It's a sad day in America when groups that purport for be "for women" have actually reduced "women's issues" to only those surrounding reproduction.
But it turns out, as Ann Romney has recently pointed out, many American women are "upset" about economic issues that have nothing to do with reproduction. But as we say at IWF, all issues are women's issues.
The common politico advice is to always speak to women in terms of values. When the issue is economic in nature, explain it to men in terms of dollars and cents. Describe it to women in more human terms about relationships and values. Perhaps that's why – in addition to trying to scare women that the GOP is out to ban birth control (a complete lie) – Obama's rhetoric about the economy always includes words like "fairness" and anecdotes about individual people.
Oh. Please.
As much as women do care about the moral arguments behind economic policies, we also care about dollars and cents. Women do the majority of consumption – often controlling the tiniest to the biggest financial decisions in a household – and more recently, women have been taking over as breadwinners and out-earning men in certain demographics. And even if women don't outearn their husbands or dads, they understand that burdensome tax policy reduces their families' total income and limits opportunites for new jobs or advancement for themselves and the men they care about.
Today in the Daily Caller, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, has outlined five new taxes in the 2010 health law that will hurt women economically. They are:
- The individual mandate tax penalty
- The Cadillac Plan excise tax
- The Medicine Cabinet tax
- The cap on Flexible Spending Accounts
- The tax on tanning salons
You should read the whole article for an explanation of how these taxes will affect more women than you might think.
On top of all that, the news broke last week that the original CBO score of the law dramatically understated the costs. The original score was $940 billion, updated last week to $1.76 trillion.
While the "values" arguments against ObamaCare are great (limited personal choice in insurance and medical care, reduced individual rights, failure to cover as many people as promised, poorer quality in Medicare, etc.)… women should also be aware of the financial burden this law will be to our nation and to their individual families. Because women are health consumers, and women are taxpayers too.
For more information about women and the health care law, check out this page from Saving Our Health Care.