(Almost) Daily FRC Bashing

Now the Family Research Council, like many other social conservatives, seem to believe that Democrats are going to use the swine flu to ram through the Sebelius nomination to secretary of HHS.

This is actually something closer to wishful thinking, since, as I wrote earlier this week, there isn't any real opposition to Sebelius based on abortion (or any other factors for that matter). The Republicans in the Senate are far more worried about the upcoming health care reform battle and there are only a few of the Repbulicans that are doing their due dilligance to the religious right by putting up a stink about Sebelius.

It's true Sen. Sam Brownback is waffling toward voting "no" now, since his base is mostly religious conservatives, but Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) endorsed her as did former Sen. Bob Dole.

Sebelius' confirmation will be open to a vote today, so we'll see how strong the anti-choice right's message really is by the end of the day.

Confirming Sebelius?

Over at RH Reality Check I have a new post that sums up what's going on (or rather, isn't) with Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' HHS confirmation.

The Senate Republicans are behind the delay, with Senate Minority Mitch McConnell leading the fight. They are making a last-minute attempt to block Sebelius' confirmation, raising objections because of her stance on abortion. This makes her the last member of Obama's Cabinet yet to be confirmed.

Last week, the Family Research Council, an anti-choice lobbying group, raised a stink about Sebelius's purported "ties" to Dr. George Tiller, one of Kansas' few late-term abortion providers. Last month, Tiller was acquitted of 19 counts of misdemeanors brought against him. But FRC, and now Senate Republicans, are objecting to Sebelius based on donations Tiller made to a 2002 political PAC that supported Sebelius in the primary for governor.

Go ahead and read the whole thing.

Fish on Reproductive Rights

I never thought I'd see the day when I'd see Stanley Fish blog about reproductive rights. And I really never thought that I'd agree with him. This Sunday on the New York Times, Stanley Fish wrote about what is known as the HHS Conscience Clause, something that reproductive rights groups have been organizing to repeal since final days of the Bush administration. Fish points out that when you're talking about an individual's right, you have to look at the whole picture:

But while these freedoms may be enshrined in the constitution, they have not fared so well when they have come in conflict with laws passed with an eye toward maintaining order and predictability. In a series of cases stretching from Reynolds v. United States (1878) to Employment Division v. Smith (1990), the Supreme Court has ruled that when the personal imperatives of one’s religion or morality lead to actions in violation of generally applicable laws — laws not promulgated with the intention of affronting anyone’s conscience — the violations will not be allowed and will certainly not be celebrated; for, says the court in Reynolds, “To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

It could be said that such language is too melodramatic for the current dispute, which does not involve disrupting the machinery of government, just the granting of exemptions from some professional obligations. What’s the big deal, for after all, “If a procedure is legal, a patient will still have the ability to access that service from a medical professional or institution that does not assert a conflict of conscience” (HHS News Release, August 21, 2008).

But should patients be asked to add to the problems they already have the problem of having to figure out (if they have the time) which providers will be willing to treat them? When a professional hangs out his shingle doesn’t he offer his services and skills to the public and not just to members of it who share his morality? Isn’t it a matter of conscience (in Hobbes’s sense) to abide by the rules that define the profession you’ve signed up for?

Indeed. Doctors may think of themselves as private citizens, but the services they provide are part of a public service. By elevating the right of the doctor above that of the patient, someone who is less likely to be in a position of access to information or services, you're beginning to replace the rights of one individual for the other.

The important thing to remember, though, is that even though it looks likely that HHS will rescind the so-called conscience rule on the federal level, other states have already codified such conscience rules into their state laws. Illinois is just one of many.

Health Care Still on the Agenda

To be honest, I was relieved to see this column from Tom Daschle in the Washington Post today. A lot of people seem to be really worried that without Daschle in the seat at HHS or in the position at the White House, health care reform just won't happen. The impression I got, after seeing him withdraw from the nomination process, was that Daschle was The Guy and now we're screwed. It was a logic I didn't quite follow. If that were the case, and Daschle were the only person availible to make health care reform happen, then that would have said a lot about the lack of commitment to such an issue.

But that's not what the situation is (or at least I hope not). Daschle himself says:

The pundits were wrong because of the president's unwavering commitment to this issue. "Health-care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year," he said last month.

They were wrong because of the broad support for health reform in Congress. "Republicans are coming to the understanding that their opposition to universal coverage is misplaced," Sen. Robert Bennett (R-Utah) recently admitted. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has promised: "We will not fail."

The pundits were wrong because reformers have some new and unlikely allies. "This is a great start," former Republican congressman Billy Tauzin, now president of the leading pharmaceutical lobbying group, said at the recent White House Forum on Health Reform. "You have our commitment to play, to contribute and to help pass health-care reform this year," said Karen Ignagni, chief executive of the major insurance industry lobby.

But the biggest error those pundits made was in thinking that the debate over health-care reform would be decided by who occupies certain positions in Washington. It won't. It will be decided by the American people. And at the Forum on Health Reform, those voices were finally heard.

In other words, there are a lot of people that are working on this issue. And it's getting to the point where all of the arguments that businesses and the insurance lobby used in the 1990s to stall health care reform just aren't relevant or strong anymore. People want this. And it won't just be Daschle that makes it happen.

Sebelius for HHS

The Kansas City Star is psyched that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is going to be (assuming she can get though congressional confirmation) the Health and Human Services secretary. Here's from the editorial:

The job is a good fit for Sebelius, a wonkish (and we mean this as a compliment) Democrat who has enjoyed political success in an overwhelmingly Republican state.

She relishes an executive role and believes in finding efficiencies and in streamlining bureaucracies — traits that should help with running the mammoth Health and Human Services apparatus. Though an outsider to Washington, Sebelius is good at enlisting expert advice and will reach across party lines to get something done. She should be able to work with a White House “health czar,” if Obama chooses to appoint such a person.

The overall sense I get is that people are mostly satisfied with a Sebelius pick -- or at least relived that this Phil Bredeson nonsense has been put to bed. Since I only have a cursory knowledge of what health care reform might entail, I'm not a bona fide expert. But I'd say that Sebelius seems like the appropriate pick. She has lots of regulatory experience since she came from insurance regulation in her state -- and that's a good thing to me. HHS is the kind of position that is primarily about regulation.

What this means for health care reform, I'm not sure. I'll leave that to other health care wonks. What I can tell you is that Sebelius has a history of being on the right side of choice -- she's worked with Planned Parenthood in her state and she was at an inauguration event sponsored by the group this January. She's already been endorsed by a pro-choice Catholic group, Catholics United. After years of having an anti-choice HHS person in charge, it'll make a world of difference to have a pro-choice HHS secretary.

Rescinding HHS Regulation

I blogged before about the horrible midnight HHS regulations that President Bush tried to enact in the last months of his presidency. Today, there's good news. President Obama's administration has begun the process of rescinding the regulation that were supposed to "protect" doctors and other medical professionals from being "forced" to administer abortions or birth control if it went against their conscience. The regulation would've actually restricted women's access to abortion or birth control, giving the federal government the power to cut off funding to entire institutions that employ doctors or nurses who object to procedures like birth control and abortion but the institutions themselves conduct them.

This regulation was misguided, allowing sweeping government intervention to limit women's access to health care while pretending to make the controversy about individual right to religion. The right to religion is already protected under numerous provisions of the law. The regulation Bush proposed wasn't about protecting freedoms or even about good public policy. It was about finding ways to limit women's access to reproductive health care. It specifically targeted the kinds of care that only women receive. The Bush administration, in other words, wasn't rushing to make a "conscience" rule for the distribution of Viagra.

The Obama administration is slowly seeking to undo some of the most egregious policies the Bush administration pursued on reproductive health. That is, except for abstinence-only programming.

HHS Update

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean won't be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. This is probably a good thing, not because I don't like Dean, but because his largest qualification seemed to be that he was, um, a doctor. Practicing medicine and knowing health policy are not the same, people. Not the same at all.