The Republican War on Women: One Iowa Hospital's Legal Sidestep

This is the twenty-second in a series of articles on the subjects of women, abortion rights and the Republican Party. 

Republicans continue to say they don’t have to change their core principles, they only have to change the language they use to get their message out.  One perception they want to alter is the idea that they are running a “war on women”.  Looking at the news over the past few years, I’d say the Republican Party has a long way to go on this subject.

• Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): “Talk about a manufactured issue.  There is no issue.” 
•  RNC Chairman Reince Priebus:  “It’s a fiction.”

The Iowa Front 

the facts and commentary:  Last year, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (R) went against the prevailing Republican mindset and decided to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.  Hidden in the initiative, however, was a catch involving abortion services. 

The Hyde Amendment prevents federal money from being used to fund abortion, and 35 states also deny the use of state money for most abortion services.  Iowa, one of the 35, does allow state Medicaid funds to be used for abortion services in cases of rape, incest, fatal abnormalities in the fetus or to save the life of the mother.  In the past, Dr. Jason Kessler, M.D., Iowa's Medicaid Medical Director has approved an average of 30 procedures each year that meet one or more of these exceptions.

That's fine and good, but here's the catch I mentioned:  under Iowa's new Medicaid expansion law, which took effect last July 1, cases like these are no longer being decided by Iowa's Medicaid office--final approval must now come from the Governor--personally.  That's right, the final decision on a medical procedure is no longer being made by a medical doctor but instead is being left up to a politician.  As one pundit said, "Start thinking about how a male politician with no gynecological training goes about making life and death medical decisions for indigent women, this new power becomes a nightmare."

Iowa's is the only law of its kind in the country.

Thankfully, there are medical providers and institutions like University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics that are refusing to play politics with poor women's lives. According to University of Iowa Health Care spokesman Tom Moore, the hospital has decided not appeal to the Governor for approval or reimbursement, but instead is covering the costs itself.  Since the law was enacted, the hospital has performed 13 abortions that fell under the legal exceptions and that Tom Moore said  "Medicaid probably would have covered."

A perfectly legal sidestep, using compassion and common sense instead of a cudgel--frustrating Republicans, one hospital at a time.

The Republican War on Women is "fiction?"

WHAT YOU DO SPEAKS SO LOUDLY

THAT I CANNOT HEAR WHAT YOU SAY.