Associated Press
It seems hard to believe that in 2012, access to contraception would be the issue driving a U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts, but here we are.
Late last week, incumbent Sen. Scott Brown (R) and his main challenger, Elizabeth Warren (D), had competing op-eds on the policy dispute in the Boston Globe. Brown, who has struggled badly to understand the basics of the controversy, continues to be deeply confused.
Most notably, Brown believes he has a trump card to play: his approach is the same as Ted Kennedy's. The Republican senator's op-ed said he simply wants an exemption based on "moral and religious convictions." Brown wrote, "My predecessor, the late Senator Ted Kennedy, believed just as I do." A new Brown campaign radio ad is pushing the same line.
The problem, of course, is that the talking point is simply not true.
Patrick J. Kennedy lashed out at Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts on Sunday, asking him to stop invoking the name of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy's father, in a radio advertisement about insurance coverage for contraceptives. [...]
In a letter that the Brown campaign released on Sunday, Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat like his father, wrote: "Providing health care to every American was the work of my father's life. The Blunt Amendment you are supporting is an attack on that cause."
Mr. Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island, wrote that while his father "believed that health care providers should be allowed a conscience exemption from performing any service that conflicted with their faith," he would have never supported "the broad language of the Blunt Amendment that will allow any employer, or even an insurance company, to use vague moral objections as an excuse to refuse to provide health care coverage."
The younger Kennedy added, "I ask that, moving forward, you do not confuse my father's positions with your own."
Even Brown should be able to keep up on the basic details. The far-right proposal he's endorsed allows all private-sector employers to deny any health services that businesses might find morally objectionable, including access to contraception. That bears no resemblance to a narrowly-tailored conscience exemption.
It's exactly why Brown is taking a beating from reporters who know better. The Boston Globe's Yvonne Abraham recently asked, "What is Senator Scott Brown thinking? ... Can it really help Brown to suddenly go all Santorum on us?" The Boston Herald's Margery Eagan added that the senator "has sided with nuts."
That's a lot different than siding with Ted Kennedy. Brown can keep claiming the legendary senator would back him up on his far-right position, but the Republican is either ignorant or deliberately trying to deceive.
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I vote for lying. He's a liar and he knows it. Ted Kennedy was 100% pro choice, he never failed to support women's reproductive choice in all things. His "conscience exemption" was aimed solely at individual medical practitioners who might have a moral objection to a procedure, in which case, the practitioner (or his hospital) would be required to find another practitioner to perform the service. The patient would not under any circumstances be left hanging. To equate this kind of "conscience clause" to the right of an employer or insurance company to decide what benefits the employee would enjoy is pure bovine by product. The Blunt Amendment would basically allow employers and insurers to make a pro forma "moral" objection to virtually anything, including "I have a moral objection to my share holders having to spend so much money" on (fill in the blanks): cancer, aids, ALS, kidney transplant, MS, etc. etc. etc. And you can bet that's exactly what they'll do.
Susan, can you provide a source on this portion, I would be appreciative. Thanks.
I just LOVE the "bovine by product" ....creative use of words. Great job!
Ignorant or lying actually isn't an either-or question...
I'm always suspicious when links are provide for multiple items but left out for others. It seems the dispute is who does the current "conscience exception" compare with the late Sen. Kennedy's. Yet, no link was provided to what Sen. Kennedy included or excluded. So, I looked it up.
That's it. That's all the wording from Sen. Kennedy's 1995 Senate bill. Granted, because of its purpose it was narrowly focused on health professionals and facilities but it was ANY health professional and ANY health facility, not just religious one.
AND it was ANY "item or service" not a narrow limit.
Seems pretty broad to me.
However, it does not say 'any employer' and 'any insurance company'. Sen. Kennedy's wording is not so broad (or 'Blunt') as what Brown is now supporting.
Did the bill pass?
No, Marlana, the bill did not even make it up for a vote but it was written and introduced by Sen. Kennedy.
FeMe, I understand your statement, Sen. Kennedy's bill was addressing health care providers but it included ALL providers and the exemption covered ANY item or service. This is not a "narrowly-tailored" exemption would you say?
Yes, I would say it is. I don't understand if you are just trying to scold the article writer or if you are still defending Brown's statement; whatever, the Kennedy bill allowed for personal 'matter of faith' decisions by individual people and I believe it did not intend to address any imagined 'personhood' type rights that some may want to extend to employer or provider groups!
RobDon,
Since you looked it up, could you please provide us with a link?
Thanks!
As to "any item or service," I'm pretty sure he was referencing a medical item or service. Healthcare insurance is not a medical item or service. It is financial coverage to pay for a medical item or service.
Healthcare insurance is not healthcare products or services. The issue at hand is whether public institutions who are affiliated with the RCC but offer services to the general public, receive public subsidies and hire non-Catholics, should be required to comply with the law and provide healthcare insurance that includes contraceptive services.
I wouldn't try defending Brown on this one. There may be some extremely tenuous link, but the longer you focus on it, the worse it looks for him.
Any health professional or facility does includes professionals and facilities not designated as religious in any way. Any "item or service" does, as bdop4 pointed out seem to be medical in nature, includes all items and services we are talking about today. I would not say it was narrowly focused.
I guess between the two options it would be the latter. There does not seem to be a lot of differences between the Senate bill offered by Sen. Kennedy and those advocating for exceptions today. If there is a religious objection, why would it be limited to only a specific few people?
In the end, we don't know where Senator Kennedy stood on the current issue other to say he was an strong advocate for a religious exceptions for hospitals and health professionals.
Lastly, I'm always happy to provide a link, something others seem reluctant to do when asked (see comment 1.1 for example).
Link to Senator Kennedy's bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:SN0168:
EXACTLY...And surprisingly, as Senator Scott Brown, R-MA, continues to drive his truck over the truth, repeatedly; polls show that 58% of 30 to 44 year olds in Massachusetts support him.
Stephen, if you ask 100 republican's between 30 to 44, that stat may be true. But ask 100 people off the street and see what you polling says. I can go to democratic rally and get 100 people to state just the opposite. Who you poll taints your results. That is the problem with following polls. Since you did not site you source of the poll, it is not verifiable.
I respect you Mary; however, he is the current Senator and he surely didn't win by just the senior vote. If I know my generation well, they probably liked his straight talking, working-class persona. However, he is a wolf wrapped in sheep's clothing...Says he is a moderate in one breath and supports radical agendas in another...WE can't support radicals....PERIOD
That's incredible or maybe these are women who have set behind their careers, to focus on having a family. I bet these women used contraceptives at one point in their lives. (some of them). Why is the word "contraception" been only applied to the birth control pill. Why not the use of condoms, IUD's, diaphrams, tubal ligation, various foams or creams available over the counter, and vasectomies. Maybe they should suggest having men neutered, and sit back and watch and listen to the outcries.
Please provide a link to the poll citing the 58% figure. Thanks.
"...but the Republican is either ignorant or deliberately trying to deceive."
Was that a "trick statement"?! I'm going with liar, ignorant, and a deceiver!!
Elizabeth Warren 2012!!!
I always thought that Massachusetts betrayed their love for Ted Kennedy, a leftist liberal, who they kept in office for years and years.
http://shockandaweonamerica.blogspot.com/2012/02/your-suffering-excruciating-pain-and.html
This is my take on this...
Yes, he is lying. I wonder where health care would be right now if Ted Kennedy were still alive. I would hope that it would have been heartily approved.
I am reminded of the 'death panels' that the Teapublicans talked about in regards to "ObamaCare". We all know those references were inaccurate. I would suggest that what Brown and others who are supporting this actually ARE endorsing death panels with their proposals.
He is known to be ignorant, that's a given. So obviously he is 'deliberately trying to deceive'..
The problem is after he has said these things his supporters don't investigate as many here have done, they just believe because they want to believe. Once the idea is planted in the brains of many people it can't be eradicated, it takes root and grows among the believers just like the sentence that is started at one end of a line of people and comes out totally different at the other end. Republicans seem to be real good at making statements without benifit of facts.
Chronic propaganda eventually brain washes many.
Brown is now citing a 1997 bill, that exempts providers AND insurers. The difference in the BLUNT bill is the INDIVIDUAL exemption!
The bill I reference in comment 2 includes an individual exemption, although the individual has limited to health professionals.
Christian Scientists and Jehovah's Witnesses reject medical care in favor of prayer.
Do Blunt, Brown and other others who think that one's personal "religious convictions" are sufficient grounds to deny their employees health care believe that Christian Scientists and Jehovah's Witnesses should be exempt from providing any health care?
This object of debate the most absurd topic to presented during a presidential campaign. It is a subject that wholly divides the nation. I think it is the #1, ignorant, ridiculous, agenda purported by the republicans. At least the stupid wars and the crash of the housing market were bi- partisan, although any bank or relevant member of the WH and congress, should have known the consequences. Selling houses with a sub-prime, variable rate, and then, accelerating the interest rates to a degree that they could have predicted an overwhelming number of foreclosures. I think the victims were unaware that their monthly papyments would climb to the proportion they did. Got off tract here.
I have always found Scott Brown's arrogance off-putting and that is what has surprised me about Massachusetts electing him. Like Gingrich, he doesn't know when to stop talking. Surely he had to know that Sen. Kennedy's son would take him on so why has he wanted to bring this on himself. This kind of shoot from the lip arrogance can only backfire, as has happened here.
Brown knows exactly what he is doing; he is saying whatever is necessary to get more campaign funds. He will deny or say the opposite when there is no more money to suck out of people. Warren is going to have a cakewalk if Brown continues his current path. He, like many Republicans, think that money will be enough to win the election. We are going to test that theory with Scott Walker very soon.
Do you think Brown would get any points if he and his team dug-up Kennedy's body and paraded it around the streets?
Warning to all of you folks out there who buy into Scott Brown and the Republican brand of BS. The Republicans will say anything to get elected but if they do win control of our government in the next election then the first two things they will do is to make abortions illegal and permanently extend the Bush tax cuts. Then Brown and the Republicans will gut our only hope for health care, namely Obamacare, gut our environmental laws and let the rich run America in any way they want. Read my web page at www.mybetteramericaplan.com to see how the Republicans have been destroying America for the last thirty years and how they will destroy America even more if given the chance. We need people like Elizabeth Warren to stand up for us Americans. Help get her elected to the Senate in any way that you can. Then in 2016 we will elect Elizabeth Warren as our next President because she is intelligent enough to lead America in these rough times!
The principal fuss about the inclusion of family planning in Obamacare is simply that some employers who may be religiously opposed to birth control will be required to provide coverage for it for their employees anyway. So far this argument is focused on birth control, the one topic on which most Catholics disagree with their clergy, and we're supposed to take the clergy's side.
Well, if we find it necessary to enable Catholic employers to refuse to provide their employees with birth control access, will we next find it necessary to enable Jewish employers to refuse to provide their employees with, say, food money for Yom Kippur and the other fasting days.
Getting back to Obamacare, if Catholic employers can leave their employees without birth control coverage, then how about employers who announce that they are Christian Scientists or otherwise believers in faith healing, and that it's against their religious scruples to provide their employees with access to medicine or medical doctors? Will we allow employers who claim to believe in faith healing leave their employees with no medical coverage at all??!!
Sen. Kennedy would never support the Boston based Christian Science Monitor's right not to provide health insurance to the editors, writers, printers, deliverypersons, administrators and cleaners just because the Christian Science religion, which owns and controls that newspaper, believes only in prayer and not in medicine. He was pro choice and believed in a woman's right to chose whether to have a child or terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Insurance companies must provide coverage for all reasonable and necessary medical services to their clients; and must not be dictated to by employers. That practice leads to ridiculous exceptions and cost cutting in the name of conscience. When universities, schools, hospitals, and charities which are owned or controlled by religious institutions provide secular services which are provided in large part by non-believers, those institutions have a duty to provide health insurance which includes all forms of health care. It is up to the patient which forms of care they will use. That is true freedom of religion, conscience, and the American Way.
Is Elizabeth Warren Native American Rachel?
I want to know. You told me a few days ago without a doubt she was Native American. Now I read today the proof that Warren had she was Native American was based on a document that could not even existed at the time it was said to.
Just looking for some clarification.