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HHS Awards $556K to Train Med School Students on LGBT Mental Health Care

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $556,000 to Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine for an LGBT mental health internship program.

“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals experience unique health disparities. As a group, LGBT adults experience more mood and anxiety disorders, an elevated risk for suicide, and substance use as compared with heterosexual adults. LGBT people are more frequently the targets of stigma, discrimination, and violence because of their sexual- and gender-minority status,” the grant abstract said.

“LGBT adults have higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, and substance use than heterosexual adults, which leads to long-lasting effects on both the individual and the community. Health professionals with greater exposure to LGBT patients and formal education in LGBT Psychology are better able to provide competent care,” it said.

The program is considered to be the first of its kind to focus on pre-doctoral LGBT psychology training, according to the grant abstract.

“Health professionals with greater exposure to LGBT patients and formal education in LGBT Psychology are better able to provide competent care that improves long-term mental health outcomes, reducing the risk of suicide and substance abuse,” HHS spokesperson Martin Kramer told CNSNews.com.

Read more from this story HERE.

Health and Human Services Department Sought to Spend an Estimated $159 MILLION Per Year on New Employees to Help Run Obamacare

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Photo Credit: Reuters Documents obtained from the Health and Human Services Department through a Freedom of Information Act request show that on the day the Affordable Care Act became law, the agency received fast-track authority to hire 1,814 new high-level employees to put Obamacare into practice, at a likely cost of more than $159 million per year.

It’s unclear whether those employees were ever hired. HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

But the hiring request was approved by the Obama administration’s Office of Personnel Management despite a government-wide hiring freeze.

Judicial Watch, a nonprofit that has told MailOnline it files ‘hundreds’ of such FOIA requests, showed MailOnline the documents on Thursday. They show that HHS designated the hiring as a project worthy of ‘direct-hire appointing authority,’ a mechanism designed to sidestep normal restrictions on how much federal agencies can spend on personnel.

An analysis by MailOnline indicates that the annual base pay for those 1,814 employees, many of them slated for hiring at the highest salary levels available, would exceed $127.7 million.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Admin. Website Refers Pregnant Women to Planned Parenthood

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Yep, you read that headline correctly. WomensHealth.gov is a “Project of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health.” This federal site has a page with a pretty long title: “Pregnancy > Before you get pregnant: Information for all women > If you are sexually active.”

And, near the bottom of the page, there’s a section called “Connect with other organizations.” Most of the organizations are generally well-recognized medical groups – like the American Academy of Family Physicians. But two non-profits make the list as well: March of Dimes and Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood is also listed as an organization to “connect with” on the “Knowing if you are pregnant” and “Unplanned pregnancy” pages. Of course, this should come as no surprise, since Kathleen Sebelius, Planned Parenthood supporter extreme, is the secretary of Health and Human Services.

Lest anyone question why I state that the federal government “refers” women to Planned Parenthood, let’s cover the definition of “refer.” Refer is defined as “to direct to a source for help or information.” By telling women that Planned Parenthood is an organization to connect with, the federal government is clearly directing women to the abortion giant for help.

Interestingly, on the “Unplanned pregnancy” page, women are referred to a fact sheet on the “consequences” of unplanned pregnancy. The fact sheet does not give women the whole range of facts they need. But it begins by mentioning abortion…

Read more from this story HERE.

House Investigating Obama’s $8.3 Billion Slush Fund Created to Hide Impacts of Obamacare on Medicare Prior to Election

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President Obama had a big political problem: Obamacare destroys the popular Medicare Advantage program, which offers private insurance plans to supplement Medicare. Something like a quarter of Medicare beneficiaries use this program. (It’s funny how free-market competition is both popular and effective when it’s actually tried, isn’t it?)

Obamacare sucks over $200 billion out of Medicare Advantage, something that would have been very noticeable through price increases and benefit reductions during open enrollment… which began in October, right before the election.

If you’re Barack Obama, you solve a problem like that by throwing huge amounts of other peoples’ money at it. So it was that a little “demonstration project” to reward the most effective Medicare Advantage plans was suddenly inflated into a titanic $8.3 billion slush fund – bigger than the 85 previous demonstration projects combined – in order to delay the pain of Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election. The standards for receiving payouts from this “incentive” program were lowered so much that even mediocre plans could receive a “reward.” It wouldn’t do to have seniors opening envelopes that say their premiums have skyrocketed or some of their favorite benefits have been dropped, right before the election!

The House Oversight Committee began investigating this jumbo Slurpee of slush in May, and ran into a Health and Human Services stonewall so obvious that it’s comical. A request for documents on May 23 was ignored by HHS. It was repeated on August 1, and ignored again. House Oversight fired off emails to a couple of HHS staffers, and didn’t get a response for weeks… at which point the HHS Deputy Director for Oversight and Investigation said, “I’m checking on the status and will get back to you,” but never got back to anybody.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama circumvents yet another state ban on Planned Parenthood funding

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After reaching an agreement to send more than $1 million over three years to a Planned Parenthood in Tennessee, the Obama administration has awarded $3.1 million in federal funds to Planned Parenthood affiliates in New Jersey.

The grant announcement was made Tuesday by Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Robert Menendez, (D-NJ), two pro-abortion Democrats in the U.S. Senate who are longtime allies of Planned Parenthood. The funding comes through the Department of Health and Human Services to Planned Parenthood and other agencies.

The Obama administration grant to the abortion company also comes after Governor Chris Christie again vetoed state taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

The New Jersey Senate passed a measure to restore the $7.5 million in funding 26-13 with all of the Senate Democrats voting to restore the Planned Parenthood funds along with Republicans Diane Allen and Jennifer Beck. Pro-life advocates called on him to rescind the funding again, after two of the abortion business’ centers closed last year following the first veto of the funding.

The new funding brings the New Jersey Family Planning League’s total federal funding this year to nearly $6.3 million. The NJFPL works with Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey, Planned Parenthood of Central and Greater Northern New Jersey, Hoboken Family Planning, and Women’s Health and Counseling Center in Somerville to fund 25 locations.

Read more from this story HERE.