How does a Democrat lawmaker appeal to conservatives over an ideologically divisive topic? Make it about government spending. State Rep. Donna Howard's February 23rd editorial for The Austin American-Statesman, "Inconvenient truths in Texas women’s health care", employs just such a strategy: arguing that the latest round of anti-Medicaid and Planned Parenthood hysteria has only further modulated Texas's women's health programs for the worse, with a negative return on investment for taxpayers. It's easy to see why Howard is the one going to bat with this argument: she has been involved in nursing and healthcare her entire career, and is currently a member the House Appropriations Committee. Simply put, Howard has enough experience with healthcare and budgets to present a solid, bare-bones summary of the current fiasco. Contrasting the benefits of the pre-2011 system with its replacement, the over-sized but under-serving Texas Women's Health Program, she presses the point that all Texas has gained from the change is an increase in unintended pregnancies. Howard also highlights the current Healthy Texas Women Program: a Frankenstein mixture of it's DOA predecessors, and puts forth the hope that better family planning programs might end up in the new plan. Although she will probably get no sympathy from stringent pro-life social conservatives, her editorial does deserve some merit for its attempt at wooing more moderate conservatives to her side of the healthcare debate. Still, considering the back and forth ferocity over women's healthcare in Texas, she might as well be going over the top at the Somme with a cap-gun.
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