Women News Nov 24, 2009

Jane: There has been a lot of analysis and spin on the Stupak- Pitts amendment, trying to guess what claims for coverage will be denied by insurance companies. The George Washington University Medical Center analyzed the implications of this amendment for coverage of medically indicated abortions. They concluded "that the treatment exclusions required under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange." They also concluded that there would be "spillover effects" such as a plan administrator's denying coverage not only for the excluded treatment but also for related treatments that are intertwined with the exclusion. The study concludes that the "cumulative effect of the provision, in combination with existing federal laws governing Medicaid and federal employee health benefits (as well as the law of certain states) inevitably can be expected to move the entire health benefits industry away from its current inclusive coverage norms and toward a new norm of exclusion." GW University Report (PDF) 

Joan:  Meanwhile the Senate Health Reform bill is a tiny bit better. The Senate bill will separate federally subsidized premiums from privately paid premiums--this is what they call the firewall-- and no abortions will be paid for from the federal pool of money. This is pretty much the same way faith-based groups handle the money when they get a federal grant for a faith-based initiative. That money cannot be used in limited ways as described in federal law. Private donations on the other hand can be used for religious purposes. It is called a firewall because it supposedly totally separates the two accounts and arguably the two collections of money. It is an accounting procedure. I sometimes call the firewall a smoke screen, because it is mostly imaginary. My problem with this whole approach is that in my experience, people pay premiums to the insurance company. The insurance company pools that money and invests it for what they hope will be a good return and they pay claims from that larger pool of money. So they would have two totally separate accounts, one for federal funds and one for private. The private funds could pay for abortions but the Federal funds could not. One question that isn’t clear is whether the insurance company could use the private account moneys to pay for abortions for people insured by public policies. I would think not, but as I say, it isn’t clear from the language of the legislation. One piece of somewhat good news: There are 17 states that pay for abortions for poor women. And the health reform bill from the Senate states it shall not pre-empt state laws. There is a lot of work to be done to clarify what will be paid for but there is optimism that the firewall approach will be in the signed bill.

Jane: Sarah Palin is certainly doing a good job of keeping herself in the news. Recently she criticized the Senate Health Care Vote. On Friday she wrote on her Facebook page, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is pushing for yet another weekend vote (commonplace now for the party of "transparency") because he knows that the American people will be none too happy about the Democrats' proposal the longer they have to look it over." She went on to say that the bill ignored responsible tax reform, and massive new government spending. She concluded, "Let's put a stop to Obamacare before it goes any further."

Joan: Barbara Glickstein a public health nurse executive, health policy expert and broadcast journalist states in an exclusive Women’s Media Center report why she supports the new breast cancer screening guidelines for both mammograms and self-examination. As a feminist health activist who has followed the mammography debates since the 70's, she believes that women have been oversold the benefits of mammography. She urges women to read the recommendations objectively. The new baseline recommendation is 50, not 40 years old.

She said that while most lumps are indeed found by the woman herself, they are usually found randomly in the shower or when dressing than through monthly self-breast exams. And these new guidelines of course are for women without special risk factors.

Jane: The CDC reported that there is an increase especially among teenagers of the three most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S. -- Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. John Douglas, director of the sexually transmitted disease division at CDC, said improved sex education could help curb the rising STI rates. All of these sexually transmitted infections can be treated with antibiotics.

Joan: Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues, débuted a new play in India on November 12. The play, titled: “I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Lives of Girls” speaks of the oppression faced by girls worldwide. The play received mixed reviews, some praising its message and others saying it was more like a rant.

Jane: The White House Project's just-published study, Benchmarking Women's Leadership states that even though Americans are comfortable with women leaders, women hold only 18% of leadership positions across the 10 sectors they examined, including politics, business, law, sports, academia, journalism, religion, film/TV, nonprofit, and military. Women are far from achieving parity especially in positions of leadership. The report states that "contrary to the popular talking points of today, the cultural ideal for women has not shifted to an all-encompassing and gender-neutral space, but remains firmly embedded in models of wifedom and motherhood."

Joan: Effective Dec the federal government will no longer mandate HPV vaccine for immigrant women. Under the current policy, female immigrants ages 11 through 26 seeking permanent residence in or entry to the U.S. are required to be vaccinated at their own expense. The National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum has been instrumental in eliminating this requirement.

Jane: In 2009 fashion magazines lost on average about a quarter of their pages. High-end fashion magazines had the higher losses; Vogue lost a third of its paging this year. Many reasons for this decline are sited, including the economy, online advertising, as well as Facebook and Twitter accounts or Web sites. As a result, spending for ads in fashion magazines fell 1.7 percent across all media through the third quarter, according to media research firm TNS Media Intelligence. There are some positive signs for 2010 as the fashion magazines look to evolve their approach, add flexibility and create different models and standards. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

Joan: Here’s an interesting bit of statistics: Recent census data reveal that 30 percent of farmers in the U.S. are women, and women are by far the majority of farmers in the developing world. The number of female farmers increased in the U.S. and now there are more than a million women farmers. Carolyn Sachs, head of the Department of Women's Studies at Penn State said, "Although some women are farming in large-scale conventional agriculture, various studies have also found that women farmers are more likely to be in sustainable agricultural production than males."

Jane: Several weeks back we talked about the controversial American Girl doll, Gwen Thompson whose story is that she is homeless and which sells for $95. Tonight I want to tell you about Burka Barbie by Mattel. This doll was designed by Sotheby and Italian designer Eliana Lorena for a Save The Children charity. Mattel is backing the exhibition which includes more than 500 Barbies.
Designer: Eliana Lorena said 'I know Barbie was something seen as bad before as an image for girls, but in actual fact the message with Barbie for women is you can be whatever you want to be." The money from the auction of Burka Barbe will go towards the Rewrite the Future campaign which helps millions of children around the world affected by conflict.