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Health

Is Bennet using EFCA as wedge for health care reform?

It appears Colorado's newest U.S. Senator has been hitting the books on the black arts of political negotiation to use a wedge issue to his advantage. The Atlantic's Mark Ambinder writes today on his theory on Sen. Michael Bennet's maddeningly mute stance on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). It's a strong-arm tactic to bring labor and business together to negotiate on two causes close to the hearts of progressive activists and entrepreneurs alike: union-organizing and health care reform.

Personhood bill lays an egg in North Dakota Senate

Out-of-state anti-abortion activists who rallied behind Colorado's Amendment 48 last year came up with another big goose egg Friday when the North Dakota Senate rejected a "personhood" bill that sought to confer constitutional rights to zygotes. But reproductive rights advocates aren't cheering Roughrider State lawmakers just yet.

‘Sick Around America’ documentary slammed for pro-insurance slant

Two critical parts of a highly touted PBS documentary on the national health care crisis that aired Monday were curiously absent — any mention of single-payer insurance and the reporter, celebrated journalist T.R. Reid. Now the Denver resident and recent House District 3 vacancy candidate is speaking out about his editorial spat with Frontline and why he demanded that his name be removed from the "Sick Around America" project.

New hope for Cold War-era bomb-makers

The nuclear bombs Charlie Wolf built helped win the Cold War. But his toughest battles came afterward, when he applied to a troubled federal compensation program intended for those whose top-secret work made them sick. Wolf wound up battling a bureaucratic morass for more than six years -- all while fighting brain cancer that was supposed to have killed him in six months -- trying to prove he qualified for financial and medical aid.

Ann Coulter bushwacked on radio by conservative Christian abortion foes

Ultra-conservative Christian talk radio hosts are taking a new approach to getting their message out — ambushing right-wing pundit Ann Coulter over her support for 2008 GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who absolutist antiabortion activists accuse of being "willing to sacrifice children for your vote." The Denver-based American Right to Life Action is leading the charge with a YouTube video excerpting Coulter's on-air radio freak outs and calling on the acid-tongued author to apologize and retract her support for Romney.

Archbishop Chaput weighs in on Obama-Notre Dame flap, whips up flock, again

Predictably, Denver's outspoken Archbishop Charles Chaput has managed to insert himself front and center in the sturm und drang over "pro-abortion" President Obama's scheduled graduation commencement speech at a Catholic institution of higher education, the University of Notre Dame. Over the weekend, Chaput gave a speech at a quiet seminary in Detroit, not far north of Notre Dame, and managed to lead U.S. Catholics into pro-life / anti-Obama frenzy and confusion.

Lamborn opposes changing combat rule designed to help vets with PTSD

Veterans groups fighting to update the definition of combat to ease hurdles for service personnel to tap into health care benefits found an unlikely opponent in U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn. The Colorado Springs Republican's district includes five military bases — including Fort Carson, which has suffered a rash of murders and suicides attributed to untreated stress and brain disorders.

Preventive reproductive health care pays off

This year is the 55th birthday of the birth control pill. It is also 44 years since the U.S. Supreme Court decriminalized birth control in Griswold v. Connecticut. Yet, debates over family planning and contraception are alive and widespread. Coloradans witnessed this first hand last fall when the "personhood" amendment that could have re-criminalized birth control in the state was defeated. Similar measures have already been introduced in seven other states so far this year.

Birth control bill passes Colorado House, moves on to governor’s desk

Efforts to block a contraception bill shriveled today in the Colorado House after a series of weird and contentious legislative hearings and an unsuccessful attempt during a House floor debate Friday to add a poison pill amendment to insert the religious definition of pregnancy as at the moment of conception.

Birth control bill survives poison pill amendment

Colorado House Republicans failed in their attempt Friday to modify the Birth Control Protection Act that would re-define pregnancy as at the moment of conception. During the floor debate, bill co-sponsor Rep. Anne McGihon (D-Denver) derided the wrecking amendment offered by Rep. Don Marostica (R-Loveland) as a back door tactic to grant "personhood" to fertilized eggs.
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