The Supreme Court announced today that its hearings in the lawsuit challenging the new federal health care reform law will begin on March 26 and will last three days.

Florida is leading the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, a suit that includes 25 other states. State officials have argued that the alleged unconstitutionality of the individual mandate is grounds for striking the bill in its entirety. That argument has not been upheld in lower court decisions.

Both parties have worked actively to make sure that the Supreme Court is able to reach its decision before the 2012 presidential election.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the “main part” of the hearing “will take place on Tuesday, March 27, with a two-hour argument over the minimum-coverage provision, which starting in 2014 will require most Americans to carry health insurance.”

According to new information, a provision in the Affordable Care Act has helped 2.5 million young adults gain health insurance since the law took effect.

It was previously estimated that about 1 million young adults under the age of 26 were affected by President Obama’s health care reform law, but new reports suggest it was more than twice that number.

The Associated Press reports:

Under the health overhaul, children can remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26, and families have flocked to sign up young adults making the transition to work in a challenging economic environment. But the fate of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment remains uncertain, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a constitutional challenge next year, and Republican presidential candidates vowing to repeal it.

“The increase in coverage among 19- to 25-year-olds can be directly attributed to the Affordable Care Act’s new dependent coverage provision,” said a draft report from the Health and Human Services Department. “Initial gains from this policy have continued to grow as … students graduate from high school and college.” A copy of the report was obtained by The Associated Press.

…

Using unpublished quarterly statistics from the government’s ongoing National Health Interview Survey, analysts in Sebelius’ policy office determined that nearly 36 percent of those age 19-25 were uninsured in the third calendar quarter of 2010, before the law’s provision took effect.

That translates to more than 10.5 million people.

By the second calendar quarter of 2011, the proportion of uninsured young adults had dropped to a little over 27 percent, or about 8 million people.

The difference — nearly 2.5 million getting coverage — can only be the result of the health care law, administration officials said, because the number covered by public programs like Medicaid went down slightly.

While most of the health care reform law does not go into effect until 2014, the provision in question went into effect last fall and most employer health insurance plans started following through with this change on Jan. 1, the AP reports.

President Barack Obama (Photo: Flickr/The White House)

Women’s health advocates all over the country were stunned yesterday when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius reversed an FDA request to expand access to over-the-counter emergency contraception for teenagers under the age of 17. In press releases denouncing the decision, a common theme has emerged: President Obama has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, on the heated issue of emergency contraception.

The political fight during the Bush administration over Plan B, also known as the morning after pill or emergency contraception, was a volatile one. Conservatives were dead-set against the FDA’s approval of the drug and did all they could to stall access to it once it was approved.

As feminist writer Jessica Valenti has written on the subject:

As you may remember, the concerns the FDA cited over emergency contraception were not about women’s health or the safety of efficacy of the drug. Instead, they were worried about young women getting all slutty. Dr. W. David Hager, one of the FDA committee members who voted against EC’s over-the-counter approval and a key player in making sure Plan B got held up, told The New York Times: “What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.” Some things to keep in mind about Hager: in suggested in a book he wrote that women could cure PMS with prayer, and his wife accused him of rape. So yeah, a bit scary that he was in charge of women’s health.

It later came to light that FDA medical official Janet Woodcock wrote in an internal memo that over-the-counter status for Plan B could cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” It has Lifetime Original Movie written all over it. Of course this but-it-will-make-girls-slutty argument is hardly new. It’s the same excuse legislators have given when attempting to limit women’s access to birth control, and more recently, to the HPV vaccine.

Because the argument against emergency contraception wasn’t rooted in any medical or scientific argument, advocates were sure the Obama administration would uphold the recommendation. Furthermore, it was unlikely that a health secretary would publicly overrule the FDA.

According to The New York Times:

Although Ms. Sebelius had the legal authority to overrule the F.D.A., no health secretary had ever publicly done so, an F.D.A. spokeswoman said. Nor had such a disagreement been the subject of such extraordinary dueling press statements. Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the F.D.A.’s commissioner, issued a lengthy statement saying it was safe to sell Plan B over the counter, while Ms. Sebelius countered that the drug’s manufacturer had failed to study whether girls as young as 11 years old could safely use Plan B.

However, the conversation about whether to remove the barrier of a required prescription for girls under the age of 17 was about making sure emergency contraception was available to all sexually active women in an emergency. Requiring a prescription for a young girl could remove Plan B as an option altogether.

Women’s advocates also expected Sebelius and the Obama administration to protect women’s health issues, no matter the political fallout. The administration took a hit from politically powerful Catholic groups when it upheld a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine to include contraception in a list of preventive medicines to be covered without co-payments.

But in the months since the decision to include contraception in the list was made, reproductive justice advocates have been less sure that the administration will stand its ground, and they now consider yesterday’s decision a sign of things to come. Worse, advocates now see the Obama administration as continuing the politics of the Bush administration.

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, wrote in a press release yesterday that the group “expected this kind of action from the Bush administration, so it’s doubly disheartening and unacceptable that this administration chose to follow this path.”

“We had a major opportunity to improve young women’s access to contraception,” Keenan said in a statement, “which is the best way to reduce the need for abortion, and the Obama administration missed the mark.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights released a statement saying, “Six years ago, we sued the Bush administration for rejecting science and playing politics with women’s health by denying emergency contraception for over-the-counter sale.”

“We are stunned to see the same behavior from the Obama administration,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. ”It is unacceptable that the approval for drugs supporting women’s reproductive health is held to a completely different standard.”

One of the country’s oldest feminist groups, the National Organization for Women, aslo said in a statement that:

It is an unusual and infuriating move for the Obama administration to overrule that decision, especially at a time when rumors are flying that the president is on the brink of caving in to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by expanding religiously affiliated employers’ ability to deny contraceptive coverage to women under the Affordable Care Act.

NOW calls on the president to stop playing politics with the lives of women and girls. During the Bush years, women’s reproductive health was under constant attack. We don’t need more of the same from the Obama administration.

The Center for Reproductive Rights will be in federal court on Tuesday, according to their stament, continuing to fight for over-the-counter emergency contraception. The group filed a petition years ago, “along with attorneys Andrea Costello of Florida Institutional Legal Services and Natalie Maxwell of Southern Legal Counsel on behalf of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP), National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, grassroots activists, and parents who seek over-the-counter access for their daughters.”

A federal court ordered the FDA to reconsider and rule on the petition filed by the Center in 2001. However, the FDA has yet to follow the order, the Center says.

Groups expect to hear whether Sebelius will uphold her decision to include contraception in a list of preventive services some time this week.

The letter (PDF) , signed by Texas A&M professor Douglass Shaw, urges the president to invest in the nation’s public lands infrastructure and establish new wilderness, parks and monuments that can create jobs and jump-start the businesses around them.

“The rivers, lakes, canyons, and mountains found on public lands serve as a unique and compelling backdrop that has helped to transform the western economy from a dependence on resource extractive industries to growth from in-migration, tourism, and modern economy sectors such as finance, engineering, software development, insurance, and health care,” the letter says. “Increasingly, entrepreneurs are basing their business location decisions on the quality of life in an area. Businesses are recruiting talented employees by promoting access to beautiful, nearby public lands.”

The economists’ message was also delivered to leaders in Congress, who are largely locked in partisan gridlock over issues dealing with the environment with few exceptions, such as the expansion of a wilderness area in San Diego County that shares bipartisan support led by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and the recent passage of the U.S. Ski Area Recreational Opportunity Enhancement Act, which Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) championed for many years.

The Obama administration appears to have gotten the economists’ memo before it was even written, given that U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a report three weeks earlier calling for the declaration of 18 new wilderness and conservation area in nine Western states. Salazar’s report says they all have “significant local support” and, in Colorado, they include expanded land protections in the McKenna Peak Wilderness Study Area of the San Juan Mountains, the Castle Peak Wilderness Study Area, the Browns Canyon Wilderness Study Area and the Bull Gulch Wilderness Study Area.

To get conservative members of Congress, such as U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.), on board will take some convincing. Tipton so far hasn’t tipped his hand on whether he supports the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act or drilling in Thompson Divide, but he has been enthusiastic in rolling back wilderness protections for other public lands, and previously blasted Salazar’s controversial Wild Lands policy.

The same can be said of Colorado’s other conservative congressmen — Doug Lamborn, Cory Gardner and Mike Coffman — who, like Tipton, have been rebuked for their environmental records.

Three Nobel Laureates and 10 residents of Colorado are among the scores of economists and academics who signed the public lands letter with the hope of getting U.S. policy-makers’ attention.

“Here in Colorado, our public lands fuel local economies,” said Zeke Hersh, owner of Blue River Anglers in Frisco. “It is only common sense that our elected officials in Congress and the White House protect these places with adequate investment and protections for the clean air, water, wildlife habitat, and open space that lures tourists and small business entrepreneurs to communities like Frisco.”

“Public lands are the identity for our community and thus our businesses,” added Roger Marolt, owner of Marolt LLP, in Aspen. “ They help define who we are and are what attracts vibrant employees, exciting new companies, visitors and consumers to the West. The preservation of federal lands is vital to our economic growth and ensuring existing businesses like mine thrive.”

A recent study commissioned by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (pdf) reports that outdoor recreation supports $289 billion in annual retail sales and services and more than 6.5 million jobs.

Got a tip? Story pitch? Send us an e-mail. Follow The Colorado Independent on Twitter.

On Election Day 2011, when Mississippians voted down the “personhood” amendment that would have criminalized abortion and, potentially, common forms of birth control, the political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) launched the Women Are Watching (WAW) campaign, a social-media project intended to educate and engage Planned Parenthood supporters throughout the country.

According to a press release, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) will run online banner ads highlighting “Champs” and “Chumps” of reproductive rights.

Current “Chumps” featured include GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, as well as U.S. Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa), Allen West (R-Fla.), Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.). “Champs” include President Obama, U.S. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.); and U.S. Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.); and former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, who is running for Congress as a Democrat.

In an editorial for the Huffington Post published Tuesday, PPFA President Cecil Richards wrote:

Over the past year, we have witnessed the most aggressive legislative attacks on women’s health and rights in a generation. The 2010 elections dramatically changed the U.S. Congress and state legislatures nationwide, leading to a wave of efforts to restrict access to vital women’s health care, including lifesaving cancer screenings and birth control. … [M]ore than 1,000 reproductive health bills have been introduced in legislatures across the country, the majority of which seek to undermine women’s health.

These attacks on women’s health are unacceptable and we’re putting anti-women’s health candidates from both parties on notice. Women Are Watchingwill work to ensure that politicians who play politics with our health are defeated and to support candidates who fight for the care women need to stay healthy.

Planned Parenthood saw victory Tuesday night with Mississippi’s “personhood” rejection and with Democratic victories in Kentucky (Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear was re-elected), Iowa (Democrats retained control of the state Senate) and New Jersey (Democratic control expanded in the state Senate).

However, Virginia is now completely controlled by the Republican Party, which won seats in the already GOP-majority House of Delegates and appears to have tipped the balance of power in the state Senate from Democrat to Republican, with the election of Republican Bryce Reeves over incumbent Sen. R. Edward Houck of District 17. The national anti-abortion-rights group the Susan B. Anthony List claims to have spent $25,000 in radio, TV and mailer ads against Houck’s reelection.

Planned Parenthood is also watching various states in 2012, including:

• Pennsylvania: Bills have been introduced to enforce new regulations on abortion clinics and to require women to receive state-mandated information about abortion.

• Florida: In 2012, Floridians will vote on a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to prohibit public funding of abortions, which is already illegal, but more significantly the bill would “prohibit the State Constitution from being interpreted to create broader rights to an abortion than those contained in the United States Constitution” — thus rolling back a constitutional privacy right in the state constitution that currently provides more protection for women than the U.S. Constitution does. A “personhood” amendment just like Mississippi’s will also be on the ballot.

• Planned Parenthood is also “watching” New Hampshire, which severed a decades-long family-planning contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England this year; Ohio, which introduced the controversial “heartbeat bill;” and Texas, which slashed the state’s family-planning budget from $111 million to $38 million and passed a mandatory ultrasound bill (many of the provisions of this law were struck down by a federal judge).

For a year now, the SBA List has been embroiled in a legal battle with former Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), who lost his seat in Ohio’s 1st District after the SBA List ran a radio-advertising campaign claiming that by voting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) last year, Driehaus voted for “tax-payer funded” abortion. Driehaus, who refers to himself as “pro-life,” filed a complaint  against the SBA list in October 2010 on false-speech and defamation charges, which he later withdrew. The SBA List took the case to the federal level, by suing the congressman in a district court in Ohio, on free-speech grounds.

For the past few months, Driehaus and the SBA have been at loggerheads over the case. Dreihaus’ legal team has asserted that the SBA List’s ad-campaign message that Driehaus voted for taxpayer-funded abortion is false because he voted for the PPACA after President Obama issued an executive order prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions. In turn, the SBA List’s legal team has argued that the Ohio statute the group was initially accused of violating is unconstitutional because it chills free speech.

But late last week, the SBA List publicly stated that the House vote is ”further evidence that Obama’s health care law would in fact allow for taxpayer funding of abortion” and the group’s treasurer, Frank Cannon, recently told Fox News.com that SBA will try to work the House’s vote into its legal arguments if they win an appeal to allow the case to proceed.

“For more than a year, SBA List has been fighting a lawsuit, brought by Congressman Driehaus claiming that we caused him ‘loss of livelihood’ by drawing attention to his vote for federal funding of abortion,” SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in the statement. “Given that 251 members of Congress voted in favor of the Protect Life Act, specifically in order to remove the PPACA’s federal funding of abortion that Steve Driehaus claims is non-existent, all of these members must thereby also be guilty of defamation.”

Attorneys from the lead law firm handling Driehaus’ case, Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley, could not be reached for comment.

One of the attorneys on the case, Paul De Marco, told FoxNews.com in August that the SBA List can’t “hide behind the First Amendment” on this one and that Driehaus ”decided he wasn’t going to put up with lies that went to the heart of his core beliefs.”

Initially, Driehaus filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission when the SBA List announced it would be erecting billboards accusing Driehaus of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions ahead of his reelection bid in November 2010. The billboards didn’t go up (though the radio ads did), and then Driehaus withdrew his complaint.

Currently, the federal case is stalled while the SBA List awaits a ruling on a motion it filed last month.

The SBA List previously touted support it received from the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio, which authored a brief of amicus curiae last year defending SBA’s free-speech claim against Ohio Revised Code 3517.21(B), arguing that certain provisions in the statute — namely those that dictate what is “true” or “false” political speech are “unconstitutionally vague and overbroad and have the effect of chilling the Susan B. Anthony List’s right to freedom speech. … The people have an absolute right to criticize their public officials, the government should not be the arbiter of true or false speech and, in any event, the best answer for bad speech is more speech.”

The free-speech aspect of the case — which may soon be thrown out of the case depending on future ruling — is the only claim among several the SBA List has made against Driehaus that the ACLU agrees with, said Carrie L. Davis, staff counsel at ACLU Ohio.

Davis told The American Independent that the ACLU disagrees with the content of the SBA List’s political ad campaign that Driehaus claims helped him lose the election.

“We believe that that the [Affordable Care Act] did not provide funding of abortion,” Davis said. In fact, she said, her organization’s position is that this type of disagreement should be decided in a defamation suit, not by a state statute.

A federal court this past August ruled in favor of Driehaus that the health care reform law does not provide taxpayer funding for abortion and rejected SBA List’s free-speech defense.

In its recent appeal, the SBA List’s legal team argued with the court’s ruling:

Allowing defamation claims in such circumstances will have an intolerable chilling effect on citizen-lobbying. It will not be only the SBA List and its desired speech that will be silenced. All advocacy organizations, including the SBA List’s idealogical opponents Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List, will likely be silenced too as defamation suits become candidates’ method of choice to discourage critical political speech. As such speech becomes more rare, the electorate, which counts on advocacy organizations to inform them about candidates’ true positions on the issues, will suffer.

“For me, the right to life has never been political,” Boehner said.

Boehner, the first political leader to take the stage at the three-day conservative Christian conference, began speaking about jobs and the economy, telling the room of flag-T-shirt-wearers that it is time to “liberate our economy from the shackles of this government.”

But he switched gears to abortion politics soon after, eliciting strong reactions from the crowd when he accused the administration of using taxpayer dollars to fund elective abortions, a policy that is prohibited by the longstanding Hyde Amendment. Still Boehner called for the end of publicly funding abortions and said the House GOP was working on a bill to make permanent the Hyde Amendment.

“Beyond the life issue, we must defend the Defense of Marriage Act,” Boehner said, censuring the president for ignoring the “law of the land” and promising to take money away from the Department of Justice for refusing to defend DOMA.

This week, Boehner’s office announced it is raising a $750,000 spending cap to $1.5 million to former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, who is defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Senate Minority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) speech followed the same blueprint as Boehner’s – jobs, abortion, same-sex marriage. He announced that a bill would be introduced next week to Congress that would “ensure no taxpayer dollars to abortion” and that would broaden so-called “conscience rights” to health care workers and pharmacists, to allow them to refuse abortion services and emergency contraception to women based on religious objections.

But what ultimately won Cantor a standing ovation was a proposal to “eliminate government funding for any and all organizations that perform abortions.” This effort – largely aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood, which receives more than $300 million annually for its family planning and reproductive health services – has already begun with the House’s recent introduction of a controversial Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill (PDF).

Abortion has already proved to be a star in this year’s summit, with every speaker addressing it in some form. Members of Susan B Anthony List are stationed throughout the Omni Shoreham Hotel handing out a joint voter guide introduced Friday by the SBA List and the National Organization for Marriage that list the anti-abortion/anti-same-sex marriage rights of the presidential hopefuls based on pledges they have signed.

Boehner and Cantor followed Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council Action, the lead sponsor of the Values Voter Summit. In his speech, Perkins introduced a theme that is likely to pervade the conference and how presidential candidates campaign for the support of the Christian voters in attendance.

Referring to a recent speech the President Barack Obama gave about values before the LGBT lobby the Human Rights Campaign, Perkins challenged the current president in his absence.

“Mr. President, you’re right, this is a contest of values. And I tell you what, this Marine has never backed away from a contest. … This election is too important to elect a Republican. We need to elect a conservative …”

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by roaring applause.

Stay tuned for more Values Voter Summit coverage from The American Independent.

In the 49-second video, an animated Obama is shown drinking and smirking at a bar seemingly only stocked with bottles of Champagne, while a narrator says:

He was the most popular guy at the party. Big smiles and tall tales. But the longer he stayed, the less he’s liked. First, the small businessmen left him. Then, union workers, college kids, and soccer moms. But through it all, one friend has stuck with Barack Obama: the abortion providers. And his dedication knows no bounds. For them, he promised to shut down the entire federal government. Threatened to slash Medicaid for the poor in Indiana. Even offered to pay for abortion clinics in New Hampshire…with our federal tax dollars. Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood. They won’t stop…until America turns off the music.

The anti-Obama campaign ad was spurred by the federal government’s recent move to contract family-planning services in New Hampshire to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, after the state’s executive council stripped $1.8 million in federal family-planning funding from that Planned Parenthood affiliate.

The Associated Press recently reported state health officials asked the federal government to step in after they could not find other entities to provide all the family-planning services offered by the state’s six Planned Parenthood clinics. According to Reuters, it was the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services commissioner who alerted Washington that the state was violating federal rules requiring family-planning services be provided statewide. Reuters also reported that about 4,000 New Hampshire women had their health care services “disrupted” after the executive council initially canceled Planned Parenthood’s contract in June.

SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser has called the federal government’s actions in New Hampshire “government by fiat.” The SBA List has raised funds on the message that encouraging states to restrict uninsured women’s access to family-planning and reproductive-health services will reduce abortions.

The group has so far been successful at shaping the abortion/family-planning-funding debate among the 2012 GOP presidential candidates, as several have signed the group’s controversial anti-abortion-rights pledge.

As of June, the Susan B Anthony List Inc. Candidate Fund consists of about $13,000.

Planned Parenthood’s campaign, titled “Stand Up for Texas Women,” is a response to anti-abortion-rights legislation in Texas and severe cuts to family-planning funding in the state’s 2012 budget.

As The Texas Independent reported, a federal judge recently blocked the majority of a controversial anti-abortion-rights sonogram law requiring women to view and receive descriptions of ultrasound images prior to abortions.

Perry has vowed to appeal the judge’s ruling.

“Tell him to stop,” writes PPFA President Cecile Richards, a native Texan, in a new email newsletter. “Tell Gov. Perry that Texans, and all Americans, need more access to affordable care, not less. Tell him that enough is enough.”

Planned Parenthood supporters are asked to send out an electronic message to Perry, with the heading of the letter to read: “Stop your Attacks on Women’s Health.” Notes are provided for inspiration, such as:

As governor of Texas, Rick Perry has pursued a single-minded agenda: take away women’s health care, destroy Planned Parenthood, and block women’s access to safe abortion care. Now he’s running for president and may push his anti-choice, anti-women’s health agenda on every woman in the country.

Planned Parenthood and the nation’s leading abortion rights advocate NARAL Pro-Choice America have attacked Perry on his anti-abortion-rights record in Texas, but during Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate (VIDEO), Perry was the only one to defend an issue many reproductive-rights advocates support –- policy aimed at preventing sexually transmitted diseases and cervical cancer. Specifically, the governor defended his failed attempt in 2007 to require sixth-grade girls to be given the vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus, or HPV, shortly after the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the vaccine.

Presidential hopefuls Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) slammed Perry’s HPV policy:

“I’m very concerned about is the issue of parental rights,” Bachmann said. “I think when it comes to dealing with children, it’s the parents who need to make that decision. It is wrong for government, whether it’s state or federal government, to impose on parents what they must do to inoculate their children. This is very serious, and I think that it’s very important, again, that parents have the right.”

“[The HPV vaccine mandate was] not good medicine,” said Paul, a gynecologist. “[It is] not good social policy.” He criticized the fact that Perry had mandated the vaccine by executive order, which was reversed by the Texas Legislature.

Perry’s self-defense:

“I hate cancer. We passed a $3 billion cancer initiative that same legislative session of which we’re trying to find over the next 10 years cures to cancers. Cervical cancer is caused by HPV. We wanted to bring that to the attention of these thousands of — tens of thousands of young people in our state. We allowed for an opt-out. I don’t know what’s more strong for parental rights than having that opt-out. There’s a long list of diseases that cost our state and cost our country. It was on that list. Now, did we handle it right? Should we have talked to the legislature first before we did it? Probably so. But at the end of the day, I will always err on the side of saving lives.”

Thursday morning Slate’s William Saletan slammed Perry for denouncing the health insurance mandates in the Affordable Care Act while defending his own health care mandate.

This can’t go on. Perry can’t continue to denounce mandatory health insurance while defending mandatory vaccinations for a sexually transmitted virus, particularly when his rationale for the vaccine mandate—saving lives and money—mirrors the arguments for the insurance mandate.

Perry has been bashing compulsory health insurance for a long time. … Four years ago, he issued an executive order instructing the Texas health commissioner to “adopt rules that mandate the age appropriate vaccination of all female children for HPV prior to admission to the sixth grade.” Unlike Romney and President Obama, Perry didn’t work out the mandate with his legislature. He imposed it by decree.

“As a member of the Armed Services Committee,” Loebsack told The Iowa Independent by phone Thursday, “I take my oversight role very seriously. So, as a member of that Committee I was invited to come and view the photos.”

Only a short time before speaking with The Iowa Independent, Loebsack had traveled to CIA headquarters to see the pictures for himself. He did not have any doubts about bin Laden’s death before seeing the photos, but felt obligated to view them as a part of his oversight duties.

President Barack Obama has decided not to release the photos publicly, a move backed by a majority of Americans, according to a recent NBC poll. Loebsack said he agrees with the decision even more after seeing the pictures firsthand.

“I will say that my initial judgment about our President’s decision and our military leaders’ recommendations not to release the photos was confirmed once I saw the photos,” he said. “Obviously, I cannot go into any details about the specifics of the photos.”

“I remained concerned about our nearly 3,000 Iowa National Guard troops stationed in Afghanistan at this time, and I worry about how potential reaction [to the release of the photos] could impact them. I worry about our American citizens who are traveling and working abroad as well. Al Qaeda has a worldwide network. So, there has to be concern if these photos were released that there would be a reaction against Americans.”

U.S. troops, he said, did “a fantastic job” carrying out the operation against bin Laden, and the intelligence community “did a wonderful job” providing military leaders the information they needed to set a plan in motion.

The ultimate decision to release any proof of bin Laden’s demise — such as DNA evidence — should be a decision made by the White House, Loebsack said.

“I’m going to leave it up to the administration,” he said. “I believe the [Obama] administration have used good judgment in all of this. I defer to our Commander in Chief and to our military leaders in deciding what will pose a threat to our country and our troops. … For me, this is about the safety of our country and the security of our troops.”