Salon.com > State legislation

California’s disappearing health care reform

Thu, 02 May 2013 18:54:00 +0000

A VERY STRANGE THING HAPPENED to the California single payer health care bill this year. It disappeared.

This disappearance was no small thing. Single payer has actually passed both California legislative branches — twice — before being vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The bill hasn’t exactly been obscure, if only because its initial sponsor was Senator Sheila Kuehl, famous long ago as Zelda on the television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Yet, where Vermont begins the year progressing toward its version of a single payer system and Pennsylvania unveils a study of how much money a similar system might save its people, the largest state in the union has no such legislative vehicle, despite the millions who will remain uncovered by “Obamacare” and reports of drastic health insurance rate increases to come.

New Mexico lawmaker wants to criminalize abortions after rape as “tampering with evidence”

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:23:00 +0000

A Republican state legislator wants rape victims to carry their pregnancies to term, claiming the fetus could be used as "evidence" at trial.

Rep. Cathrynn Brown introduced House Bill 206 on Wednesday, which would make terminating a pregnancy caused by incest or rape a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence," which could carry three years in prison.

“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.

The bill is unlikely to pass the Democrat-controlled state legislature, but it has generated a considerable amount of outraged among reproductive health advocates.

Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico, a progressive nonprofit opposing the bill, called it "blatantly unconstitutional." “The bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” he told the Huffington Post. “According to Republican philosophy, victims who are ‘legitimately raped’ will now have to carry the fetus to term in order to prove their case.“

Pennsylvania bill wants cut to benefits for mothers, unless they can prove rape

Thu, 25 Oct 2012 17:10:00 +0000

A new bill put before the Pennsylvania House is both punitive to low-income mothers and harsh on rape victims. Think Progress reported Wednesday on the legislation, introduced by five Republicans and one Democrat, which seeks to eliminate an increase in benefits offered to low-income mothers if a child is conceived while the woman is covered under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Family (TANF) program.

As Think Progress noted, "Despite the fact that low-income women who give birth to children would logically need increased assistance to care for their larger family, Pennsylvania lawmakers ... don’t want their state’s welfare program to provide additional benefits for that newborn." However, if a woman can prove -- and prove she must -- that a child was conceived through rape, then her benefits would not be cut. TP cites the bill directly:

Elimination of benefits ... shall not apply to any child conceived as a result of rape or incest if the department: (1) receives a non-notarized, signed statement from the pregnant woman stating that she was a victim of rape or incest, as the case may be, and that she reported the crime, including the identity of the offender, if known, to a law enforcement agency having the requisite jurisdiction.