Allison Gill (27:10)
Yeah, and I love that she says, and you don't have. And it just, if you don't wear makeup, doesn't make you any less of a woman. I fucking love her. Like, she's like my new hero. I'm not going to see her school anytime, ever. Okay, but this is the shit. This is inspirational stuff, man. She's a badass and I love her. Anyway, thank you for that story. It makes me feel like, yeah, I'm gonna go fucking kick some ass. Which for me is like talking. But that's fine. You know, it's your own thing. You do what you do. All right, everybody, I have another story for you from ProPublica. This one's about TRICARE. I was the. When I worked Dana, at the Department of Veterans affairs for the last few years, I was there under the Trump administration. I was the tricare liaison to the Department of Defense. And this story is a stunner. And the. Everybody needs to support ProPublica and the work that they're doing on these investigations. So we'll have that and then we'll have the good news after that. So everybody stick around. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll be right back. Hey everybody, it's Ag. You know, before Helix, my nights were a complete disaster. I wake up drenched in sweat, tossing and Turning sore back in the morning. My mornings were exhausting. Like paired with persistent nagging. Lower back pain was just awful. My Apple Watch confirmed what I already felt. Low sleep scores, disrupted cycles, no restful sleep. A friend of mine could not stop raving about Helix suggested I try their two minute sleep quiz online. And a custom mattress was sent right to my house. And it was tailored to meet my specific sleep needs and. And my whole world changed. So I, you know, like I said, I gave it a shot. I'm glad I did. I've had it for years now. From the very first night, the tossing and overheating stopped. My back pain vanished. I woke up feeling refreshed, ready for the day. Even better, my sleep tracker, my Apple Watch started showing dramatic improvements. I got higher sleep scores and I'm very competitive with myself even when I sleep. So I was very happy to see that. So head to helixleep.com dailybeans take their online sleep quiz. You'll get matched to a perfect mattress just for you. You'll even get 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows. It's an offer you do not want to miss. Now, years later, like I said, my Helix mattress is still in fantastic shape. No sagging, no loss of support, like zero. No decline in comfort. It is the same as I slept on it the first night and I love it. It's made such a difference in my mornings too. I wake up pain free and rested and energized. I'm ready to go, I'm ready to fight and I'm ready to take on the day. So helix is offering 20% off site wide plus two free pillows with any mattress purchase. Just go to helixleep.com dailybeans that's helixsleep.com dailybeans with helix. Better sleep starts now. Hey everybody, welcome back. I wanted to do a special segment for this story, a standalone again it's from erin Edwards for ProPublica and Robin Fields. And please, if you get a chance and you can swing it right now, go to ProPublica.org and donate support their work. They are going to be one of the really important investigative journalism sources that is going to be looking into a lot of the corruption the next four years. They're about to embark on a huge investigation into health care claim denials. And this piece is called A Coast Guard commander miscarried and she nearly died after being denied care. And I wanted to share this with you because Tricare is the benefit that covers active duty service members and their families when they can't get direct government health care on a military base. And this is how we, you know, we tend to give coverage to our military members. Even though it's government and it's supposed to be single payer, it still goes through these private insurance companies. Our tricare contracts can be from United Healthcare, Humana, Tri west, to any of the big ones. And then there's even a third party administrator who, who actually goes through and processes the claims financially, which is another corporation with private, you know, that's privately owned and operated that also takes giant swaths of taxpayer money. And this is about the kind of care they receive. The night, the EMTs carried Elizabeth Nakagawa from her home, bleeding and in pain. The tarp they'd wrapped her in reminded her of a body bag. Nakagawa, who's 39, is a Coast Guard commander, stoic, methodical, an engineer by trade. But as they maneuvered her past her young daughter's bedroom, down the narrow steps and onto the ambulance, she felt a stab of fear that she might never see her girls again. Then came a blast of anger. She'd been treated for miscarriages before. She knew her life never should have been in danger. Earlier that day, April 3, 2023, Nakagawa had been scheduled to have a surgical procedure called a dnc. And this is to remove fetal tissue after losing a very wanted pregnancy. But that morning, she was told the surgery had been canceled because tricare, the military's health insurance plan, refused to pay for it. While her doctor appealed, Nakagawa waited. Then the cramps and bleeding began. In recent months, ProPublica and other media outlets have told the stories of women who died or nearly died when state abortion restrictions imposed after The Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision impeded them from getting critical care. But long before Roe v. Wade was overturned, military service members and their families have faced strict limits on abortion services, which are commonly used to resolve miscarriages. Under a decades old federal law, the military is prohibited from paying for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. This applies even to service members based in states where abortion is legal. Nakagawa lives in Sonoma County, California. There's also no exception for catastrophic or fatal fetal anomalies. In those cases, service members either have to pay out of pocket for abortions or carry to term fetuses that won't survive outside the womb. Tricare does allow abortions in cases like Nakagawa's, in which the fetus has no heartbeat. But even then, some doctors who treat military Service members say tricare requires more documentation and takes longer to approve these procedures than other insurers, putting women at risk. Quote, there definitely have been cases where our tricare patients have required emergency services, emergency DNC procedures, blood transfusions, things like that, things that have been critical to life saving care, but their procedure has yet to occur. That's Dr. Lauren Robertson, an OBGYN who has served military members and their spouses in San Diego for more than a decade. Quote, it just feels very unnecessary. Since the Dobbs decision, abortion care for service members seems to be coming under heightened scrutiny, said retired Rear Admiral Dana Thomas, who was until recently the Coast Guard's chief medical officer and advocated for Nakagawa. Quote, trust me, post Roe v. Wade, I'm sure people felt there was much more of a spotlight. That's what Thomas said. I think they were more guarded after June of 2022. After being rushed to the emergency room, Nakagawa hemorrhaged for four more hours before doctors performed the surgery tricare had refused to authorize. Later, tricare and Defense Department officials would all agree that Nakagawa should have been treated as her doctor recommended and said they told her they'd taken steps to prevent future mistakes. But her experience, which doctors say nearly cost Nakagawa her life, laid bare the challenges that service members have long faced in obtaining reproductive health care. And it raises questions about whether the Supreme Court's ruling has created a chilling effect that has further complicated access to these procedures. Officials at the dha, the Defense health agency which runs the military health system, including TRICARE, did not respond to specific questions from ProPublica, but they provided a statement saying its policies haven't budged. Quote, there have not been any changes to TRICARE coverage or documentation requirements for medically necessary care of DNCs following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. Medically necessary care was and continues to be covered. The agency declined to answer questions about Nakagawa, saying that as a matter of practice, it does not discuss individual beneficiaries care. ProPublica is involved in an unrelated public records lawsuit with the dha. As a senior officer, Nakagawa felt duty bound to press for answers about what happened to her. Quote, the abortion policy in theory is supposed to protect life, and in my case it did the opposite, Nakagawa said. It almost led to my children not having a mother. After the Supreme Court upended Roe, the Biden administration took steps to reassure service members that their access to reproductive health care would remain unaffected by the wave of state abortion bans. An October 2022 memo from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pledged to facilitate leave for service members seeking abortions that were not covered by tricare and to pay for travel care if it wasn't available nearby. It also emphasized that these procedures would be, quote, consistent with applicable federal law. And before I continue on, I wanted to bring up my op ed that I wrote for the Washington Post about leave for military members. I don't know if a lot of you have read it, so let me just do that really quick. And again, I wanted to do this. I wanted to read this to you in light of this paragraph. The memo from Lloyd Austin pledged to facilitate leave for service members seeking abortions that are not covered by tricare and to pay for travel if it wasn't nearby. Here's what MYOP ed said and Content Warning for SA Overturning Roe v. Wade could have disastrous consequences for the US Armed Forces and here's how I know when I was 21, I was drugged and raped violently while serving in the military, a crime that resulted in pregnancy. Had I not had access to abortion, the assault would have ended my career and derailed my life. Should Roe be overturned and access to abortion restricted for female service members across the United States, military readiness would be directly affected. Women make up 14.4% of our active duty military and about 18% of our reserve and National Guard. Rape in the military is prevalent. In 2018, the Defense Department reported that roughly 20,500 service members experienced sexual assault, up from 14,900 two years before. Many states have trigger laws banning or criminalizing abortion that will go into effect as soon as Roe is overturned, a probable outcome considering the Supreme Court draft opinion that leaked earlier this month. This will immediately affect active duty service members who don't exactly get to choose what state they serve in and who don't have the freedom to travel to other states without a leave chit approved by the chain of command, a command that is notoriously bad at dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault. Of the 20,500 service members sexually assaulted in 2018, only a third reported the assault and 43% of those who did say it was a negative experience. Military leaders are often averse to having sexual assaults associated with their command. Not to mention the rapist is often in the chain of command. This leads to situations in which it's unsafe to report range rape, and if there's no safe space to report rape, there's certainly no safe space to request leave to travel for abortion care. Potential workarounds like mail order abortion medication would most likely be unfeasible When I served, mail went through the chain of command and there were inspections to prevent the receipt of contraband. Although I don't know whether abortion pills received through the mail today would be confiscated, I do know I would have never ordered them for fear of being caught and disciplined. When I tried to report my rapist, I was asked the same question so many victims have heard before. What were you wearing? Were you flirting? Are you in a fight with your boyfriend? A higher ranking officer told me I could lose my prestigious nuclear position. He said I'd be dishonorably discharged for filing a false report and court martialed for adultery because my rapist was married. Quote, let's just chalk this up to what it was, he said. Bad judgment on your part. I left believing it was my fault. Fault A lie that took over a decade of therapy to undo and I was terrified to mention it to anyone. There was no morning after pill to prevent pregnancy back then, but when I discovered I was pregnant, I was able to access abortion care at a nearby Planned Parenthood, along with a counseling referral. The trauma from the rape almost cost me my life. Access to the care I received afterward saved me. Now imagine if I hadn't had that care. Imagine if multitudes of people in the military couldn't access such care. In a world without Roe, service members without ready access to abortion care would be trapped. A service member who is raped and becomes pregnant could essentially be forced by the government to carry their pregnancy to term and give birth to their rapist's baby. There are concrete steps U.S. officials can take now to help service members who might need to seek abortion care. First, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin should create policy granting leave for reproductive health travel, and President Biden should call on the Defense Department to put that policy into practice. And then second, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should bring the Military Justice Improvement act, sponsored by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and supported by senators including Joni Ernst, Chuck Grassley and Ted Cruz, to a floor vote. The bill proposes taking the decision to prosecute rape and assault out of the chain of command, which would give active duty service members a safe space to report. The MJIA has 67 bipartisan sponsors, but it was killed when Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat, insisted it be included in the National Defense Authorization act, where it was gutted. Kirsten Gillibrand has continued to push for a vote on the full proposal and has been repeatedly blocked. The lack of protections is unacceptable, forcing service members with unwanted pregnancies to covertly seek abortion care or to carry a pregnancy to term would be inhumane. If the United States values women's military service, it must find a way to ensure they have a choice. So that was May of 2022, after the leak of the Dobbs decision and I urged Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to please grant leave for military care. And then four months later he did. And when I met Ron Klain, the Chief of Staff in the White House, he knew who I was because of this op ed. So I like to think that it made a difference in getting that policy put into place. And now we know it will likely be overturned. So Back to the ProPublica article. The statute barring the Defense Department from paying for most abortions goes back to 1985 in mirrors language in what's called the Hyde Amendment, named for its author Henry Hyde, a Republican representative from Illinois. Congress has attached the amendment to spending bills since the late 1970s to prohibit the use of federal funds on abortion. With Congress in control of military spending, abortion care is very politicized. That's a statement from Kylie Ann Hunter, a Marine Corps combat veteran and senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Quote, there's been a lot of backlash and a lot of scrutiny and a lot of congressional disapproval as to how the DoD is engaged with abortion care, DNC and care, DNC and the like. About 9.5 million people, including active duty service members and their families, as well as military retirees and their dependents, rely on tricare for health services. Women make up a growing portion of the active duty force, more than 17%. They also leave the military at higher rates. Research by RAND and others suggest the military's reproductive health policies may make it harder to recruit and retain them. Dr. Tony Marengo, a former Navy OBGYN, said she left the service in part because she felt unable to provide patients with the appropriate care. Many of them only discovered how sharply TRICARE's policies curtailed access to procedures like DNC when they needed them. Quote it was like living in a pre Roe world, said Marengo, now chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood for the Pacific Southwest. So there's a lot more to this article. There's a whole lot more I would love for you to read. Just go to propublica.org and search for Nakagawa, Elizabeth Nakagawa and her miscarriage and you can read more details about hers and others cases dealing with the TRICARE regional offices that are supposed to support and care for our active duty service members and their families. So thank you. I just wanted to go through this with you because again, it's A subject like veterans benefits and the Department of Veterans affairs. That is personal to me. So thanks for sticking around for the B block. We'll be right back with the good news. Stay with us everybody. Welcome back. It's time for the good news, everyone. Then good news everyone. And if you have any good news or confessions or corrections you want to send us a great story, anything at all, please do so by going to DailyBeansPod.com and clicking on Contact. Just submit your pod pet tax, which is a photo of your pet. If you want us to guess the breeds in your shelter pup, we can do that too. If you don't have a pet, you can send an adoptable pet in your area. We'll try to match them with the Forever Home. And if you don't have that nearby you, you can also just send in really any animal photo we'll take. We accept pretty much any animal photo, especially birds. Right now we're bird watching, right? Send us your, your middle fingers. Your middle finger salute to Trump Properties. I love those photos they make. They, they fill me with glee. And then of course, if you have none of that, you can send your baby pictures, which we also love. Also, if you have a shout out, if you don't have some good news, but you just want to give a shout out to somebody, whether it's your spouse or kid or a parent or yourself, self shout outs are incredible and amazing and very uplifting. So send those in. Maybe somebody doing great community organizing in your area or a small business that could use a boost or your small business. Let's see what you're making and creating. We'd love to see that that any ideas that you're trying to come up with or percolate, please send those to us. And of course shout outs to government programs that have helped you or a loved one. And it can be any government program, local or federal, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Affordable Care act, maybe you've got some great health care in your state. I know a lot of states are have worked and are still working on getting more universal health care and public options put into place. So we'd love to hear about that Medicaid expansion in your state. Perhaps even if it's like section 8 or snap or WIC, head start, anything at all. All great care you've gotten at a VA clinic for veterans and of course student debt forgiveness. Anyway, send anything you want to us basically@dailybeanspod.com and click on Contact. All right, first up from Vicki Pronoun. She and her Hello Beans Queens. I was just in DC for a human rights conference. While I was there, I went to see a fabulous painting at an exhibit by three Japanese American women artists called Pictures of Belonging at the American Art Museum. There'll be a link in the show notes for you. While at the Smithsonian where the National Portrait Gallery is, I wanted to see the Kehinde Wiley portrait of Obama. I'm sure I'm saying that incorrectly. Please send in a correction. Kehinde maybe.
