Commentary

The National Review has posted an interview on its website with Karen Handel, author of Planned Bullyhood and the woman at the center of the Komen-Planned Parenthood fracas of just a year ago.

She recounts in the interview some of the key material from her expose, as well as a powerful rebuttal of the simplistic definition of “women’s health” used by Planned Parenthood to extort millions from the government treasury.

She identifies the close partnership between government, media and the nation’s leading abortion provider – a partnership which has resulted in the death of millions of American babies. (As we run up to the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it is important to understand how this abortion culture sustains itself through our tax dollars).

Here is a link to the interview:

An Ada County woman has filed a federal lawsuit against Blue Cross of Idaho for engaging in practices which unfairly limit competition. Melissa Allen wants to get her case treated as a “class action” lawsuit so that all Idaho premium holders could benefit if she wins.

Allen notes in her lawsuit that Blue Cross commands 52% of the entire Idaho market. The next-largest competitor is Regence Blue Shield, which serves 22% of Idahoans with private health insurance.

Ms. Allen charges in her suit that Blue Cross’ dominance is the result of an illegal conspiracy between various subdivisions of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, in which participant organizations have divided up the nation into exclusive territories free of competition.

It is through such a monopolistic arrangement that Blue Cross has amassed some $400 million in assets and profits, according to Ms. Allen.

Blue Cross officials told the media that they would vigorously fight the lawsuit.

The lawsuit has been consolidated with other, similar lawsuits in an Alabama courtroom.

Questions have been asked around the Idaho Statehouse about the lack of competition in Idaho’s health insurance market for years. Those questions have become intense as Blue Cross has pushed legislators hard to create a state “insurance exchange”. Regulators in other states have opposed such a move largely because they believe that Blue Cross’ control of state insurance markets will only expand under governmental sponsorship of their product.

In the rearview mirror, the Komen saga of late 2011 and early 2012 set the stage for Obama’s re-election effort. It was through their coordinated attack on Komen that the Abortion Industry and its purchased political stable launched the “War on Women” charade upon the American people.

Karen Handel, in her new book, “Planned Bullyhood”, details the strange naïveté which drove Komen executives to hire Hillary Rosen as their key media advisor after the decision was made to sever its ties with Planned Parenthood. One of Rosen’s clients was (and is) Planned Parenthood. It is painfully obvious that this operative most likely provided Planned Parenthood with advance notice of Komen’s decision.

It is also quite likely that Rosen was intimately involved in helping Planned Parenthood develop its nasty campaign against Komen which resulted in the charity’s complete capitulation after just 3 days of the Planned Parenthood offensive. (Our readers might best remember Hillary Rosen as the Democrat activist who attacked Ann Romney as “never having worked a day in her life”. She also served as Sandra Fluke’s press agent.)

We may never know for certain how many consultants and “friends” willingly betrayed Komen to serve their masters at Planned Parenthood.

What we can say for certain is that Planned Parenthood demonstrated for all to see its ruthlessness and sinister character by the way it savaged an organization that had provided financial support to Planned Parenthood for decades:

“I did not anticipate that the passion and support for Planned Parenthood would make Komen expendable; that Komen would be seen as necessary collateral damage,” Handel writes.

What should alarm everyone reading Handel’s book is the demonstrable fact that Planned Parenthood engaged in a vicious campaign to destroy Komen in lieu of a surrender. (How dare Komen stop paying protection monies to Planned Parenthood?!) Cecil Richards & Co were perfectly happy to see either outcome. And they were more than willing to sacrifice the health of women suffering from breast cancer – the very people they claim to “serve” – in order to achieve their political goals. Even ardent liberals should shudder at the duplicity and cynicism of this nefarious organization.

What did Handel learn from the sorry experience – which included death threats and libelous accusation?

“Unless Planned Parenthood and its elite liberal forces are stopped, what they did to Komen is just the beginning….Planned Parenthood has honed its political combat tactics and is poised to shape elections today and well into the future. With Komen, they achieved something they never had before: the public (near) destruction of a widely trusted and passionately supported organization dedicated to nonpolitical goals. This has broad ramifications. Planned Parenthood has opened the door to a shakedown of American politics by liberal interest groups, employing mafia-style tactics to hold hostage sponsors and advertisers and even other nonprofits that dare to defy their agenda or support those who do.”

Many of us in the pro-Life movement followed the Komen controversy closely. Yet few of us appreciated the huge significance of the quick surrender and what it tells us of the American social/political scene.

Not only is Handel’s book a moral tale – it should be required reading for conservative activists and politicians. Too long have we underestimated the evil and power of Planned Parenthood, Inc.