Ladies, We're Screwed: Why Obama's Re-election is Bad for Choice

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Ladies, We're Screwed: Why Obama's Re-election is Bad for Choice

Obama's re-election is great for moms, right? Aren't we just a bunch of mindless free spenders, so in love with humanity we want to support every cause and child as though they were each our own? Oh, hells no.

From jobs to health care to education, let's face it ladies, we're screwed…and not in the much needed 50 Shades of Grey way.

This election all boils down to choice. Because ours are now sadly limited. To make a simplistic sexist argument, how would you like it if you waltzed into the shoe department at Nordstrom's or Bloomingdale's and instead of ankle booties and wedges you found one or two styles of sensible, comfortable clogs? To borrow a term from Joe Biden, malarkey!  

With the employer mandate, small businesses are now compelled by law to provide health care for their full-time employees. What will this do? Will it bolster families and working moms by offering free medical care to those in need? Hardly!

Many small business owners desperate to stay afloat will abandon full-time employees for their lesser trained part-time brethren to stave off government insurance mandates. Better to have three part-time knuckle draggers than two well qualified full-timers, and that means fewer hours and smaller paychecks for working families who would have otherwise had greater health care choices and would have been well able to attain private health care on a full-time salary.

More families will be pushed to qualify for Medicaid, but according to the Washington Times, 60% of physicians who take it are not accepting new patients, and once you're in THAT system your choices are greatly diminished. You don't get any choices.

The other maternal fleecing comes from education. Well sure, Race To The Top, the president's tiny pilot program implemented in 11 states says it has choices, but it's really a drop in the bucket as far as real reform. The administration is pushing national standards, which will lead to an even more centralized education system. Now that is a tepid and impractical response to anyone who has more than one kid. We all know, even if they come from the same womb their needs are vastly different. Why should we assume if they come from the same school district, or the same STATE, their differences and needs would be any less stark?

Choice is not a four-letter word – and it's not just about abortion. Choice is at the heart of an election whose fallout promises to limit mobility in the most important and hard fought areas. 

About 2.15 minutes.

Written by Kennedy and Nick Gillespie. Produced by Anthony L. Fisher. Camera by Jim Epstein.

Music: "Mistery Woman" by Tommy Tornado

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Comments

[Heroic Mulatto]

We need to redefine "O-face" to refer to Obama's smug expression.

[Jeff]

You are just an oppressed self hater who didn't vote with her lady parts.

[Cyto]

Nice rant, Kennedy! I'm sure at least one or two of the dozen or so Obama voters who see this will stop and think!

(sorry to be such a downer... I'm still a little depressed that over 99% of my country didn't agree with me about which direction to take with this election. Still, it was an epic rant.)

[Fist of Etiquette]

Good luck selling this to the vag crowd. Soccer moms are immune to logic.

[Janet]

The problem with this critical view is that it doesn't address the NEEDS of people who are poor. What will people and especially children do with a pre-existing condition? Just lay out what you would do otherwise. Anyone can be critical. We have 2 choices, putting women who have abortions in jail or not. Thank the Republicans, again.

[Jordan]

Oh goody, the master sockpuppet is back!

[Auric Demonocles]

Master? No, someone can do a way better sockpuppet than this.

[Rasilio]

So you are saying we should completely design our health care system around the 2 percent of the population who has a child with a life threatening illness and not design it to fit the needs of the 98% who do not and then have another system to handle the exceptions?

That is what you call world class stupidity in system design. You make the default programing handle the 98% and then the exception system handle the 2% not the other way around.

[Janet]

Being critical does not offer an alternative. I don't see how you get around the problem of perfect information and inelastic demand without insurance. Mandating basic emergency coverage for all individuals and ending employer health insurance should fix the entire system pretty easily. The current electable "alternative" is worse for women and everyone else than Obama's reelection. That's my point. Lay out a concrete policy solution and then people will adopt it in their platform.

[The Last American Hero]

Expanded HSA's; disconnect insurance from the employer, making the individual an actual shopper/consumer; relax licensing laws; relax prescription laws; permit sale of insurance across state lines; encourage use of catastrophic insurance plans; means test medicare for starters.

I got a bad case of poison ivy a few years back. I had to go to the doctor and get a prescription. The charges for the case counting the visit and the meds were nearly $1,000. This is the problem with govt interference in healthcare. I should have been able to buy OTC or BTC medication with no visit to the doctor and probably less than 50 bucks worth of charges.

[The Derider]

I assume you were uninsured?

Insurance companies negotiate massive discounts with hospitals, so hospitals charge significantly more for the uninsured out of pocket than the insurance company benefit plus the copay.

Same with prescription drugs. You're fucked because you have no market power.

[d_remington]

His market power was taken away by the government.

[hotsy totsy]

^^^ d remington

[Libertopian]

"Insurance companies negotiate massive discounts with hospitals, so hospitals charge significantly more for the uninsured out of pocket than the insurance company benefit plus the copay."

If it were as dramatic as you say than a competing hospital could come in and offer a lower rate, taking the business of the overcharging hospital, and still make a decent profit. Of course we have market power. But your political power trumps it.

[LarryA]

"Mandating basic emergency coverage for all individuals and ending employer health insurance should fix the entire system pretty easily."

Unfortunately the Obamacare system won't let anyone opt for "basic emergency coverage." Instead it mandates comprehensive everything-and-the-kitchen-sink policies including (for instance) free birth control.

The vast majority of people in the U.S. have no need for birth control ocoverage of any sort, but it has to be in their policy. As does acupuncture and every other alternative treatment.

I'd love to get a high-deductable policy that would let me manage my own routine health expenses and save money in the process. But the president disagrees.

[Clano'6]

What site do you think you are on? This is a Libertarian site which means you can have all the abortions you want as long as I don't have to foot the bill for it. As for solutions, why don't you liberals figure out where you are willing to cut funding....it's not NPR or PBS, you don't want drug testing for welfare recipients, you don't want to cut salaries, education, or anything excerpt military funding, you vilify corporations and the free market system and your whole argument rests in throwing more taxpayer money at everything and garnishing the pay checks of everyone who makes over 250k. Go whine somewhere else!

[Auric Demonocles]

This is a Libertarian site which means you can have all the abortions you want as long as I don't have to foot the bill for it.

That's not true. That depends on the libertarian.

[Clano'6]

Mass abortions for everyone and fresh horses for my men!

[anon]

I think it's Warty mimicking teh sock.

[Anonymous Coward]

Many small business owners desperate to stay afloat will abandon full-time employees for their lesser trained part-time brethren to stave off government insurance mandates.

This is totally, absolutely unforeseeable.

[KKCE967]

It's already happening. Small business will not hire and large business will cut hours. Darden Restaurant group was the first to announce that they were considering that. Papa John's responded the same way. Then let's add the companies such as Caterpillar who announced layoffs post election. The unaffordable care act is a boondoggle of a law that absolutely made nothing better for anyone except the recipients of the subsidies.

[Major Pain]

Yeah, Papa John's just gave away 2 million free pizzas. So they dumped millions of dollars there. That was no problem.

Then, they claim that the ACA would cost them 14c/pizza. So instead of absorbing the ACA costs across 7 million pizzas (also about a million $) per million dollars of "dump", they just try to attract attention.

They would have gotten my attention in the way they wanted -- that is, thinking positively of them -- if they'd have done the right thing and supported the ACA like they should have.

Instead, They dump the money, screw their employees, and then cry poverty.

And you fools buy the narrative that they "had" to do this. Pull your heads out of the ground and THINK.

[Rick Santorum]

if they'd have done the right thing and supported the ACA like they should have.

Why is supporting Obamacare the "right thing"? Crony capitalism is grossly immoral and evil because it benefits the elite at the expense of the working class.

[Libertopian]

Papa John's sells pizzas for super cheap don't they? What cheap, quality products do you supply to people?

[FD]

"We have 2 choices, putting women who have abortions in jail or not."

What do you suggest we do to the person who refuses to pay the tax for your latest collectivist happy dance?
You have 2 choices, putting them in jail or not.

[hotsy totsy]

I'd REALLY like to know the when it was the last woman was put in jail for having an abortion. Like, ever?

[Major Pain]

Would you like to know when the last woman died because she couldn't get an abortion? How about when a woman had to get an illegal abortion? How about non-death negative outcomes like sterilization and other damage?

So do we REALLY need superstitious views like thinking a few hundred or thousand cells in a fertilized ovum == human life? No brain, no nervous system, but "it's a person"? Do we need views like "a woman's body 'knows' when it's been raped"? You didn't lose to non-free market abortion ideas, you lost to the raging insanity of the republican right and their advertised intent to remove all choice at any cost.

Consider the real issues, and you'll be much further along.

We'll never get our actual rights as long as you people continue to run around with bags over your heads.

The parent article invokes nothing less than the image of a mouth-breather, drooling, while sniffing republican ass gas.

You *cannot* support the republican view and still claim you are for individual liberty. They are backwards and repulsive on every front. You want personal liberty, then open your eyes and observe where actual options are coming from. Perfect? Hell no. But miles better than the republicans. You can work to change, and you might as well start with the group that is far ahead in the area of liberty.

[Rick Santorum]

Would you like to know when the last woman died because she couldn't get an abortion? How about when a woman had to get an illegal abortion? How about non-death negative outcomes like sterilization and other damage?

You're free to provide statistics, but I guarantee they're negligible. Since many pro-lifers support abortion in the case of rape, incest, and the endangerment of the mother's life, your argument is a non-starter.

We'll never get our actual rights as long as you people continue to run around with bags over your heads.

Free contraceptives are not a right.

[XM]

If knew all of this, then why didn't you tell other women? Why did you keep this a secret!!!!

[The Derider]

Screeching at women that "choice is about more than abortion" seems like a less effective plan to get their votes than demanding that the libertarian party oppose government restrictions on abortions with the same vehemence with which they support marijuana legalization.

[Rick Santorum]

I hate you. Also, you're an idiot. Progressives are never satisfied with anything. It's not enough for you to be pro-choice; you have to support their decision for an abortion, and you have to pay for it. If you don't, you are part of the War on Womyn.

[Cyto]

There is a reason for a difference in the vehemence. There are no meaningful restrictions on abortions at the federal level, and at the state level there are more restrictions due to societal forces than there are from government.

Contrast with SWAT raids that kill innocent grandmothers, toddlers and dogs in the name of eradicating a plant that was once a major cash crop for the founding fathers of this country.

[Clano'6]

Not to mention that the drug wars on the border spilling over onto US soil are slightly more encompassing than an accidental pregnancy...

[Major Pain]

And not to mention that the only thing they have in common is that they are bad law.

That one is bad - drug law - doesn't make the other any better.

Deal with the issue: they're *both* bad. Saying "Societal forces" doesn't make a wrong right. It just indicts the society as wrong.

[joey89924]

Oh, hello, Obama win!!

http://www.hqew.net

[Troy muy grande boner]

Hey womens, your vaginas are tottally going to get screwed with obama-style care. this is soon coming to you. And for those of you who voted for this fuckstick, I'm gonna enjoy your agony.

http://www.montrealgazette.com.....story.html

[Rick Santorum]

Choosy moms don't slut around and have abortions.

[psalad]

This is what happens when you don't figure out a way to solve the health care problem. You lose the election.

[Cyto]

But Obama won re-election...

Oh, wait... you think the healthcare plan they have:

a) solved the health care problem
and
b) Obama had much of anything to do with figuring it out.

Unless you are a single payer conspiracy theorist who believes the current plan is designed to get us to a single payer system via failure, I'm not sure that those propositions are supportable.

[psalad]

I don't think obamacare solves the problem, but I think it's a step in the right direction. 50 million uninsured is a huge problem.

[Rick Santorum]

This is what happens when you get your news from the MSM--your brain rots. The issue is not being uninsured; the issue is not having access to affordable health care. Getting people on an insurance plan does not treat the underlying problem. It subsidizes it.

[Major Pain]

For those 50 million, that insurance plan grants access, affordably, to health care. So your premise is void.

Would single payer be better? Indubitably. But we don't have it. We have this. And far better these people have access, than they don't. Both for productivity in general, and simply so that you don't catch typhoid or some other horror from some untreated person walking next to you or making your burger.

Anyone with ANY sense would want equal-access healthcare for all just as they would education for all. These are the foundation of a strong society.

Awful lot of greed around here, not a lot of actual intent to make things work well.

[Butler]

How ironic. People who oppose taking things from others to benefit themselves being called selfish by the one who wants to take things from others for his own benefit.

And, those around here DO talk about "actual intent to make things work." Making people buy cadillac insurance plans doesn't make healthcare cheaper. It makes it more expensive.

Allowing the free market to work, OTOH, and that's what people here advocate. Read the article about the Oklahoma surgery center, or look at the areas of medicine that are not as contaminated by insurance (e.g. cosmetic surgery, vision, dental). Those areas of medicine are not experiencing the unending price explosion that traditional medical care is. Why? Because insurance and collectivization of health costs IS the problem.

The obvious middle-ground solution is to require people to buy catastrophic-only coverage akin to what we know as high deductible healthcare plans. This would spread the risk of major illness (like cancer) while allowing competition in the market for normal, routine medical services. That would satiate the desire for everyone to have SOME coverage, while allowing the market to truly "bend the cost curve."

[Rick Santorum]

For those 50 million, that insurance plan grants access, affordably, to health care. So your premise is void.

No, it doesn't, you blithering dolt. My premise is that the current health insurance system is unsustainable and that getting everyone on an insurance plan doesn't solve the root issue. Your argument is that HEALTH CARE IS A RIGHT.

Anyone with ANY sense would want equal-access healthcare for all just as they would education for all. These are the foundation of a strong society.

I want health care for all. I want education for all. I just don't think the government delivers on those fronts. I mean, look at you: the very model of what public education produces, a dimwit and a simpleton only capable of regurgitating progressive platitutdes about MUH RIGHTS.

[Jim in Denver]

Too bad that 50 million uninsured figure is largely interpretive BS taken from a 2005 census.

[Xenohippus]

As long as women practice abstinence like Kennedy they have no need for health care. It's that simple people!

[meganstrong]

All choices are shrinking to nothing.

[Sanjuro Tsubaki]

It's not condescending when you're talking to your own gender.

[Libertopian]

America has become gynocentric as fuck. Men need to man up and stop catering to these bitches. Look at the most popular book right now, 50 Shades of Grey. It's a woman fantasizing about getting tied up and spanked and knocked around and shit by a guy. That's a sign of a society full of too many placating men.

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