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Rape kit resolution....or is it?
One Nasty Palin Rumor Debunked
When I'd read that Wasilla, during Sarah Palin's mayoral tenure, had a practice of charging victims for their "rape kits"?the forensic examination required to gather evidence against the perpetrator?I was as horrified as anyone else. The explanation that it was the policy of the local police chief doing the billing, and even a quote by a Democratic member of the state legislature that Palin probably knew nothing about the policy, brought little comfort. At the same time, it just didn't make any sense, so I tempered my horror with skepticism.
Fortunately, it turns out that skepticism wins the day. Thanks to very thorough debunkings by bloggers Charlie Martin of Explorations and Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee, we can put this bit of nastiness to rest.
First off, the Wasilla police chief, Charlie Fannon, is on record as having tried to bill victims' insurance companies, not the victims themselves, for the rape kits. In other towns in Alaska, hospitals were trying to bill victims, prompting an Alaska state law forbidding the practice. If this practice still seems creepy or exclusive to macho, rough-and-tumble Alaska, well, it happens to be the practice in other states, too, like North Carolina (until recently) and ... Illinois.
Some conservative bloggers are trying to play "gotcha" and point out that Barack Obama co-sponsored a bill in the Illinois state senate that provides state money to cover services provided to victims who have neither state aid or insurance, meaning that Illinois also tries to get insurance companies to pay up, just like little ol' Wasilla. Best I can tell from my rudimentary reading of the Illinois code, Obama co-sponsored an amendment to existing legislation that already had the insurance clause in there, and the amendment had nothing to do with rape kits. So, I'm not going to engage in gotcha-ism. We could play that game all day long.
What bothers me is that, while the media has been quick to investigate and shoot down every claim that Sarah Palin makes?that she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere, that she opposes earmarks?the nasty rumors are taken at face value. It takes bloggers, working on their own time and with tools no fancier than Google, to figure out that she's not personally sending bills for $1,200 to traumatized rape victims and that no, she did NOT cut funding for teen mothers, unless you define "cut" as not providing as much of a budget increase as had been had asked for (same with funding "cuts" for Catholic Charities and the Special Olympics).
(Comments Off) --> Filed under: rape kits, Sarah Palin
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This blogger argues that (a) Palin didn't charge rape victims, she only charged their insurance (but what about people w/ no insurance?)...and (b) the state of Ill does the same thing...
I don't know, her logic seems faulty to me. Charging anyone for performing a typical state prosecutorial services is wrong (esp w/ respect to the rape kit, which is not even a medial exam per se) and just b/c Ill. does it too doesn't make it right. Plus, nothing she reports is really new since we already knew Wasilia was going after the victim's insurance company.
The blogger also does not address what happens when the victim does not have insurance. Who foots the bill then?
Bottom line: this blogger seems to think she has fallen on some hard core evidence to exonerate Palin, but I just don't see it. Anyone else?
Re: Rape kit resolution....or is it?
And, I just read the comment section, everyone else is skewering this blogger's detective skills too:
http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/2175222/ShowForum.aspx
This blogger = FAIL.
Yeah, you're right LMW. She's missing a few too many pieces of the puzzle that effectively "re-bunk" her debunking.
And you're right, too, about the comments section. Definitely worth a read.
Yeah, her debunk has been debunked. Pandagon skewered this "resolution" far better than I could, so I'll just copy their post.
by Jesse Taylor
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Confederate Yankee and Jim Geraghty think they?ve got us dirty liberals on the ?Wasilla charged rape victims for rape kits? story. Never mind that it was the stated policy of the town and that a state law was passed specifically to counteract Wasilla?s ass-backwards policy. They?ve got spotty, poorly conceived research on their side!
First, our Rebel Fail:
"We also know, via contact with the Wasilla City Clerk, that there were no rape kits charged to victims or insurers in fiscal 2000 (their computerized system only goes back that far), meaning that there is only the possibility of the unknown number of rapes in the 49 (or less) sexual assaults prior to the beginning of fiscal 2000 in mid-1999.
From the beginning of 1996 until the end of 2000, there were 49 reported sexual assaults in Wasilla, which ?includes all associated sex crimes.?
Of those 49 (or less) sexual assaults, we don?t how many were rapes, or how many of those rapes required rape kits for which the city billed the victims."
Already, we?re stuck having to analyze a data set with which there are three problems. The first is that we have no idea which of these assaults are rapes and which aren?t. The second is that a policy which makes reporting rape inordinately expensive would push down the number of rapes reported. The third is that the data set is so incomplete that, according to the National Review, the number of reported rapes for which we have the information to determine how Wasilla?s policy was enacted was one.
One. As in two minus that number.
"FBI records indicate that there was one rape in Wasilla in 2000. (The FBI did not collect records for previous years.) The state?s ban on charging for rape kits was passed in 2000. (The text has no enforcement date; the state legislature?s web site list the law?s ?effective date? as August 14, 2000.)
Nonetheless, fiscal year 2000 began Oct. 1, 1999 and ended Oct. 1, 2000. Because we know one rape occurred in calendar year 2000, if it occurred before August 13, there should be at least one record of a victim being charged for the rape kit. (If the rape kit charge had occurred after Oct. 1, 2000, it would have been accounted for under fiscal 2001. But by this point, the state?s legislation would have gone into effect, and no charge would have been made.)"
All of this would make perfect sense...except that the entire point of charging for rape kits is that even when a rape is reported, it discourages the victim from pursuing it any further by putting a financial obstacle in the way. One would think that these giant conservative minds would remember the old maxim that the surest way to get less of something is to tax it. When the government puts a $1,000+ tax on reporting a rape, it?s the surest way to ensure that rapes aren?t prosecuted and evidence isn?t collected.
In other words, the exactly one case that these brave crusaders have come up with worked exactly the way it should have under the Wasilla scheme - a rape victim reports the assault, then doesn?t get the expensive kit done. You can do this with any crime, really. Charge a person $1,000 to investigate a car theft, you?ll see fewer reported thefts and far fewer investigated thefts. It?s not rocket science.
But really, guys, keep pushing this. Show us that the rape lobby is ginning up another fake controversy. The only things they have on their side are objective facts and the historical record. Other than that, you?re golden.I think this is the part that struck a chord with me:
What bothers me is that, while the media has been quick to investigate and shoot down every claim that Sarah Palin makes?that she stopped the Bridge to Nowhere, that she opposes earmarks?the nasty rumors are taken at face value.
I don't know what happens when the victim does not have insurance...but did anyone (and I don't mean us here) try to investigate that? Or are assumptions still being made about that as well?
I don't think it matters whether we investigate what happens when a person doesn't have insurance until someone tells me why it's the responsibility of the insurance company to pay for detective work.
Also, not knowing what happens is also kind of the point. If you were a victim, would you want to do lots of research to find out whether you'll be paying or not? No, you'd just not report it just in case you're on the hook for $1000 or so. So the fact that this information is not readily accessible is also a problem.
Vermont,
I have to disagree. I've researched all of her claims and all of the rumours - I didn't just "take anything at face value."
And this claim (as many others do) has merit.
I'll say it again: either Palin knew about the practice of billing women and their insurance companies (which is just as bad as billing women themselves - go read the AK congressional testimony about it and you'll see why - it talks a lot about retraumatizing the victim by having the exam showing up on their medical billing, and about what happens when the victim doesn't have insurance), and did nothing to stop it or (2) she didn't know about this practice, making her lax in her mayoral duties.
Take your pick - either way, I don't want her anywhere near the leadership of my country.
The debunking of the debunking doesn't prove anything. There is still not one iota of evidence that any victim was actually charged for their rape kit without reimbursement. One of the bloggers in the OP has quotes the Alaska Victims Compensation Board. According to them, that board would have reimbursed anyone without insurance or any victim that received a hospital bill (for medical services beyond the rape kit.)
No one can make an issue over billing a victim's insurance company and reimbursing victims without insurance when Illinois does the exact same thing and neither Obama nor anyone else ever did one thing to change or stop it.
Caden,
(a) Um, actually, there is. If you go to the AK legislature and read the bill and accompanying docs, you'll see that they had women come forward to testify who'd been charged.
(b) Even if we didn't have these women coming forward, the police chief has said that he was charging women's insurance companies "WHEN POSSIBLE." If you look at his budget expenses during these years, money was not coming out to cover the cost of ANY rape kits. That begs the question about the cases where charging insurance companies was NOT possible. Obviously the town wasn't paying for it, because it wasn't coming out of the budget.
(c) Even if it was just being billed to the insurance company, I think we've covered ad nauseum why this would be bad (retraumitizing the victim and all).
(d) Finally, your last statement is comparing apples to oranges. States aren't responsible for crime local crime investigations (like rape), localities are. Palin was in charge of one of these localities, and didn't do anything to make sure that victims weren't charged (or that their insurance companies weren't charged). And when the state tried to step in a make a law applicable to localities, Palin's appointee fought it tooth and nail. It's not as if the state of IL was charging victims for him to take a stance against the practice. Unless someone came to Obama while he was working in the IL Congress with evidence that women or their insurance companies were being charged, I'm not really sure what he would have done.
(a) Link please.
(b) You just completely ignored the reference to the Alasks Victim Compensation Board.
(c) I didnt' say it was a great idea, I'm just saying billing an insurance company (i) is done in many places and (ii) doesn't require any hardship on the part of the victim.
(d) I'm sorry, is this not state law?
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1531&ChapAct=410%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B70%2F&ChapterID=35&ChapterName=PUBLIC+HEALTH&ActName=Sexual+Assault+Survivors+Emergency+Treatment+Act.
I just got out of bed and don't have the energy to process all this information right now, so without reading through all the links and whatnot, I wanted to throw in my two cents anyway.
I don't think there's a meaningful difference between charging victims and charging insurance companies. EIther way, the state is saying it's not their responsibility to pay for evidence collection of a violent crime, and either way the victim is penalized in terms of out of pocket costs, deductibles, higher premiums, and an invasion of privacy.
I haven't read through the Illinois stuff yet, but I thought I had read somewhere that Obama proposed a law as a state legislator to change this practice? Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe there was some nuance there that the article (or I) missed. In any event, if he let it happen on his watch, that's pretty disgusting and he should be required to answer for that. But, there are differences between legislators and executives. The executive has the ultimate authority to implement and carry out these decisions, and it's pretty clear that when Palin was an executive, she had discretion in whether to charge victims or not.
We blame governors for death row executions gone wrong, not the legislators who enacted the death penalty to begin with. The legislators gave them the decision making tools, and the governors behaved irresponsibly. I see this as a comparable situation.
That all said, I don't know enough about the Illinois situation so perhaps I am missing something specific to Obama or the law there, so I'm withholding judgment on him specifically. I'll look into it later though because I am very interested.
(a) Here ya go. I'm not going through all of it again, but if you read the minutes, you should be able to find references to victims.
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill.asp?session=21&bill=HB99
Further, the bill's sponsor has publicly stated that he had been made aware of this occuring in Wasilla - statements that were made both now AND contemporaenously with the legislation. I doubt that he was on a "witch hunt" against Palin back when he was writing the legislation, so I tend to trust his contemporaneous statements.
(b) Didn't ignore it at all. This is what AK 18.67.039 actually says:
Can you please show me where in there it says that the state picks up the tab (instead of reimbursing someone) for the cost of rape kits?
My point is that reimbursing a victim is better than not reimbursing them, but a victim should never be charged in the first place! And charging the victim and/or her insurance company WAS THE PRACTICE IN WASILLA per the town's police chief. In other parts of the country, charging the victim or their insurance company happens, but it is not standard operating procedure.
(c) I really can't believe your still arguing this point. I thought we put this fallacy to bed a long time ago. Billing the insurance company DOES place a hardship on the victim. I don't know about your insurance, but my insurance requires a deductible. In fact, I believe the latest statistics show that more than 50% of insurance plans require a deductible. Meaning that women would be charged at least part of the cost of their rape kits. And even if they don't have a deductible, their insurance they just receive a statement saying that their insurance company has paid for everything (I receive lots of these), I don't think any rape victim should receive such a horrible reminder of her trauma. Just what every rape victim needs, a bill reminding them of their rape, because, after all, it's so easy to forget.
(d) Ummm... not sure where you're going with this. The law sets out minimum guidelines. Unless someone came forward to the state legislature (as they did in AK) claiming that they had been charged for their rape kit, or that their town's police force had a policy of charging either them or their insurance companies, I'm not exactly sure what you think Obama should have done. I'll reiterate, the information I've seen says that this (meaning charging victims or insurance companies) was an isolated occurence in IL.
(a) That must be the wrong bill b/c there's not a single reference to victims and rape kits.
(b-c) If you're going to fall on your sword over the difference between a reimbursement and the state paying a hospital directly then this debate is pointless. The Victim Compensation Board would compensate the victim for out of pocket expenses. So don't bother wringing your hands over a deductible. My insurance company doesn't send me any statements at all unless it refuses to pay for the entire treatment. So having to "relive the trauma" by reading a billing statement may or may not happen and you can't prove that it did. Most people who go to the hospital give them an insurance card, sign some papers and that's the end of it. Like I said we can both agree this is not the best way to do it, but it's not the evil, horrible, disgusting practice you're making it out to be. And it really doesn't reflect negatively on Palin, like you're hoping it does.
(d) I just gave you the law that says Illinois charges a victim's insurance company. Guess they haven't gotten the memo about how horrible that is for the victims.
Caden,
(a)Here's the right one. Though it should have been pretty easy to tell I'd accidentally C&Ped the wrong bill and to have found the correct bill yourself.
http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill.asp?session=21&bill=HB270
(b)(c) I wouldn't exactly call it falling on my sword. I can say that as a survivor and as an advocate, being asked to pay for or receiving info from my insurance company about paying for an exam would be a terrible reminder to victims - and an unnecessary one. I'm sorry that you can't see that.
(d) AGAIN, the law you gave sets MINIMUM standards. It doesn't say that places HAVE to charge victims or their insurance companies, or even that they routinely do. It says that IF places charge victims' insurance companies, that they have to reimburse them, and IF the victim doesn't have private insurance and doesn't qualify for state health care that the state will pick up the tab. We do NOT have any evidence that charging rape victims for their forensic medical exam kits was routine practice in IL; we DO, however have evidence that it was routine practice in Wasilla.
(a) I'm eternally grateful for you doing the gruntwork on getting the bill. Really I am.
Ta da! The only reason any victim got any bill - per those minutes - was if the HOSPITAL forwarded the victim a bill. (Incidentally the minutes do not name Wasilla as the place where this happened.) Again from the minutes, this was b/c hospitals were not properly set up to administer 3rd-party billing to the Victim Compensation Board/insurance co. It was a loophole created by bad hospital accounting, not the gov't. It therefore has nothing to do with Palin. Her local government did NOT bill any victims.
(b-c) I'm sorry you can't tell the difference between a fake controversy and a real one.
(d) actually you still have no evidence any rape victim was charged in Wasilla. The point of referring to the IL was that their law allows for a victim's insurance company to be charged. If that's such a terrible, horrible thing then it shouldn't be allowed by law, don't you think? If it is allowable then the chances are that it has happened, and considering the number of assaults in Wasilia compared to IL, I will guarantee you it's happened more times in IL.