Spring has sprung in Washington, DC, and while many buses line the streets packed with students touring the National Monuments, another group of students came to Washington this week for a different purpose: To tell policymakers about the impact that abstinence education has had in their lives.
This year’s annual Abstinence Day on the Hill was of particular significance because of recent studies that suggest abstinence education could delay sexual activity in teenagers.
In a study evaluating the effectiveness of abstinence-based programs, researchers found that from a total of 22 studies reviewed, 17 studies reported statistically significant positive results in delaying sexual activity among adolescents.
Testimonials from students who came to Capitol Hill this week shed light on why abstinence-based programs have been effective. They expressed gratitude for the programs and directly attributed their successes in life thus far to their decision to delay sexual activity with the goal of waiting until marriage.
Research has shown that nearly two-thirds of poor children in America live in single-parent homes. Preventing teen pregnancy is not only beneficial to our economy, but also helps young adolescents avoid the emotional distress that often comes along with early sexual activity.
Abstinence education can help avert dependency on welfare. In a 2004 report analyzing federal spending on abstinence programs, Robert Rector, a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation, found that:
Women who begin sexual activity at an early age are far more likely to become pregnant and give birth out of wedlock and to be single mothers. Since single mothers are far more likely to be poor, early sexual activity is linked to higher levels of child and maternal poverty.
In an address to participants of Abstinence Day on the Hill, Congressman Phil Gingrey (R-GA) pointed out that abstinence education not only promotes the importance of being disciplined but also invokes the determination to make wise choices.
Abstinence education is not just about delaying sex. It’s about teaching young adolescents the importance of healthy relationships, building self-confidence, and showing how setting positive goals can significantly improve their future lives.
Teaching the importance of abstinence helps adolescents understand how the consequences of sexual relationships at a young age can greatly alter their future. Robert Rector pointed out that teens who abstain from sexual activity are two times more likely to graduate from college than their counterparts who are sexually active.
It is puzzling as to why some politicians and opponents of abstinence education continue to reject abstinence education, especially since surveys have shown that 80 percent of parents want schools to teach their students to “abstain from sexual activity until they are in a committed adult romantic relationship nearing marriage.”
Why should educators promote the use of contraceptives over abstinence, especially since most parents desire otherwise?
Standing up for abstinence education is not always an easy task, but is clearly of vital importance. We congratulate the students who participated in this year’s Abstinence Day on the Hill, and encourage them and others to continue their leadership in promoting healthy behaviors and showing how abstaining from sexual behavior during adolescent years can have a lasting and positive impact on their lives.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee was the last to mark up their health care bill, but the decisions in Energy and Commerce mirrored those of the Education and Labor and Ways and Means sessions. In every case,members of Congress have already gone on record in deciding the most contentious issues in the debate.Taxpayers should take note of several key decisions that the Energy and Commerce Committee members made:
Gutting Consumer Choice: (Stearns #9, Rogers and Gingrey #10) The President and his congressional allies routinely insist that if Americans like the health insurance that they currently have, they can keep it. But the simple fact is that this is a presidential promise that will not be kept if the House bill, in its current form, is signed into law. Under the House bill, the federal government is authorized to determine what health benefits must be included in Americans’ health insurance plans and federal officials will determine the health plans that would be considered “acceptable” coverage under the law.
Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) offered an amendment that would ensure that nothing in the bill could prevent individuals from keeping their current health benefit plan. Based on their own reading of the language of the bill, several Committee members did not believe such a guarantee, as proposed by Rep. Stearns, was necessary. So, they defeated the Stearns amendment.
On a related matter, health benefits plans that include a Health Savings Account (HSA) are popular with many Americans, and they have been growing rapidly in recent years. They are particularly attractive to Americans who prefer high deductible, low premium health plans, and who want to have direct control over how their health care dollars are spent. To protect the existing coverage of Americans who currently have these plans, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT), and Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) offered an amendment that would include health benefits plans with HSAs in the bill’s definition of a “qualified health benefits plan.” The Committee majority defeated this amendment. In other words, Americans who wish to buy HSA plans would be stripped of their freedom to choose them.
Jeopardizing Seniors’ Existing Coverage: (Rogers #4) Approximately 20 percent of Medicare enrollees obtain private coverage through Medicare Advantage (MA). MA offers seniors access to a wide variety of private insurance plans with richer benefits or specialized options that best suit their personal needs. The House bill calls for payment reductions to MA plans. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) wanted to protect seniors’ current private coverage under MA. The Rogers amendment would prevent the House bill’s MA reductions from being implemented unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) could certify that those provisions would not cause seniors to lose their current MA plans or be forced to switch plans. The Rogers amendment was defeated.
Government Price Fixing: (Schakowsky) Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) offered an amendment that would put the government in control of setting prices for insurance premiums for seniors’ prescription drug coverage. The amendment would mandate that premiums for insurance plans offered on the National Health Exchange could not exceed 150 percent of the annual percentage increase in medical inflation, essentially placing a government price cap on premiums. In addition, the amendment would allow the Secretary of HHS to “negotiate” the drug prices in Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage plans. In other words, the government, not the market, would fix prices for drugs. The Schakowsky amendment passed.
Federal Funding for Abortions: (Capps, Stupak and Pitts, Pitts #1) Concern over taxpayer dollars to fund abortion has been raised in all three House committees and in the Senate HELP committee. Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) offered an amendment that would require at least one insurance plan to cover abortion in each geographical region. The amendment would also require the newly-created public plan to cover all abortion services, depending upon the fate of the Hyde Amendment, the measure that currently restricts federal funding of abortion. Rep. Capps’ amendment would also allow affordability credits, which are taxpayer-funded subsidies, to be used for health insurance plans that cover abortions.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) jointly introduced an amendment that would specifically prohibit federal funds from being used to cover abortion services. The Pitts-Stupak amendment failed. Rep. Pitts also offered an amendment to block any government requirement on health insurance networks to include abortion. Although this second Pitts amendment initially passed, it was reconsidered and it failed on the second Committee vote. Based on the passage of the Capps amendment and failure of the Pitts and Stupak amendments, taxpayers would end up financing abortion.
Tilting the Playing Field: (Radanovich #22) Under the House bill, the Congressionally-created public health plan would receive favorable tax treatment and funding for start-up costs. Nearly all independent studies conclude, however, that the public plan would erode private health insurance coverage for millions of Americans. A major reason is that the public plan would not compete on a truly level playing field with private health insurance.
Rep. George Radanovich (R-CA) proposed that the public plan be subject to the same legal rules and standards and operate in the same business environment as private health plans. He offered an amendment that would impose these various requirements, including payment of state taxes, on the public option. The Radanovich amendment failed.
Interfering with the Doctor-Patient Relationship: (Gingrey #14, Gingrey #48, Rogers) President Obama has repeatedly told Americans that any health care reform legislation he signs will keep the government out of health care decisions. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), himself a physician, offered an amendment to prohibit federal officials from interfering or dictating how medical providers should treat patients. The Gingrey amendment failed, with 33 Democrats voting against it.
The House bill authorizes the use of Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) to determine which medical procedures are most effective at treating specific cases, considering both cost and clinical results. Although this provision of such information is perfectly sound policy, many members of Congress are concerned that federal officials could use CER to make treatment, coverage, or payment decisions. To prevent CER from becoming a rationing tool, Rep. Gingrey offered an amendment that would prohibit the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from using CER to make coverage decisions on the basis of cost. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) also offered an amendment that would specifically prevent the federal government from using CER to deny or ration care. In these two cases, the Gingrey and the Rogers amendments both passed on voice votes.
The Energy and Commerce disposition of this issue will have to be resolved by the Speaker of the House and the House Rules Committee. The reason: amendments to prevent CER from being used as a rationing tool failed in both the Education and Labor and Ways and Means committees. Taxpayers should watch closely to see how these differences are reconciled.
The Energy and Commerce Committee was the last and final panel of the House of Representatives to act on the policy issues embodied in the Affordable Health Choices Act (HR 3200). Toward the end of the Energy and Commerce mark-up, Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR), the leader of the Committee’s “Blue Dog” Democrats, offered a compromise that was accepted. It changed certain key features of the House bill (link to Blue Dog story).
The next step: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the House Rules Committee are tasked with melding together the three drafts of the bill and reconciling their differences. The challenge is now for Speaker Pelosi to combine three versions of the giant bill into a product that will gain majority support on the House floor.
This post was co-authored by Julius Chen.