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!

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?

Congressional Riders—the Budget Battle Over Ideas

According to many observers, the impending government shutdown of 2011 has less to do with actual government spending priorities and more to do with the battle over social issues that have been at the center of partisan and ideological battles going back more than thirty years.  From the public funding of abortions and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the Department of Education and Head Start, Democrats and Republicans alike have used a variety of social issues to divide the American electorate.  Wedge-issue politics is nothing new.  What is surprising is that leaders from both parties believe that a divisive and caustic budget battle in 2011 will bear fruit in the elections of 2012.

Many observers believe that a compromise over budget numbers is being held hostage over the inclusion of legislative riders—riders are specific provisions in a bill that are often intended to impact a potential executive veto of the overall bill—regarding social policies such as those mentioned above.  The Obama White House has no intention of placing core constituencies on the chopping block of the federal budget; but it also wants to avoid a government shutdown that will have unknown political consequences in the 2012 elections.  In the immediate sense, a government shut-down will impact a number of key constituencies such as soldiers and other federal workers who will not receive their regular pay checks.  Ironically, as Maureen Miller points out by quoting humorist Andy Borowitz “That’s like eliminating the fire department & sending checks to the arsonists,” referring to the fact that members of Congress will nonetheless receive their full pay uninterrupted.

Is there a better way to run a government?  Did the Framers really envision a government that would embrace a politics of posturing and gridlock—i.e., politics?  Better yet, is this what a government not wholly captured by one or more factions looks like in real life?  I wonder.

–DENNIS FALCON

Weekly Poll: Your Opinion On Funding New Health Care Law

Some observers think the recent ruling by the federal judge in Florida will not lead to a final repeal of the new health care law. What do you think?