Sneaky SOB

Tuesday, March 30, 2010
I know I said I was over the HCR bill, and I really am. But I have to point this out, simply because it's just SO RETARDED.

Turns out that the HCR bill contains language that restores $250 million to abstinence only sex education. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT, natch), that sneaky SOB, slipped the funding in at the 11th hour. Because abstinence only education has turned out to be so effective, and all.

There is a bright side, however - the Abstinence Clowns will be saved from the economic downturn! Hurray!

9 comments:

Stacey said...

DAMN YOU ORRIN HATCH - and the horse you rode in on. insert definition of insanity here
I'm so irritated I can't even put coherent senteces together. arrrrgggghhhhh

Janiece said...

Attention, JR: Please hurry home and tend to your lovely wife, who appears to be having an aneurysm.

Sorry, Stacey. I believe this comes under the heading of "taking the good with the bad."

vince said...

The Abstinence Clowns is totally gonna be the name of my next punk band.

Eric said...

Nothing to get upset over.

Seriously. Look, Hatch almost certainly stuck this in hoping it would be a deal breaker that would kill the bill. In which case he failed. And if he stuck it in because he sincerely thought it was good policy (I'm sure he thinks ab-only is good policy, but I doubt that's why he put it in the bill--but giving him the undeserved benefit of the doubt), then you can chalk it up to that "compromise" and "bipartisan" stuff the President was on about.

In other words, it's a $250 million boondoggle and waste of money, but no matter how you slice it, it's a boondoggle that helped get millions of uninsured people qualify for insurance, eliminated some of the most repulsive insurance industry practices, improved coverage for children and young adults and (yes, Virginia, it's true) probably got a toe in the door for socializing medicine so we can finally achieve a First World medical system like Europeans have (even if it takes twenty or thirty years to get a foot in past the toe). So, yeah, it's waste of money, and it's a travesty that society will have to deal with the increase in teen pregnancies, but at least the unwanted kids and unwed mothers will have healthcare.

I can hold my nose for this one. I don't like it, but them's the breaks in a republic.

Eric said...

(Actually, I guess you already said that Janiece, and shorter. Never mind me, then.)

Steve Buchheit said...

but, but, but, but there's no conservative ideas in the HCR bill. How can this be?

And while I agree with the stupidity of abstinence only sex ed, at least it is better than absolutely no sex ed (which is still the case in many places around where I live).

Tom said...

Isn't this a good candidate for the reconciliation followup, which could cut this from a budget point-of-view?

Or am I too late for that?

Janiece said...

Tom, I think you're too late for that. The addition was added as part of the reconciliation, at least as far as I know.

mfheadcase said...

Hell ISTR that the incidence of premarital sex between folks who received "abstinence only" sex education, no such education at all and a comprehensive course were substantially similar, the differences barely statistically relevant.

OTOH the incidence of pregnancy and STD's among AO and non educated were both much higher than with kids who received a comprehensive education.