Chris Christie Clarifies He ‘Does Not Believe In Conversion Therapy’

Earlier this week, the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committee voted to advance a bill that would ban ex-gay therapy for minors. Among the testimony the committee heard was a powerful pronouncement from high school senior Jacob Rudolph, who declared, “I am not broken, I am not confused, and I do not need to be fixed.” Rudolph has been petitioning Gov. Chris Christie (R) to announce his support for the bill, but Christie said after the committee’s vote that he was still undecided about the harmful treatment and wouldn’t make up his mind on the legislation until it arrived at his desk. Now he’s clarified that he opposes ex-gay therapy, according to spokesman Kevin Roberts:

ROBERTS: Gov. Christie does not believe in conversion therapy. There is no mistaking his point of view on this when you look at his own prior statements where he makes clear that people’s sexual orientation is determined at birth.

The statement stops just short of indicating whether he intends to sign the legislation, but it’s a powerful endorsement nevertheless. Christie admitted in 2011 that he believes people are born gay and that homosexuality is thus not a sin. Still, he vetoed marriage equality legislation, so his actions as governor do not quite align with his respectable basic understanding of homosexuality.

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Majority Of Americans Believe Food Workers Need Paid Sick Days

Illustration by Chris Ware, Lexington Herald-Leader

79 percent of workers in the food industry and a whopping 90 percent of restaurant workers report having no paid sick days, despite the obvious hazard posed by food workers coming to their jobs while sick. According to a new survey commissioned by the National Consumer League, Americans believe that should chang.

57 percent of respondents said it is “very important or important that the restaurant they frequent provide workers with paid sick days.” (In a slight disconnect, fully 92 percent of those polled said “it’s very important or important that the servers and cooks in the restaurants they frequent do not cook or serve while sick.”)

“Without having the benefit of paid sick days, restaurant workers can’t afford to be sick and are forced to come to work — and handle consumers’ food — when they should be at home resting,” said NCL’s Michell McIntyre. “Providing paid sick days is very clearly in the interest of consumers and the workers who handle their food.”

But lack of paid sick days is a problem that extends beyond the food industry. Overall, 40 percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-income workers do not have a single paid sick day. 20 percent of workers report either losing their job or being threatened with dismissal for wanting to take time off while sick.

The U.S. is currently experiencing the worst flu season in a decade, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that workers exhibiting flu-like symptoms stay home from work. But for a huge number of workers — including those handling the food that untold numbers of Americans will eat — staying home simply isn’t a possibility. (HT: Joe Satran)

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Three Things The NRA Wants You To Believe About Biden’s Gun Safety Task Force That Aren’t True

On Thursday, the National Rifle Association (NRA) blasted the Obama administration for undermining Americans’ Second Amendment rights just moments after its representatives met with Vice President Joe Biden and the White House task force to reduce gun violence.

Two years ago, the NRA wouldn’t even meet with President Obama and the group’s CEO and executive vice president Wayne LaPierre warned that he would confiscate “our firearms” and undermine America’s greatness. In a statement following Thursday’s meeting, the group demonstrated that it’s still not interested in reducing gun crimes, offering three misleading claims about its intentions:

1. The NRA was “prepared to have a meaningful conversation.” The NRA claimed that it’s willing to consider “school safety, mental health issues, the marketing of violence to our kids and the collapse of federal prosecutions of violent criminals.” The glaring omission in that list is any action involves the sale of guns and ammunition. It’s the same tactic they tried in their widely-panned press conference where they went so far as to blame hurricanes, but not guns. The resistance to any gun violence prevention measures that involve actual firearms shows that the NRA really wasn’t interested in a “meaningful conversation” where all options were on the table.

2. The White House has “an agenda to attack the Second Amendment.” Despite LaPierre’s paranoid insistence that the White House was lulling gun owners into a false sense of security by not passing any gun laws during his first four years, the Obama administration actually expanded gun rights in its first four years by loosening restrictions for concealed carry on federal grounds. Both Biden and Obama have insisted that they have no intention of changing the right to bear arms — rather, they simply want to create restrictions that make it harder for murderers to acquire their weapon of choice.

3. The “Administration continues to insist on pushing failed solutions.” There’s really no proof that universal background checks, restrictions on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and expanded mental health services are “failed solutions.” In fact, evidence points to the opposite: Since the repeal of the assault weapons ban, mass shootings have drastically increased and studies show that the firepower of gunmen (how many rounds they shoot, and how quickly they shoot them) has jumped significantly.

Biden plans to deliver his suggestions for possible gun violence prevention laws to Obama on Tuesday. On Friday, he will meet with the entertainment and television industries. It’s likely that will be a more positive meeting, since representatives have signalled they will be more receptive to Biden’s case. In a statement, they wrote, “We welcome the opportunity to share that history and look forward to doing our part to seek meaningful solutions.” That’s despite that videogames and movies, unlike guns, can’t kill people.

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Don’t Believe The Media Hype: Obamacare Is Not Responsible For Double Digit Premium Hikes

Small businesses and individual health policy holders could face dramatic premium spikes this year, as some insurers file double digit increases and attribute the changes to the Affordable Care Act. The sticker shock is mostly the result of rising health care costs — and the prevalence of sicker beneficiaries in health insurance risk pools. The media, however, is blaming health care reform.

For instance, Friday’s Politico reported that premiums are increasing across the country as “All those new consumer benefits packed into the health reform law — birth control without a co-pay, free preventive care and limits on when insurers can turn down a customer — had to be paid for somehow.” Policy holders may experience 10 to 20 percent rate hikes, it warns, as insurers are “working the health reform law’s 2014 fees into their 2013 bills.”

So how much is Obamacare responsible for? Five, maybe eight percent? The answer is less than two.

Insurers are arguing that the costs of Obamacare’s annual fee on the industry, its requirement that companies contribute to a reinsurance program, and new benefits and regulations have to be passed down to consumers. “There’s a massive new health insurance tax that starts in 2014,” Robert Zirkelbach, the spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans told Politico. “For policies that are sold in 2013 and extend into next year, there’s going to be taxes imposed. … As a result, like all taxes, they will be reflected in premiums charged.”

There are new costs in 2014, but they have little to do with reform. Consider the insurers’ own rate justification filings, in which companies have to substantiate the raises. Aetna in Pennsylvania, for instance, seeks to increase rates by an average of 16.49 percent, but as it explains in its filing, 63.18 percent of the increase is attributed to the “cost of providing healthcare services to policyholders.” The Affordable Care Act is responsible for a tiny portion of the increase:

Impact of New Taxes and Fees

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes several new taxes and fees payable in 2014, including two that specifically apply to insured products — the health insurer fee and the reinsurance contribution. These new fees result in additional costs and are reflected in our updated rates for policies that extend into 2014. The overall impact of these costs on this filing is as follows:
* Health Insurer Fee: 1.0%
* Reinsurance Contribution: 0.5%

Washington & Lee Law School professor Timothy Jost predicted that “insurers in the individual market will benefit substantially from reinsurance payments” and will be “spared some administrative costs-notably the cost of underwriting which should be quite substantial.” ” The cost of new benefits should not be a big deal,” he continued, since “most of the costs of health insurance are for inpatient, outpatient, physician, lab, radiology, and pharmaceuticals, which virtually all insurers now cover.”

“I suspect that what is going on is a combination of legitimate concern about new costs, overestimation of what those costs will be and underestimation of offsetting savings, taking a chance to attack the ACA, and grabbing the opportunity to make some profit,” Jost added.

The Affordable Care Act reforms the individual health care market and allows businesses and individuals to take advantage of large risk pools by purchasing coverage through state-based health care exchanges. Over time, insurers will see an influx of new customers, many of whom will benefit from the law’s tax credits and will see their health care bills decrease.

In the short term, however, regulators must remain vigilant. As Sarah Lueck, of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), told ThinkProgress, “The question of whether these increases are justified is something that regulators should closely scrutinize.”

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POLL: Only 37 Percent Believe ‘Homosexual Behavior’ Is A Sin

POLL: Only 37 Percent Believe ‘Homosexual Behavior’ Is A Sin | A new poll from the Souther Baptist-affiliated research group Lifeway shows that the number of Americans who believe “homosexual behavior” is a sin has dropped to 37 percent, while 45 percent believe it is not. That’s a flip from 2011 when 44 percent believed it was a sin and 43 did not. Those opposed to LGBT equality try to distinguish between people who are gay and people who engage in gay behavior, but the growing support for and visibility of committed same-sex families is helping to debunk that approach.

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Poll: Half believe 'country's best years are behind us'

A Gallup poll released Wednesday showed that entering the new year, half of all Americans believe the country's best years are in the past. Republicans are particularly discouraged, with nearly three-quarters saying that America's peak came before 2013.

The survey found that while 50 percent say the country's best years have passed by, 47 percent believe that greater times are to come. There is a stark partisan divide, however: While just under seven in 10 Democrats agree that "the country's best years are ahead of us," 74 percent of Republicans say they have already elapsed. Independents are also pessimistic about the future, although less so — 55 percent say the country's best years have passed, while 43 percent say they are still ahead.

Those surveyed were also split on their predictions for 2013's economic outlook. Just one-third of respondents said 2013 would be a year of economic prosperity, while 65 percent said they expected economic difficulty. But at the same time, more than half — 53 percent — predicted a year of full or increasing employment. Just 42 percent said the economy would lose jobs in 2013.

Americans also believe that prices would rise at a reasonable rate in the coming year, with 57 percent agreeing with such a prediction. Of those surveyed, 42 percent said prices would rise at a higher-than-normal rate.

"The 65 percent of Americans who predict 2013 will be a year of economic difficulty is one of the more negative responses to this question since Gallup first asked it in 1965," said Gallup's Frank Newport in a statement.

Americans surveyed before Tuesday's "fiscal cliff" deal also accurately predicted that taxes would rise in 2013, with 82 percent saying it was more likely they would rise than fall. A broad majority — 85 percent — also predicted the federal budget would not be balanced in 2013.

Americans also took a pessimistic look at American power, with three-quarters predicting a year of international discord and 57 percent saying the United States' global influence would wane. Those surveyed also see increasing violence at home, with 68 percent predicting a rise in crime rates.

"About two-thirds of Americans believe 2013 will be a year of rising crime rates, a more negative prediction than in either 1999 or 1998," Newport said. "Americans' views about crime this year were possibly affected by the tragic school shooting on Dec. 14 in Newtown, Conn., the day on which the current poll began."

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