COVID-19 & Healthcare

Good news day

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by David Safier

The news has been so dismal when I've picked up my morning paper lately, I've considered trying to find a local chapter of NewsAnon to cut back on my addiction. Then came today. It wasn't all good, of course, but I'm not going to let the perfect news day be the enemy of a day with enough good news to cheer me up.

We will return to our regularly scheduled cynicism and dismay in the next post.

From today's Star:

  • Great front page pic of Ironwood HIgh grads. Congrats, all!
  • Three high school grads are spotlighted. One, an Asian American, works
    in a UA lab and wants to be a neuroscientist. She also loves to play
    the steel drums. "It's the connection I make with people when I play."
    The second is a Somali-American who arrived in the U.S. at 9 without
    ever attending school and is graduating with A's and B's. Thanks to
    JTED, he interns in the phlebotomy lab at Tucson Medical Center and will
    soon be a certified nursing assistant. He wants to be a doctor. The
    third is a Hispanic-American who has been a varsity catcher for 3 years,
    took Advanced Placement classes, acted as a mentor for freshmen and
    raised a pig as part of Future Farmers of America. He's going to college
    on a partial baseball scholarship.
    It's the mixed-up, crazy-quilt American dream. If the future is truly this bright, I'll have to wear shades.
  • Baby gets a 3-D laser print of a splint that allows him to breathe on his own and leave the hospital. The age of miracles.
  • Factories are moving back to the U.S. because transportation costs and lag time from foreign factories are getting too costly.

The Arizona Republic might want to rethink this strategy

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie: The Arizona Republic has an editorial opinion today giving their direction to the Arizona House of Representatives on Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan, which could have just as easily been summed up in three words with a Nike ad: "Just do it." Our View: No time to punt on Medicaid. … Read more

9th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down Arizona’s 20-week abortion ban

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It looks like the "Mayor" of Washington, D.C., Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), has a bit of a problem with his plan to take his anti-abortion crusade nationwide. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Arizona's 20-week abortion ban law today. Doh! Court Strikes Down Arizona 20-Week Abortion Ban:

TalibanThe 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law violated a woman's
constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy before a fetus
is able to survive outside the womb. "Viability" of a fetus is
generally considered to start at 24 weeks. Normal pregnancies run about
40 weeks.

Nine other states have enacted similar bans starting at 20 weeks or even
earlier. Several of those bans had previously been placed on hold or
struck down by other courts.

Judge Marsha Berzon, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel on the
San Francisco-based court, said such bans before viability violate a
long string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting with the seminal Roe
v. Wade decision in 1973.

The judge wrote that "a woman has a constitutional right to choose to terminate her pregnancy before the fetus is viable."

Gov. Jan Brewer signed the ban into law in April 2012 after it was
approved by the Republican-led Legislature. Supporters said the law was
meant to protect the mother's health and prevent fetuses from feeling
pain. U.S. District Judge James Teilborg ruled it was constitutional,
partly because of those concerns, but the 9th Circuit blocked the ban
from going into effect until it ruled.

Lawyers representing Arizona argued that the ban wasn't technically a
law but rather a medical regulation because it allowed for doctors to
perform abortions in medical emergencies. Berzon rejected that reasoning
and deemed the legislation a law banning abortions before a fetus is
viable.

"The challenged Arizona statute's medical emergency exception does not
transform the law from a prohibition on abortion into a regulation of
abortion procedure," Berzon wrote. "Allowing a physician to decide if
abortion is medically necessary is not the same as allowing a woman to
decide whether to carry her own pregnancy to term."

Berzon was joined by judges Mary Schroeder and Andrew Kleinfeld.

Robert Robb is right: refer a clean Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration bill to the voters

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I hate it when I have to agree with the Arizona Republic's über-conservative columnist Robert Robb, but even a broken clock is right twice a day, am I right?

Keep in mind that this latest column from Robert Robb is actually the strategy for a legal challenge to Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan, likely from his old employer, the Goldwater Institute, which is actively opposing the Governor's plan. If the Governor's plan is enacted by the legislature, the Goldwater Institute will file a lawsuit. (To his credit, Robb has written several columns arguing in favor of Governor Brewer's plan as a practical matter, much to Goldwater's chagrin I imagine).

I have had several Democratic legislators tell me that they agree with the Governor's legal analysis that the hospital bed tax is just a provider assessment that can be imposed by an agency head. I suspect this is wishful thinking. I have little confidence in the Governor's lawyers. I have previously posted that I disagree with this analysis. I believe this is rightly characterized as a tax, and any new tax requires a two-thirds super-majority vote of both chambers of the legislature to be approved under Prop. 108 (1992). This is why I have long argued for the repeal of the undemocratic Prop. 108.

Arizona Legislature: The coming week

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By Craig McDermott, cross-posted from Random Musings

 

What started out as a quiet week last week became colorful in a hurry when the Arizona Senate passed a package of budget bills, including provisions for Medicaid expansion.

Now the whole package is scheduled to go over to the House for consideration.

As
of this writing, there isn't anything in terms of committee agendas or
floor calendars posted for the coming week for either chamber, so all
that's left to do is speculate a little.

1.  The bills
face a murky path in the House, but speculation is that they are likely
to pass.  There just may be a little drama first. 

2.  On Friday's Horizon on KAET (PBS channel 8 in Phoenix), the journalists who were part of their weekly "Journalists Roundtable" speculated that the bills won't be heard (and voted on)
until after Memorial Day.  According to them, this coming week may see
House Speaker Andy Tobin try to push, or at least go through the motions
of pushing, his proposal to put the Medicaid restoration before the
voters.

However, while there do seem to be enough votes
in the House to pass Medicaid restoration, it doesn't seem likely that
there is any real support for putting the question before the
voters – mostly because they think it will be approved by the voters
anyway, and by a wide margin, making the legislature look worse for
passing the buck on an easy decision.

Note: As of now, KAET has not posted Friday's episode of Horizon on its website, but will likely do so on Monday.