Wherein I (belatedly) express my irritation with Jon Kyl
Posted by: Donna
The fabulous Jennifer Johnson, Communications Director of the State Dem Party, sent ’round a media advisory this afternoon:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Dec. 4, 2009
Arizona Democratic Party announces 2009 Hall of Fame inductees
The Arizona Democratic Party is pleased to announce its Hall of Fame inductees for 2009. The six inductees and three Chair’s Award recipients join a long list of Arizona Democrats who have provided extraordinary service and leadership to the party and the state.
“These inductees are being honored for, in many cases, a lifetime of service to the Arizona Democratic Party,” said Don Bivens, ADP chairman. “It’s important that we recognize their hard work and sacrifice on behalf of candidates, campaigns and party activities.”
The 2009 Hall of Fame Inductees are:
Rick DeGraw of Phoenix
Leroy and Mary Jane Dyson of Tucson
Stanley and Barbara Lubin of Phoenix
Carolyn Maxon of PhoenixRecipients of the 2009 Chair’s Award are:
Paul and Flo Eckstein of Phoenix
Chairman Ned Norris, Jr. of the Tohono O’odham NationGrassroots volunteers and elected officials gathered on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to honor the Hall of Fame inductees. The Phoenix Wyndham dinner event included special guests Attorney General Terry Goddard and Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell. The keynote speaker was U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.
Stabenow is the senator who famously challenged Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., over his comment that because he doesn’t need maternity care, it should not be covered by insurance policies (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jj6pqajvB8). At the dinner, Stabenow gave a rousing speech to Arizona Democrats about the importance of continuing the fight for what is just and fair.
For a comprehensive list of Arizona Democratic Party Hall of Fame inductees, go to http://www.azdem.org/about/108
###
I attended that event. Good times and Sen. Stabenow was charming, delightful, and on point. I’m reminded that I didn’t blog about Kyl’s asinine remark about men not needing maternity coverage and, thus, being entitled to lower health insurance premiums and I’m rather surprised I didn’t. Because my head exploded clean out of my skull when I heard it. Seriously.
Stabenow’s quick thinking retort about Kyl’s mom needing maternity coverage was good, but I would have pointed out that his wife needed maternity care to bear his two children, unless they adopted in which case some other woman needed medical attention in order that Jon Kyl could experience the joys of paternity. It’s all too typical for anti-choicers, particularly of the dude-ly persuasion, to pretend that the ladies become pregnant all by their lonesomes. While we’re on the topic of Kyl’s anti-choiceyness – it takes some mighty colossal chutzpah to take the position that women ought to be compelled by law to carry pregnancies to term while being all “Pssht, pay for it yourselves, bitches”. Excuse me? Nice family values you got there, Chief.
In the shellacking Kyl was getting in the lefty blogosphere, there were a lot of people making comparisons to coverage for Viagra and prostate screenings. Yeah, but hardly anyone seemed to grasp the most salient reason for why men should help foot the bill for maternity coverage. Once again, and in all-caps for the hard-of-hearing:
BECAUSE WOMEN DON’T GET PREGNANT BY THEMSELVES!
Sheesh. What’s so hard about that to understand? Certainly, pregnancy is a medical condition borne entirely by the woman but it is not caused entirely by the woman. Pregnancy leads to children, who are considered intrinsically rewarding to many of the people who bring them into the world. Some of those people happen to be men. We like to call them “fathers”.
Alrighty then. So back to me and why I was angry. No, not for the aforementioned reasons, though they are all valid. I was furious because I know that group health policies price 18 to 45 year old women’s premiums substantially higher than their male counterparts. Why? Some of it can be explained away by women needing more routine preventive care like pap smears. But much of the disparity is due to expenses related to contraception, pregnancy, and childbirth. Not to belabor (pardon the pun) the matter or anything, but those things presuppose the involvement of, what are those people called again? Oh yeah, men.
Which means that I get to pay a higher insurance premium than a guy my age does, though I am a childfree curmudgeon with no maternal instinct. I get the Uterus Penalty just because I have one, though I have no intention of using mine. As do women who have had all the kids they intend to have but are still of childbearing age. I’m picturing some male anti-choicer knob who pickets Planned Parenthood every Tuesday and Thursday and has five kids paying lower health insurance premiums than I do. It really chaps my hide. That is bogosity extraordinaire,
The insurance companies can argue from a purely actuarial risk standpoint it makes sense to charge women more than men because of pregnancy related expenses but when we’re talking about insurance reform that spreads the cost of health care around more fairly, it’s time to do away with unfair gender rating that penalizes the possessors of the uteri, whether they intend to use them or not.
Call Senator Kyl’s office now. Tell him dudes shouldn’t be able to fob the costs of becoming fathers or those of avoiding becoming fathers onto the childless curmudgeon women anymore.
3 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
You are too funny Donna, I was rolling!
Who are we going to run against this wacko (Kyl?) I think that Terry Goddard should challenge this dolt. He would make a great Senator. Then Ed Pastor could take over McCain’s seat and we would have some real Arizonan’s representing Arizona in the U.S. Senate. Now, that’s a plan!
BTW- one in three women will get cancer in their lifetime as compared to one in two men! Oh, how those actuarial tables lie!