Weekly Quiz: Test Yourself on this Week’s Events

The weekly quiz is now live in Mypoliscilab. Good luck!

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion on the Affordable Care Act Decision

Some legal experts were surprised by Chief Justice John Roberts’ position on the Affordable Care Act decision. What do you think?

The Colbert Report: Obamacare & the Broccoli Argument

Weekly Quiz: Test Yourself on this Week’s Events

The weekly quiz is now live in Mypoliscilab. Good luck!

Video Glossary: Patronage

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion on Individual Mandate

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the “individual mandate” in the Affordable Care Act. What do you think?

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion on the Affordable Care Act

According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll, a majority of Americans do not support the Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama two years ago. What do you think?

The Politics of Healthcare and Birth Control

Healthcare policy refers to the government regulations and guidelines that exist to operate, finance, and shape the delivery of healthcare. Healthcare policy covers a range of health related issues including: the financing of health care, public health, preventive health care, chronic illness and disability, long-term care, and mental health.

Currently there is a debate concerning the availability of birth control coverage to American woman and religious freedom protected by the 1^st Amendment. The problem is the reality that not all women take the pill to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In fact, women are often prescribed the pill for the therapeutic benefits it offers including protection against:

• bone thinning
• cysts in the breasts and ovaries
• ectopic pregnancy
• endometrial and ovarian cancers
• extremely irregular menstrual cycles
• headaches and depression associated with menstruation
• iron deficiency anemia
• pelvic inflammatory disease
• serious infection in the ovaries, tubes, and uterus

As such, the Obama administration views birth control as merely a women’s health issue. However, for some, the whole notion of birth control violates a religious belief that life begins at conception.  Should employers be forced, as mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to provide a service that violates their personal religious conviction? In other words, which liberty is more important, the privacy rights of the employee or the religious freedom of the employer?

–TERRANCE MULLINS

Related articles

• Letter: Birth control and family planning have improved women’s lives (tcpalm.com)
• Should Birth Control Be Covered By Health Insurance? You Tell Us. (blisstree.com)

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion on Birth Control for Women

Recent controversies surround the new health care law requiring employer health plans to provide birth control coverage as part of preventive health services for women. What do you think?

Whose Bureaucracy is it?

Article II of the United States Constitution provides the President with the power to faithfully execute the laws of the United States.  Through the years the executive branch has grown into a complicated assortment of federal departments and agencies employing almost three million civilian personnel.  For most federal employees their work consist in implementing the policies and programs developed by Congress—from making sure that the meat we eat is safe to providing for the movement of mail across the country and abroad.

The organization of the executive branch has remained relatively stable through the years with the creation of Cabinet level departments following large-scale national events like the attacks of September 11, 2011, and the creation of various agencies and commissions intended to serve some new or reinvented government purpose.  President Obama’s recent decision to elevate the Small Business Administration to a Cabinet level Department is a case in point.  The lingering and problematic economic downturn affecting the U.S. economy has put tremendous pressure on the President and Congress to act.  In this case the President is using his executive powers to reorganize the federal bureaucracy (see Hayley Peterson’s response and others in the Washington Examiner for more information).  What do you think, is the President acting in accordance with his Article II powers?  Should the President have more authority over how executive branch employees do their jobs, or should Congress ultimately set the limits to this authority?

–DENNIS FALCON