Eye On Modesto

Thoughts and observations about Modesto and Stanislaus County

Archive for the day “February 26, 2012”

How Much Does Birth Control Cost?

By EOM Staff

President Obama’s health care plan was intended to make health care more affordable and more accessible to all Americans.  The Republicans have attacked that idea and turned the discussion to whether or not insurances should cover birth control.  We are not talking about religiously affiliated employers….we are now talking about any employer.  Republicans would like to make it so your employer can choose not to cover birth control because he may have a “moral objection” to it.

Some GOP hopefuls have recently stated that birth control isn’t very expensive.  The average American woman will spend 30 years of her life trying to prevent pregnancy.  If her insurance doesn’t cover contraception, here are the estimated costs….

A shot 4 times a year for 30 years = $32,000

An IUD that has to be replaced every 5 – 7  years = $17,000

The pill (the most effective and most common form of contraception) = $67,000!  

That’s almost $2300 a year, for 30 years!  Not very expensive?  Imagine being a low-income woman trying to prevent pregnancy and having to spend almost $200 a month for contraception!  It’s expensive even for a professional woman with a good income.

Contraception is basic health care for women.  Allowing insurance companies and/or employers to choose not to cover it, will only result in even more unplanned pregnancies, more children and families living in poverty, and fewer opportunities for education for those children.

It’s all part of the continued war on women.  Take away our reproductive rights and we are kept out of the workplace (it’s hard to hold down a job when you have a baby every 18 months) and our ability to support our families is drastically reduced.

Apparently, the GOP didn’t pay attention to statistical analysis of the voters in 2008.  Almost 2 million more women than men voted that year.  And we will be out in force this year….voting against anyone who wants to take away our rights!

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MPD’s WAKEUP Program is Going to Hurt Modesto’s Youth

By Emerson Drake

“What does not work in crime prevention is just as important as what works. It is counterproductive to use scarce budget funds and waste the funding support on programs that do not work, or that may make things worse. Throwing good money after bad  reduces the public’s trust in their government.”

Wrote Anthony J. Schembri, Secretary Florida Department of Juvenile Justic

 

From the 500 citations generated, this stringent process yielded nine studies that met the methodological demands to be included in the final analysis. These studies were conducted between 1967-1992 in eight different states throughout the U.S., with Michigan being the site for two. The collective sample was 946 juveniles with an average age ranging from 15 to 17 years old, a racial composition between 36%-84% white, with only one study including girls (for complete breakdown by study see Petrosino et al., 2003). The focus of investigation was on the proportion of each group (Scared Straight or control) that re-offended.

The results from the re-offending rates show that the Scared Straight-type intervention

increases the delinquency outcomes during the follow-up period. This means that those youth who went through these types of programs have higher recidivism rates than those youth who did not go through the programs. It is important to remember that the treatment and the control groups were randomized, meaning that each youth had an equal probability of being placed in either group, thus assuring that each group is comparable and essentially identical at the outset of the experiment. This guarantees that any difference between the two groups is due to the intervention itself, and not to any characteristic of the youth in each group.

 

 

http://www.djj.state.fl.us/Research/Scared_Straight_Booklet_Version.pdf

 Modesto’s Police Department should have learned this lesson the first time but since we didn’t we’re doomed to repeat it.  Don’t fall for what feels good, insist on what actually is good for our children.

 

MID is Being Challenged for its Exorbitant Charges

Dear Allen:
 
Under the tenets of the California Public Records Act, and on behalf of the Stanislaus Taxpayers Association, I make the following requests for public records and information:
 
(1) Please provide me with all documents that the District used to determine that 25 cents per page for copies of public records is reasonable.
 
(2) Separate from No. 1 above, please provide me with all documents The District used to determine that the fee the District charges for copies of video records is reasonable.
 
(3)Separate from No’s. 1 and 2 above, please provide me with all the documents that the District used to determine that when the District provides damaged, incomplete or unusable DVD’s to the public, it is required that the public spend its time and energy to bring the unusable DVD to the MID offices and surrender that public document, prior to the District providing a replacement DVD, which would require yet one more trip, and expense, to MID offices.  
 
Thank you, Dave Thomas, President, Stanislaus Taxpayers Association

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