan through Congress (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123008136111331971.html).

This is great news for those of us who know the horrors of facing pregnancy without insurance. But there are plenty of people ready to rain on Stark’s parade if they have their way, including Democrats from his own party, pharmaceutical lobbyists and the health insurance industry.

Two things that set Stark apart from the rest: 1) he does not think Congress should negotiate terms with insurance companies; and 2) he does not think a public health care plan should pay whatever price pharmaceutical companies determine for prescriptions. He wants costs to be fair and affordable, something I’ve been championing as Advocate Aaron for years as well.

Like the rest of us, Stark faces several challenges in his plight to form a public health system, and is often criticized for being blunt and vocal in his positions. Stones are thrown his way because he unyieldingly stands for what he believes in — I thought that’s what we elected these people for!

Some of the arguments Stark and his supporters have to counter include the pharmaceutical industry’s stance that restrictions on drug prices will limit the availability of drugs to people who need them as well as innovation that fuels new medical discoveries. Insurance companies claim premiums will rise as younger people take out the publicly-funded health care policy.

These industries simply want to maintain and proliferate profitability. That’s fine for some corporate entities, but not those in which lives are at stake. The availability of products, in these cases, literally means the difference between life and death.

Medicare and Medicaid already pay whatever the drug companies charge, and in doing so drain public funds that could be used elsewhere – or to provide live-saving drugs to more people. And because these programs constitute two of the largest ‘clients’ drug companies have – they’re billion-dollar clients – it might be the drug companies who cannot afford to exist without publicly-funded health care, and not the other way around.

Publicly-funded insurance would, as Stark points out, have lower overhead costs than current private health care plans, which would mean lower premiums. Naturally, private health care companies don’t want us to believe this, simply because they want to make a buck.

These insurance companies have had their chance – if they would have taken the initiative to develop a health care plan that the millions of uninsured could afford, the volume of takers alone should have covered the costs – if even for a small profit. Intelligent business dictates that a little PR goes a long way, and preventive business measures (just like preventive health care practices) pay big dividends.

If the insurance companies have no consideration for the health of those who cannot afford insurance, then why should the U.S. citizenship give a damn about their business health? I get a bit cantankerous myself at times.

If Stark’s prediction is to come true, there are only two options: 1) the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies get on board and work within the demands of the American people, or 2) the American people take it upon themselves to provide health care and the pharmaceutical companies and the insurance companies die. There is no room for debate. That time has passed.

Advocate Aaron