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tazzygirl -> RE: Palin to resign as governor (7/7/2009 12:59:22 PM)
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These two make a good argument against Palin and the rape kit incident.
http://jezebel.com/5054308/debunking-the-sarah-palin-rape-kit-debunkers
quote:
So, let's call a spade a spade. The Palin Administration in Wasilla definitely removed an item from the budget that the previous administration used to pay for forensic rape examinations, which are done at hospitals with medical personnel. Fallon defended Wasilla's policy. Period.
Does it mean that Palin hates rape victims, blames them for their assaults, etc.? No. Like many a Republican before her, she was shifting the cost of a government service off her books and onto others (in this case, she planned on health insurance providers and Medicaid picking up Wasilla's slack). That it was done with little reflection on the potential ramifications to health insurance companies or the hospitals, the possibility of having one's insurance revoked for utilizing it for an expensive emergency room visit or the 15% of Americans (including Alaskans) who lack health insurance, among other things, makes it bad policy — but it doesn't make her a bad person. An uninsightful one with an inability to consider the potential unintended consequences of her actions, perhaps, but not a rape-promoter .
How can you cut tbat much from a budget in a community of 5000, roughly, and claim you didnt know.
It gets more interesting from there.
quote:
Jim Geraghty says: "The deputy commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Public Safety told the State Affairs Committee that he has never found a police agency that has billed a victim."
Um, well, it's because they wouldn't have billed victims anyway, they simply stopped paying the hospitals and the hospitals billed the victims. Oh, look! Fallon never hand-delivered a bill to a rape victim! He must be innocent! Bush has never tortured a Guantanamo detainee, either, but it doesn't mean that his actions as President haven't directly led to people being tortured. In fact, Geraghty even admits that the hospitals would've done the billing directly, but neglects to note that every person who has insurance coverage has a co-pay (which means that every person billed by the hospital for a forensic rape examination had an out-of-pocket expense) and 15% of the country doesn't have health insurance. It's ludicrous to suggest that somehow in a market economy no one paid for these exams — and, from Wasilla's own budgets, we sure as hell know Wasilla didn't pay for them.
and from another site
http://hubpages.com/hub/Sarah-Palins-War-on-Women
quote:
Were any rape victims actually charged?
Rape statistics are vague for the city of Wasilla, lumped together under the heading of "Sexual Assaults (including all associated sex crimes)." Between 1997 and 1999, 38 "Sexual Assaults" are listed on the City of Wasilla's website.
Uniform Crime Reports of Wasilla lists one reported rape in 2000 (compared to 10 "Sexual Assaults" on the city's website), but prior to 2000 shows data only for one year in every five. In 1995, the year before Palin took office, there were no rapes reported.
Wasilla Mayor Dianne M. Keller, in an official letter available on the City of Wasilla's website, stated that "The Finance Department searched all financial records on our system for fiscal year 2000, 2001 and 2002. There are no records of billings to or collections from rape victims or their insurance companies in our system."
However, HB 270 was passed in 2000, so it would have been illegal if Wasilla had billed rape victims between 2000 and 2002.
Additionally, it is unlikely that the town of Wasilla would have records of billing victims in the first place. Rape exams are performed by hospitals and, typically, the hospital then bills the police or other local agency. In the case of Wasilla, the police did not start billing the victims, they stopped paying the hospital, forcing the hospital to seek compensation through the victim's insurance company. If the victim lacked insurance, the charges would then have been passed on to her.
so, i went looking at the web site for the city.
http://www.cityofwasilla.com/index.aspx?page=103
at the bottom of the list is....
Key to Abbreviations:
MVAs = Motor Vehicle Accidents
ASLT = Assaults
BURG = Burglaries
DWI = Driving While Intoxicated
SEX ASLT = Sexual Assaults (includes all associated sex crimes).......... why lump all these together?
LARCENY = Thefts including Vehicle Theft
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