1. Federal Medicaid funding does NOT cover abortion in any state. Medicaid in some states like NY covers abortion, but those procedures come strictly from state funds/taxes. That's another reason besides local pro-life politics why most states won't cover it, since they have to come up with every penny for it.

2. I got a mailing from Planned Parenthood about how healthcare reform without abortion/family planning coverage will make access even worse, since most employer plans do cover these procedures and some will move to federally-funded plans. This may well be the case and is extremely alarming, since trivialize it as you may, COST and AVAILABILTY are the reasons why many women do not get abortions and why many women have unwanted pregnancies.

But, it is an enormous wedge issue and I'm not happy about it. I won't blame Planned Parenthood, but IF realpolitik means that we have to choose between no healthcare plan and universal (or near-universal) coverage sans abortion, I would definitely, and sadly, choose the latter, and leave it to private groups to cover the gaps and agitate for more incremental reform.

With Democrats solidly controlling every branch and choice as a party platform, there is no reason why we shouldn't have reform that includes comprehensive services, and have it fast, but I guess with all the DINO weaklings and bluedoggers that's just too much to ask for. Democrats have to be "bipartisan" (and get nothing done) while Republicans can use the slightest margin to have a complete hegemony over the agenda.

So simple and beautiful and uncontroversial. How could anyone possibly criticize this bill? (Cue loony birther outrage and shuffling from the Republican side of the aisle.)

This is the kind of bill that the house really should be signing to "put to rest" the controversy, not some "black man needs to show the papers in 2012" birther appeasement bill.

And good analysis Koppelman. I wish we could see the end of this story, but given the sad state of society we won't any time soon. It's not like we have a war or a economic or healthcare crisis to worry about.

But couldn't you have come up with a better example for the first frame? Especially when you cite a "true story," you aren't being 100% honest here. The Sarkisian case wasn't a routine transplant being denied because Cigna minimized her health problem, rather it was because she had leukemia and there was a genuine issue of whether or not she was a transplant candidate.

Of course there was a greed factor, in that Cigna had every reason to side with the opinion that an expensive transplant would be futile. But there are numerous independent transplant surgeons who have weighed in that leukemia patients are not liver transplant candidates, because if she took the immunosuppressant drugs, her leukemia would kill her, and if she didn't, she would reject the liver and die.

It certainly would be ideal to take the profit motive out of the equation. But there is no assurance that any insurance plan would cover a particular extremely expensive procedure where the weight of medical opinion is that it may not even prolong life.

There are plenty of examples of pure greed in the insurance companies denying coverage. This one is murky.

Also, what's with the photographic backgrounds? Not sure about that.

Keep swinging that hatchet, Mark.

I don't see the relevance of this series. Shame, because it could have made at least one decent piece if it weren't for all the innuendo, disgruntled rants taken at face value, conspiracy-mongering and baseless oddball expectations.

That is all.

Will Lester Kinsolving finally be kicked out of White House briefings? Will Gibbs at least stop calling on him, now that his employer has speculated that the President is the Antichrist?

Probably not, he's just to convenient to have to change the subject when briefings get tough.

I had not heard of this story at all before it was on the top of Salon. Other major outlets, CNN, NY Times, etc. are not covering it.

It's a family's horrible, private tragedy. This woman should never have been a mother, this baby should never have been born for such a horrible fate, and Salon should never have published this bald-faced sensationalism. I learned nothing of value from this article.

And it was classy of Salon to condemn the baby's schizophrenic father for something he said after being prompted in a media interview after his baby was just beheaded and eaten by its own mother, and to blame him for not getting her more help. Just look away and leave it alone, already, leave it alone.

is just plain peachy.

but I think it is more a matter of fucking the urban poor and the carless poor, of which there are many, and being a general multibillion-dollar subsidy to the evil auto industry with weak environmental criteria.

I don't know where this guy gets the $500 figure from. There are new cars--subcompacts that seat five and get awesome mileage--selling for under $10,000, with even a three-year loan and a $4,500 credit that would be well under $200 per month at a reasonable interest rate.

Apparently like 99.999% of human beings, I managed to survive the last four years without realizing it ever existed.

By the way according to your handy Wikipedia link, Bujalski's Funny Ha Ha, "considered the first mumblecore film," was also shot on film.

For this hypothetical cartoon. The subject ain't broached enough.

Yes, we need more babies. Babies are the continuation of the species, without them the entire human race goes out of existAnce in about 75 years.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

I wonder what the other species think (and yes I'm anthropomorphizing with the word "think").