Posts Tagged ‘Wake County’

Wake County Commissioners Board Chairman, Tony Gurley is at it again [see Stripping Women's Coverage and Your Nose is Growing  from Feb for background.]  He’s ready to once again strip health coverage from Wake County female employees. And apparently, even though the facts are clear, he still believes Rep Paul Stam’s arguement that county’s are not allowed to include abortion care as part of their healthcare coverage.

Last Spring,  Gurley tried to have the coverage stripped away quietly through action at the administrative level.  Having the County Manager, David Cooke, unilaterally remove the coverage.  (link) But the then Democratic majortiy won out and voted to have the coverage restored.

But, the issue is nowhere near over.

As reported by Ned Barnett of the American Indpendent, ” With Democrat Lindy Brown’s defeat by Republican Phil Matthews in the Nov. 2 election, Republicans have a 4-3 majority. The Republicans are all but certain to vote to remove elective abortion as a covered service when the employees health plan is renewed on Jan. 1. ”

So, on December 6th, Tony Gurley and the new Republican majority on the Wake County Board will vote on removing abortion coverage from the county’s health plan.

This cherry-picking of health coverage will result in no cost savings and is really just an anti-choice admonishment towards women.   Planned Parenthood will work against this move. 

If you are interested in learning more about what Planned Parenthood is doing to protect the female employees of Wake County, please e-mail Patricia.Dillon@pphsinc.org.

At the very least the elected leaders who are stripping coverage should get their stories straight on why they thought it appropriate to force their personal belief systems on the rest of us at the detriment of their female employees.

As coverage from Cary News points out, the issue was initially cast by Weatherly as one that would protect the taxpayer from lawsuits.  But, after the decision was passed, Mayor Weatherly proclaimed, “The issue is the protection of the unborn.”  

But wait, didn’t you tell us that it was about protecting the town from lawsuits? The N&O quotes Wake County Board of Commissioners chair, Tony Gurley spoke on this theme saying, “As soon as we were made aware it [abortion coverage] was illegal, we stopped doing it.”

Except that it’s not. Turns out the only legal precedent that statement is founded on is a case brought by Representative Paul Stam in Stam vs. State of NC.  Also turns out, the 1991 precedent does NOT apply in this case as it does not address health insurance coverage.

The bottom line here is that city and county employees deserve full insurance coverage and that council members don’t get to decide who has access to legal medical procedures based on their political agendas.

Are city councilpersons and county commisioners elected as morality police?  You might think so if you’re following the news out of Wake County.

Last month’s decision by the Apex Town Council to strip abortion coverage from their town employee’s insurance coverage was initiated by Apex Mayor Keith Weatherly.  Mayor Weatherly, as noted in a previous post, works as a legislative assistant to Representative Paul Stam, a longtime crusader against a woman’s right to make child-bearing decisions.

The Apex abortion coverage ban triggered the Wake County Commissioners to consider stripping abortion coverage from county employees’ benefits. That proposal was added to the Commissioners’ agenda for their February 15 meeting… That is, until today.

The News and Observer reports that Wake County has followed Apex’s lead in cherry picking what health insurance benefits they deem “acceptable” and what they do not.

In case you were wondering, Wake County Government leaders determined that abortion coverage (which is covered by more than 80% of private insurance plans) falls into the latter category and, therefore, is out. The change has already been made administratively by the County Manager

It was just that simple. No public comment. Not a single vote on the matter. Is this our democracy at work? Now our local government is stepping into the role of “morality police”? Is this what anyone elected their County Commissioner or Town Council member to do?

Wake County residents: tell your Commissioners that you are outraged that the decision to cut comprehensive employee health coverage was brought about with no public comment and that you are strongly opposed to the change.