COVID-19 & Healthcare

(Update) The ‘Mayor’ of Washington, D.C. wants to take his anti-abortion crusade nationwide

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona's anti-abortion zealot, Rep. Trent Franks, who fancies himself the "Mayor" of Washington, D.C. by trying to impose his anti-abortion crusade on the District, has convinced the GOP leadership (sic) in the House to give him a purely symbolic vote on his 20 week abortion ban bill — the same bill that has already been struck down by federal courts, and Arizona's version of the bill is being heard on appeal by a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday.

How's that GOP rebranding working out for ya? The GOP's war on women continues unabated.

Steve Benen reports, House GOP eyes more anti-abortion votes:

House Republicans' laser-like focus on job creation — which is to
say, they've passed zero jobs bills in three years — is poised to take yet another detour.

The House will vote next week on a bill banning abortions across the country after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Doug Heye, deputy chief of staff to House Majority Leader Eric
Cantor, R-Va., confirmed to CQ Roll Call that the chamber is on track to
consider legislation next week that would ban all abortions after the
20-week threshold — the point at which some medical professionals
believe a fetus can begin to feel pain.

In the Arizona Legislature Today

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

After Monday's dog and pony show in the House Appropriations Committee, the action moves to the House floor today.

The Committee of the Whole (COW) calendar lists the following bills to be debated today:

Bill Number    Short
Title 

SB1057            AHCCCS; ambulance
services; rates

*SB1069           CPS; psychological assessments and services

                      (s/e:  abortion clinics;
regulations; inspections)

SB1337            schools; CPR training

SB1375            behavioral health services; dependent
children

*Pending Rules and Caucus

The Arizona Republic reports, Medicaid showdown today?:

The Arizona House could consider Medicaid expansion as early as today, less than 24 hours after Republicans in a key committee defeated Gov. Jan Brewer’s top legislative priority.

Leaders of a bipartisan coalition backing expansion of the health-care program for the poor met late Monday to plot their options for bringing the measure to a vote.

A floor debate today offers the group its first opportunity to attach it to another bill. But some supporters favored waiting until at least Wednesday to give House Speaker Andy Tobin, who opposes Brewer’s Medicaid expansion plan, an opportunity to bring forward the budget bills rather than see the coalition go around him.

A House vote on the issue, which has driven a wedge through the state’s GOP, would clear the way for consideration of the rest of the fiscal 2014 budget and adjournment of the legislative session.

House Appropriations Committee hearing on Senate Health and Welfare Budget

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: There is an overflow crowd of interested persons wanting to testify today at the Arizona House Appropriations Committee today on the Senate Health and Welfare Budget, SB 1492, which includes Governor Jan Brewer''s Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration/expansion plan. As you might expect, the JLBC, AHCCCS, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and other business … Read more

CAP ‘poison pill’ amendment approved by House Appropriations Committee

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

TalibanThe Arizona House Appropriations Committee began its hearing today with the eleventh hour "strike everything amendment" to SB 1069 for the benefit of the Mullah Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) to allow the
Arizona Department of Health Services to conduct unannounced
inspections of abortion clinics, in violation of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Tucson Women’s Clinic v. Eden (2004) which does not allow surprise inspections without an administrative warrant. The strike-everything amendment would also require AHCCCS to conduct financial audits of Medicaid providers to ensure that the money isn’t being co-mingled.

Sen. Nancy Barto (R-Phoenix) briefly testified in support of the amendment, citing convicted Dr. Kermit Gosnell as a reason for this untimely amendment, and a secretly recorded video by the anti-abortion organization Live Action, between a pregnant woman
and a doctor and counselor at the Family Planning Associates Medical Group at a Phoenix abortion clinic.

Bryan Howard, CEO of Planned Parenthood, testified against the "strike everything amendment" on the basis of language restricting Medicaid funds — it is unnecessary (unannounced inspections are already provided by law) and illegal under the 2004 9th Circuit decision. It is also unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment.

Howard cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court denial of cert from an Indiana case in which the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a law that prevents Medicaid recipients from being reimbursed for health services at Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics offer abortions.

The House’s price for Medicaid restoration coming into focus

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By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

After much posturing on the part of most of the Republicans in the AZ House of Representatives (which is a continuous activity there), the state budget/Medicaid restoration package of bills passed by the Senate three weeks ago is finally moving.

Well, one of the bills, anyway…

An agenda has been posted for a meeting of the House Appropriations Committee for Monday morning at 10 a.m. in HHR1.

The agenda has two bills, and only one of them is related to the budget.  Related directly, anyway –

SB1492, the budget bill with the Medicaid restoration language; and part of the price –

A striker to SB1069, with language from the Center for Arizona Theocracy Policy that both attacks abortion clinics and bars Medicaid providers from performing abortions.

In
addition, while no amendment language has been posted as of this
writing, don't be shocked if there is a move to removed the Medicaid
language from SB1492.