Per Women Raising Voices...
http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/
The long-awaited Senate Finance Committee health reform bill has finally emerged from the anti-democratic and painfully extended negotiation process created by Committee Chair Max Baucus of Montana. The Baucus bill is bad for women and bad for our families in many ways. We urge women's health advocates to contact your Senators, especially if they are members of the Senate Finance Committee, and demand that the Baucus bill be amended in the Senate Finance Committee mark-up meetings next week and on the floor of the Senate. Deadline for submitting amendments is tomorrow, Friday September 18, so we must act quickly! If your Senator is not a member of the Senate Finance Committee, ask him or her to contact Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus to oppose this bill in its current form.
What is wrong with the Baucus bill? The Baucus bill fails to make health insurance affordable for women and our families. It sacrifices important features of the other proposals, such as the public plan option, in what appears to have been an unsuccessful attempt to woo Republicans. Not a single Republican has agreed to support it yet.Raising Women's Voices strongly opposes the bill as it stands today and is calling on Senators to amend and improve it in the Finance Committee mark-up next week and on the floor of the Senate. KEY PROBLEMS THAT NEED
TO BE ADDRESSED:
The bill imposes politics and ideology on what should be a purely medical decision - the question about what services an insurance plan will cover. It singles out abortion for special exclusions, rather than treating it like other medical care, by adopting language that was developed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee as a compromise to prevent anti-choice legislators from using the health reform bill as a vehicle to impose sweeping new restrictions on abortion. Reproductive health services are basic health care for women, and we urge the Finance Committee members to follow the lead of their colleagues on the Senate HELP Committee by passing legislation that puts the decisions about which services will be covered by insurance in the hands of medical experts and consumers who will make their decisions based on medical standards of care and scientific/medical evidence, not politics or ideology.
The bill fails to make health insurance affordable for low- and moderate-income people. It would mandate that everybody buy health insurance, and impose sizeable penalties on those who don't, but it doesn't make it possible for people to actually afford the insurance. One analysis found that a family of three earning $55,000 a year would be expected to pay $7,100 a year for insurance premiums, more than either the House bill or the Senate HELP committee bill would require. That's far too much to be affordable, and it doesn't even count out-of-pocket costs for co-pays and deductibles that will be charged on top of premiums!
The bill allows and even encourages insurance companies and employers to continue practices that are particularly damaging to women. It allows insurance companies to charge older people up to five times as much as younger people. The House bill allowed only a 2 to 1 ratio. Women, who live longer on average than men, are more likely to bear the costs of this age rating.
Moreover, the bill creates a disincentive for employers to hire low-income workers and especially low-income, single parents - the vast majority of whom are women.
The bill fails to ensure that all residents receive equal access to health coverage. We believe that health reform should give legal immigrants access to affordable coverage in the same way that it does for American citizens. Legal immigrants should have access to tax credits through the exchange, should be eligible for Medicaid without a waiting period and should not be subject to excessive verification requirements. In addition, we oppose efforts to bar people, regardless of immigration status, from using their own funds to buy health insurance through the exchange.
The bill does not establish an health insurance system that will provide a full range of choices to consumers, lower costs and make insurance companies accountable. The Baucus bill does not include a public insurance option, but instead provides a government-subsidized monopoly for private insurers. A robust public health insurance option would effectively compete with private insurers, giving people meaningful choice in their insurance purchasing decisions, helping to control costs and bringing greater accountability to the insurance industry. The co-op proposal included in the Baucus bill will not meet these objectives.
TAKE ACTION Please urge the members of the Senate Finance Committee to amend this bill so that it will represent a meaningful opportunity to make quality, affordable health care available to all women. Contact them TODAY, so your thoughts may be considered during the mark-up process.
Email your comments to your own Senators. In addition, please copy us at info@raisingwomensvoices.net so we know how many of you have raised your voices for quality, affordable health care that meets women's needs!
Let them know that you want their leadership in establishing quality, affordable health care for all women.
Remember to act quickly - now is the time to raise our voices and let the Senators know what we need.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Domestic Violence...a pre-existing condition...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/when-getting-beaten-by-yo_n_286029.html
With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.
It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.
Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.
In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.
In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.
All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for
Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.
At the time, Enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "If you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state," he said, according to a CQ Today item from March 15th, 2006.
Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for an insurance industry trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has proposed ending the discrimination. "The NAIC has a model on this that we strongly supported. That model bans the use of a person's status as a victim of domestic violence in making a decision on coverage," he said.
During the last health care reform push, in 1993 and 1994, the industry similarly promised to end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Murray pushed to include the domestic violence concern in this year's comprehensive health care bill. "Senator Murray continues to believe that victims of domestic violence should not be punished for the crimes of their abusers. That is why she worked to include language in the Senate HELP Committee's health insurance reform bill that would ban this discriminatory and harmful insurance company practice," said spokesman Eli Zupnick.
In 1994, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), now a member of Senate leadership, had his staff survey 16 insurance companies. He found that eight would not write health, life or disability policies for women who have been abused. In 1995, the Boston Globe found that Nationwide, Allstate, State Farm, Aetna, Metropolitan Life, The Equitable Companies, First Colony Life, The Prudential and the Principal Financial Group had all either canceled or denied coverage to women who'd been beaten.
The Service Employees International Union asked members to write letters to Congress regarding the exclusion and have quickly generated hundreds, says an SEIU spokeswoman.
The relevant provision:
SEC. 2706. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANTS AND BENEFICIARIES BASED ON HEALTH STATUS.
'(a) IN GENERAL.--A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish rules for eligibility (including continued eligibility) of any individual to enroll under the terms of the plan or coverage based on any of the following health status-related factors in relation to the individual or a dependent of the individual:
(1) Health status.
(2) Medical condition (including both physical and mental illnesses).
(3) Claims experience.
(4) Receipt of health care.
(5) Medical history.
(6) Genetic information.
(7) Evidence of insurability (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence).
(8) Disability.
(9) Any other health status-related factor determined appropriate by the Secretary.
UPDATE: The eight states that still allow it are Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to a report by the National Women's Law Center.
UPDATE II: Scratch the Tar Heal state from that list. North Carolina insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin had his staff research the state's law and his attorneys concluded that insurers in that state would not be allowed to use domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Group plans were specifically forbidden from using it thanks to a 1997 law, he said. For individuals and non-group plans, it's more complicated.
"Though there is not a specific statute for individual plans or non-group plans, there is another statute that our attorneys here tell us addresses this issue. For example, North Carolina law defines what a preexisting condition is. Now, here in North Carolina, it says a preexisting condition means - quote - those conditions for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was received or recommended within a one year period immediately preceding the effective date of the person's coverage." Domestic violence, he said, doesn't met the state's definition of a medical condition and so can't be used as a pre-existing condition.
Wyoming Department of Insurance staff attorney James Mitchell said the state's insurance laws do not ban insurers from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but his staffers were unable to find cases of insurers having done so and he said they had not received any complaints. "We are not aware of any policies that have been submitted to us that addressed domestic violence as a pre-existing condition," he said. The remaining six states have yet to respond.
UPDATE TO UPDATE II: A few readers have noted that the ambiguity of North Carolina's law regarding individual and non-group plans could still leave domestic violence victims vulnerable to discrimination. And Commissioner Goodwin himself, in a Facebook note summarizing my conversation with him, does say "that North Carolina's law on this subject vis-a-vis individual/non-group plans could be clarified and made more direct, and that we should also consider the NAIC national model law on the subject, too. The legislature doesn't return until
May 2010, so there is time to work on the best way to clarify this issue for folks while educating them in the meanwhile."
He posted his response on the FB page of journalist Christine Tatum, who had posted a link to this story and asked her friends to contact him. Goodwin noted on her wall that allowing insurance companies to discriminate against domestic violence victims is a tragedy and something he wouldn't allow in his state.
North Carolina, however, given the fuzziness of the law, still belongs on a list of states whose laws could be clarified to assure that domestic violence victims aren't denied coverage or charged higher premiums. Forty-two states have made that specific clarification and the Senate health committee bill would do so nationally.
If you're an attorney with experience in this field and want to weigh in, write me at ryan@huffingtonpost.com.
UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney provided the following statement through a spokeswoman:
Mississippi does not at this time have a law which bans insurance companies from considering domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. However, the reason there is not such a law is that there has not been a problem with insurance companies denying coverage or refusing to pay the claims of domestic violence victims in this state. If it were an issue, the Legislature and the Department would have addressed it by now.The Mississippi Department of Insurance is unaware of any insurance company operating in this state that would deny coverage if the applicant had been a victim of domestic violence. Nor have we received any complaint from a consumer stating their insurance company refused to pay their medical bills incurred from domestic violence. Such action by an insurance company would not be tolerated by the Department.It is the position of the Department that if an insurance company denied payment of a claim incurred in an act of domestic violence, such action would be a violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act, as promulgated in Miss. Code Ann. §§ 83-5-29 through 83-5-51, and the Department would take the appropriate action.Should the Mississippi Legislature choose to
enact legislation addressing this issue, the Mississippi Insurance Department would be very supportive of the passage of such legislation.
UPDATE TO UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney was much blunter in an interview with the Jackson Free Press:
"The truth is we've got eight states in the union that count domestic abuse as a pre-existing condition, and Mississippi is one of them," Chaney told the Jackson Free Press. "I've got to get some of my lawyers to do some research on this, but we have only six mandated (conditions that must be covered) in our state statues, and we have 25 or more optional coverages, but domestic abuse doesn't seem to be one of them."
Chaney said all insurance companies in the state can take advantage of the state's limited coverage mandate, and that he would prefer the state to change its law to force insurance companies to cover victims of domestic abuse.
"Would I do something about it? Hell, yeah, I'd do something about it, but I'm a regulator, not a legislator. I have to come to terms with that every week," Chaney said. "The whole situation is bad. Let's say a woman works with a company that had Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and she gets beat up in her house and Blue Cross says 'we're not covering you because getting beat up is your pre-existing condition.' That's terrible."
Read the whole story here.
With the White House zeroing in on the insurance-industry practice of discriminating against clients based on pre-existing conditions, administration allies are calling attention to how broadly insurers interpret the term to maximize profits.
It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.
Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.
In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.
In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.
All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for
Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.
At the time, Enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "If you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state," he said, according to a CQ Today item from March 15th, 2006.
Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for an insurance industry trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), said that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has proposed ending the discrimination. "The NAIC has a model on this that we strongly supported. That model bans the use of a person's status as a victim of domestic violence in making a decision on coverage," he said.
During the last health care reform push, in 1993 and 1994, the industry similarly promised to end discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Murray pushed to include the domestic violence concern in this year's comprehensive health care bill. "Senator Murray continues to believe that victims of domestic violence should not be punished for the crimes of their abusers. That is why she worked to include language in the Senate HELP Committee's health insurance reform bill that would ban this discriminatory and harmful insurance company practice," said spokesman Eli Zupnick.
In 1994, then-Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), now a member of Senate leadership, had his staff survey 16 insurance companies. He found that eight would not write health, life or disability policies for women who have been abused. In 1995, the Boston Globe found that Nationwide, Allstate, State Farm, Aetna, Metropolitan Life, The Equitable Companies, First Colony Life, The Prudential and the Principal Financial Group had all either canceled or denied coverage to women who'd been beaten.
The Service Employees International Union asked members to write letters to Congress regarding the exclusion and have quickly generated hundreds, says an SEIU spokeswoman.
The relevant provision:
SEC. 2706. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST INDIVIDUAL PARTICIPANTS AND BENEFICIARIES BASED ON HEALTH STATUS.
'(a) IN GENERAL.--A group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish rules for eligibility (including continued eligibility) of any individual to enroll under the terms of the plan or coverage based on any of the following health status-related factors in relation to the individual or a dependent of the individual:
(1) Health status.
(2) Medical condition (including both physical and mental illnesses).
(3) Claims experience.
(4) Receipt of health care.
(5) Medical history.
(6) Genetic information.
(7) Evidence of insurability (including conditions arising out of acts of domestic violence).
(8) Disability.
(9) Any other health status-related factor determined appropriate by the Secretary.
UPDATE: The eight states that still allow it are Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to a report by the National Women's Law Center.
UPDATE II: Scratch the Tar Heal state from that list. North Carolina insurance commissioner Wayne Goodwin had his staff research the state's law and his attorneys concluded that insurers in that state would not be allowed to use domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Group plans were specifically forbidden from using it thanks to a 1997 law, he said. For individuals and non-group plans, it's more complicated.
"Though there is not a specific statute for individual plans or non-group plans, there is another statute that our attorneys here tell us addresses this issue. For example, North Carolina law defines what a preexisting condition is. Now, here in North Carolina, it says a preexisting condition means - quote - those conditions for which medical advice, diagnosis, care or treatment was received or recommended within a one year period immediately preceding the effective date of the person's coverage." Domestic violence, he said, doesn't met the state's definition of a medical condition and so can't be used as a pre-existing condition.
Wyoming Department of Insurance staff attorney James Mitchell said the state's insurance laws do not ban insurers from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition, but his staffers were unable to find cases of insurers having done so and he said they had not received any complaints. "We are not aware of any policies that have been submitted to us that addressed domestic violence as a pre-existing condition," he said. The remaining six states have yet to respond.
UPDATE TO UPDATE II: A few readers have noted that the ambiguity of North Carolina's law regarding individual and non-group plans could still leave domestic violence victims vulnerable to discrimination. And Commissioner Goodwin himself, in a Facebook note summarizing my conversation with him, does say "that North Carolina's law on this subject vis-a-vis individual/non-group plans could be clarified and made more direct, and that we should also consider the NAIC national model law on the subject, too. The legislature doesn't return until
May 2010, so there is time to work on the best way to clarify this issue for folks while educating them in the meanwhile."
He posted his response on the FB page of journalist Christine Tatum, who had posted a link to this story and asked her friends to contact him. Goodwin noted on her wall that allowing insurance companies to discriminate against domestic violence victims is a tragedy and something he wouldn't allow in his state.
North Carolina, however, given the fuzziness of the law, still belongs on a list of states whose laws could be clarified to assure that domestic violence victims aren't denied coverage or charged higher premiums. Forty-two states have made that specific clarification and the Senate health committee bill would do so nationally.
If you're an attorney with experience in this field and want to weigh in, write me at ryan@huffingtonpost.com.
UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney provided the following statement through a spokeswoman:
Mississippi does not at this time have a law which bans insurance companies from considering domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. However, the reason there is not such a law is that there has not been a problem with insurance companies denying coverage or refusing to pay the claims of domestic violence victims in this state. If it were an issue, the Legislature and the Department would have addressed it by now.The Mississippi Department of Insurance is unaware of any insurance company operating in this state that would deny coverage if the applicant had been a victim of domestic violence. Nor have we received any complaint from a consumer stating their insurance company refused to pay their medical bills incurred from domestic violence. Such action by an insurance company would not be tolerated by the Department.It is the position of the Department that if an insurance company denied payment of a claim incurred in an act of domestic violence, such action would be a violation of the Unfair Trade Practices Act, as promulgated in Miss. Code Ann. §§ 83-5-29 through 83-5-51, and the Department would take the appropriate action.Should the Mississippi Legislature choose to
enact legislation addressing this issue, the Mississippi Insurance Department would be very supportive of the passage of such legislation.
UPDATE TO UPDATE III: Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney was much blunter in an interview with the Jackson Free Press:
"The truth is we've got eight states in the union that count domestic abuse as a pre-existing condition, and Mississippi is one of them," Chaney told the Jackson Free Press. "I've got to get some of my lawyers to do some research on this, but we have only six mandated (conditions that must be covered) in our state statues, and we have 25 or more optional coverages, but domestic abuse doesn't seem to be one of them."
Chaney said all insurance companies in the state can take advantage of the state's limited coverage mandate, and that he would prefer the state to change its law to force insurance companies to cover victims of domestic abuse.
"Would I do something about it? Hell, yeah, I'd do something about it, but I'm a regulator, not a legislator. I have to come to terms with that every week," Chaney said. "The whole situation is bad. Let's say a woman works with a company that had Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and she gets beat up in her house and Blue Cross says 'we're not covering you because getting beat up is your pre-existing condition.' That's terrible."
Read the whole story here.
Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'
chicagotribune.com
Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'
Carolyn Mahoney uses the story of her near-fatal beating at the hands of her ex-husband to show that domestic violence can affect anyone
By Amanda Marrazzo
Special to the Tribune
September 4, 2009
On a bright, crisp morning nearly five years ago, Carolyn Cox should have been merrily preparing for her first trip to Europe, but instead she was fighting for her life after being brutally beaten and locked inside a carbon monoxide-filled garage in her Bull Valley mansion.The attacker was her husband of more than 40 years, millionaire businessman Billy J. Cox, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the Dixon Correctional Center for attempted
murder.Meanwhile, the now remarried Carolyn Mahoney shares her story with audiences across the country about living decades in silence as an abused wife. "Sometimes I just want to put it in a box and I don't want to get it out," said Mahoney, sitting in the airy sunroom at the 15,000-square-foot, $2 million home she and Cox built on an 11-acre wooded lot in 2001.Since Cox's conviction in April 2007, Mahoney has told her story about 30 times to college sororities and family and women's groups around the country. In October, she will speak at Purdue University in Indiana and Auburn University in Alabama.Mahoney, 67, prepares mentally and emotionally for each speech and is exhausted after each one, she said. She details the morning of Sept. 13, 2004, and how Cox bludgeoned her with a blunt object -- which has never been found or identified -- in the head and face while she slept, then dragged her bloodied body down a hallway and locked her in the garage where two cars were idling.Recounting her story is painful, but "I was told once by a young girl, 'I am living your story,' " Mahoney said. That chance to help women in similar circumstances is what keeps her talking, she said.Mahoney tells of frightening moments throughout her marriage and how her husband's aggression increased over the years. It began early in their years together with insults, belittling and oppressive control such as not allowing her to attend her family's church, she said. The abuse increased to shoving, slapping, then punching and kicking, and she would respond by making excuses for him, she said."I had this illusion we were doing all the right things," she said. "There were no domestic shelters 40 years ago. It was a secret. You do not tell neighbors, family. You make things work."But Mahoney said she learned firsthand that "silence only empowers the abuser."No one suspected what was going on behind closed doors, Mahoney said. She has a master's degree, and Cox has a doctorate. Cox invented the agricultural chemical that helped to build his successful company, Exacto Inc. in Richmond. They were worth millions of dollars. They were country club members who supported local theater and arts. Mahoney emphasizes during her speaking engagements that domestic abuse knows no prejudice and involves people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."I am the face of domestic abuse," she said to an audience in a half-hour documentary about her. DVDs of the show sold for $20, with proceeds benefiting Turning Point, a McHenry County domestic violence agency and shelter."She has been instrumental in moving the issue of domestic violence out of the shadows and into the light because she is willing to be public about her story," said Jane Farmer, the agency's executive director. "It tells people it truly can happen to anyone."During his trial, Cox's attorneys insisted that he had no idea what happened to his wife that morning. Cox testified that he had been on the back end of their property for about six hours clearing brush and bird-watching. He claimed that the first time he saw his wife was when he opened the garage door to see the police officer outside the garage and his wife limp and bloody on the ground between two vehicles. Defense attorney Mark Gummerson argued that she had hurt herself when she fell off a ladder in the garage.The Coxes were scheduled to travel with friends to Europe that day. Police were called to the property for a well-being check after family and friends had been unable to reach the couple that morning.Jurors found Cox guilty of attempted murder and because he was considered a flight risk, he was immediately handcuffed and taken to jail. Officers who searched him in the jail found he had $10,000 in cash. Cox has appealed his conviction.Mahoney still bears faint scars of the near-fatal beating. She has had three major surgeries and has a metal plate in the left side of her face to help rebuild her cheekbone and eye socket. She lives with double-vision, some hearing loss, dental problems and balance issues."It is a miracle that she survived her brutal attack that day," said Nichole Owens, chief of criminal prosecutions for the McHenry County state's attorney's office. "Carolyn triumphantly overcame her tremendous physical and emotional obstacles and has become a passionate advocate for domestic violence victims."She tried to divorce Cox, but the proceeding was put on hold during the criminal trial. The divorce, ending a 47-year marriage, was made final in 2008, with Mahoney awarded Exacto stock, her home and other properties. Cox got 25 percent of the assets.About 18 months after the attack, Carolyn Cox, with encouragement from her daughter, tried online dating and met Dennis Mahoney, an attorney from Wisconsin. Mahoney, 67, supported her during the criminal and divorce trials and continues to back her mission to help women in abusive relationships.On July 5, in front of about 50 guests, the couple were married in the living room of the home where Carolyn Cox was almost killed. She wore a pale pink dress and he a modest suit. Her great-grandson was the ring bearer and great-granddaughter the flower girl. "This home, everything you see is a part of me," she said. "The house was not at fault. I wanted to have the wedding here to make new memories, new life, happy memories."
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
var s_account = "tribglobal";
Domestic violence victim: 'Silence only empowers the abuser'
Carolyn Mahoney uses the story of her near-fatal beating at the hands of her ex-husband to show that domestic violence can affect anyone
By Amanda Marrazzo
Special to the Tribune
September 4, 2009
On a bright, crisp morning nearly five years ago, Carolyn Cox should have been merrily preparing for her first trip to Europe, but instead she was fighting for her life after being brutally beaten and locked inside a carbon monoxide-filled garage in her Bull Valley mansion.The attacker was her husband of more than 40 years, millionaire businessman Billy J. Cox, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence in the Dixon Correctional Center for attempted
murder.Meanwhile, the now remarried Carolyn Mahoney shares her story with audiences across the country about living decades in silence as an abused wife. "Sometimes I just want to put it in a box and I don't want to get it out," said Mahoney, sitting in the airy sunroom at the 15,000-square-foot, $2 million home she and Cox built on an 11-acre wooded lot in 2001.Since Cox's conviction in April 2007, Mahoney has told her story about 30 times to college sororities and family and women's groups around the country. In October, she will speak at Purdue University in Indiana and Auburn University in Alabama.Mahoney, 67, prepares mentally and emotionally for each speech and is exhausted after each one, she said. She details the morning of Sept. 13, 2004, and how Cox bludgeoned her with a blunt object -- which has never been found or identified -- in the head and face while she slept, then dragged her bloodied body down a hallway and locked her in the garage where two cars were idling.Recounting her story is painful, but "I was told once by a young girl, 'I am living your story,' " Mahoney said. That chance to help women in similar circumstances is what keeps her talking, she said.Mahoney tells of frightening moments throughout her marriage and how her husband's aggression increased over the years. It began early in their years together with insults, belittling and oppressive control such as not allowing her to attend her family's church, she said. The abuse increased to shoving, slapping, then punching and kicking, and she would respond by making excuses for him, she said."I had this illusion we were doing all the right things," she said. "There were no domestic shelters 40 years ago. It was a secret. You do not tell neighbors, family. You make things work."But Mahoney said she learned firsthand that "silence only empowers the abuser."No one suspected what was going on behind closed doors, Mahoney said. She has a master's degree, and Cox has a doctorate. Cox invented the agricultural chemical that helped to build his successful company, Exacto Inc. in Richmond. They were worth millions of dollars. They were country club members who supported local theater and arts. Mahoney emphasizes during her speaking engagements that domestic abuse knows no prejudice and involves people from all socioeconomic backgrounds."I am the face of domestic abuse," she said to an audience in a half-hour documentary about her. DVDs of the show sold for $20, with proceeds benefiting Turning Point, a McHenry County domestic violence agency and shelter."She has been instrumental in moving the issue of domestic violence out of the shadows and into the light because she is willing to be public about her story," said Jane Farmer, the agency's executive director. "It tells people it truly can happen to anyone."During his trial, Cox's attorneys insisted that he had no idea what happened to his wife that morning. Cox testified that he had been on the back end of their property for about six hours clearing brush and bird-watching. He claimed that the first time he saw his wife was when he opened the garage door to see the police officer outside the garage and his wife limp and bloody on the ground between two vehicles. Defense attorney Mark Gummerson argued that she had hurt herself when she fell off a ladder in the garage.The Coxes were scheduled to travel with friends to Europe that day. Police were called to the property for a well-being check after family and friends had been unable to reach the couple that morning.Jurors found Cox guilty of attempted murder and because he was considered a flight risk, he was immediately handcuffed and taken to jail. Officers who searched him in the jail found he had $10,000 in cash. Cox has appealed his conviction.Mahoney still bears faint scars of the near-fatal beating. She has had three major surgeries and has a metal plate in the left side of her face to help rebuild her cheekbone and eye socket. She lives with double-vision, some hearing loss, dental problems and balance issues."It is a miracle that she survived her brutal attack that day," said Nichole Owens, chief of criminal prosecutions for the McHenry County state's attorney's office. "Carolyn triumphantly overcame her tremendous physical and emotional obstacles and has become a passionate advocate for domestic violence victims."She tried to divorce Cox, but the proceeding was put on hold during the criminal trial. The divorce, ending a 47-year marriage, was made final in 2008, with Mahoney awarded Exacto stock, her home and other properties. Cox got 25 percent of the assets.About 18 months after the attack, Carolyn Cox, with encouragement from her daughter, tried online dating and met Dennis Mahoney, an attorney from Wisconsin. Mahoney, 67, supported her during the criminal and divorce trials and continues to back her mission to help women in abusive relationships.On July 5, in front of about 50 guests, the couple were married in the living room of the home where Carolyn Cox was almost killed. She wore a pale pink dress and he a modest suit. Her great-grandson was the ring bearer and great-granddaughter the flower girl. "This home, everything you see is a part of me," she said. "The house was not at fault. I wanted to have the wedding here to make new memories, new life, happy memories."
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
var s_account = "tribglobal";
Friday, September 11, 2009
Abuse UnChecked...
Abuse Unchecked: A Husband Shoots Wifeas a Community Watches (corrected version)By Byron Hurt
On Tuesday, September 1, I spoke to more than 2,000 incoming freshman students at Montclair State University in New Jersey. As part of their New Student orientation, the Department of Student Development and Campus Life invited me to campus to show clips from my documentary film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and to address the issue of men's physical and sexual violence against women. In my speech, I spoke about the urgent need for men to act as proactive bystanders in the face of such violence.
As I spoke to the students about gender-based violence in north Jersey, Lenox Ramsey, 25, taunted, chased, and then finally shot his wife, Kaidan Ramsey, 22, in broad daylight in Brooklyn, NY near Medgar Evers College. Surveillance tapes show a terrified Kaidan running for her life as
people on the street watched, doing nothing.
As a man, I know how easy it is look the other way and ignore male abusive behavior when it happens, especially when it happens publicly. I've been in situations like this and I know how paralyzed one can feel - not knowing exactly what to do. I have been in situations where I have failed to act and remember feeling horrible for lacking the courage to raise my voice. I have also been in situations when I have acted, and fellas, it's not as difficult or scary as you might imagine.
I understand the fear people feel when faced with intervening when a man is abusing a woman on a busy street. We are afraid the abuser will turn his rage onto us. This fear is real and has to be acknowledged. But as a community, we cannot remain silent and tolerate this kind of violence. We must speak up loudly and boldly when men physically or sexually assault women. Honk your car horn, yell and shout, call 911, or try to somehow distract the abuser from attacking his victim - even if it is for an instant. But please, do not remain silent. Help the woman out. Please understand that I am not suggesting that you jump in front of a bullet to save someone's life. You must be street smart and use wise judgment at all times. I am, however, suggesting that you do something as opposed to doing nothing at all. At the end of the day, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror knowing that we did the right thing when it mattered most to someone else.
As a nation, it is vital that we ramp up efforts to educate boys and men about patriarchy, sexism, male privilege, and how men's violence against women is ultimately about men maintaining power and control over female bodies. Men and women working in the gender violence prevention field have long called for men and women in positions of leadership to make gender violence prevention a priority in schools, churches, corporations, and in the military. Educating boys and men in prevention programs is one of the keys to drastically reducing all forms of gender violence.
Men, this has to stop. Men's violence against women is pervasive worldwide, and we can no longer deflect this issue onto women as if they are the cause of the problem and should fix it by themselves. Each day, new stories emerge about men who abduct, rape, beat, harass, and kill women. We do not need any more statistics to prove that men's violence against women is a real problem. It is real and it happens each and every day, all over the world.
We cannot be silent anymore. Non-abusive men who respect women and who are against men who abuse women have to speak up when incidents like this occur. You do not have to be an expert or know the latest statistics. All you have to do is care, have courage, and speak up in defense of the women you love. (Read Jackson Katz' Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence at www.jacksonkatz.com)
Through my filmmaking, writing, and community outreach, I will continue to do all that I can to ally with women and educate as many non-abusive men as humanly possible. By raising our voices, men and women can use our influence to collectively send the message to other men that the abuse of women is not cool and should not go unchecked within our communities.
If you have a mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt, or female friend that you love and care about, then you should be an advocate for them and tune in to the issues that affect them daily. Men's violence against women is one such issue that affects the women you love.
# # #
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. Learn more at www.bhurt.com.
NOTE TO READERS: Feel free to cut and paste my statement and forward widely along with the link to the article and disturbing video footage of the shooting: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_brooklyn_gun_horror.html
I also recommend that you Google, buy, and read these five books to learn more about what we as men can do to help end violence against women:
• The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help - Jackson Katz• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power - Edited by Shira Tarrant• The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life - Edited by Kevin Powell• NewBlackMan - Mark Anthony Neal• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love - bell hooks
On Tuesday, September 1, I spoke to more than 2,000 incoming freshman students at Montclair State University in New Jersey. As part of their New Student orientation, the Department of Student Development and Campus Life invited me to campus to show clips from my documentary film Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, and to address the issue of men's physical and sexual violence against women. In my speech, I spoke about the urgent need for men to act as proactive bystanders in the face of such violence.
As I spoke to the students about gender-based violence in north Jersey, Lenox Ramsey, 25, taunted, chased, and then finally shot his wife, Kaidan Ramsey, 22, in broad daylight in Brooklyn, NY near Medgar Evers College. Surveillance tapes show a terrified Kaidan running for her life as
people on the street watched, doing nothing.
As a man, I know how easy it is look the other way and ignore male abusive behavior when it happens, especially when it happens publicly. I've been in situations like this and I know how paralyzed one can feel - not knowing exactly what to do. I have been in situations where I have failed to act and remember feeling horrible for lacking the courage to raise my voice. I have also been in situations when I have acted, and fellas, it's not as difficult or scary as you might imagine.
I understand the fear people feel when faced with intervening when a man is abusing a woman on a busy street. We are afraid the abuser will turn his rage onto us. This fear is real and has to be acknowledged. But as a community, we cannot remain silent and tolerate this kind of violence. We must speak up loudly and boldly when men physically or sexually assault women. Honk your car horn, yell and shout, call 911, or try to somehow distract the abuser from attacking his victim - even if it is for an instant. But please, do not remain silent. Help the woman out. Please understand that I am not suggesting that you jump in front of a bullet to save someone's life. You must be street smart and use wise judgment at all times. I am, however, suggesting that you do something as opposed to doing nothing at all. At the end of the day, we all have to look ourselves in the mirror knowing that we did the right thing when it mattered most to someone else.
As a nation, it is vital that we ramp up efforts to educate boys and men about patriarchy, sexism, male privilege, and how men's violence against women is ultimately about men maintaining power and control over female bodies. Men and women working in the gender violence prevention field have long called for men and women in positions of leadership to make gender violence prevention a priority in schools, churches, corporations, and in the military. Educating boys and men in prevention programs is one of the keys to drastically reducing all forms of gender violence.
Men, this has to stop. Men's violence against women is pervasive worldwide, and we can no longer deflect this issue onto women as if they are the cause of the problem and should fix it by themselves. Each day, new stories emerge about men who abduct, rape, beat, harass, and kill women. We do not need any more statistics to prove that men's violence against women is a real problem. It is real and it happens each and every day, all over the world.
We cannot be silent anymore. Non-abusive men who respect women and who are against men who abuse women have to speak up when incidents like this occur. You do not have to be an expert or know the latest statistics. All you have to do is care, have courage, and speak up in defense of the women you love. (Read Jackson Katz' Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence at www.jacksonkatz.com)
Through my filmmaking, writing, and community outreach, I will continue to do all that I can to ally with women and educate as many non-abusive men as humanly possible. By raising our voices, men and women can use our influence to collectively send the message to other men that the abuse of women is not cool and should not go unchecked within our communities.
If you have a mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt, or female friend that you love and care about, then you should be an advocate for them and tune in to the issues that affect them daily. Men's violence against women is one such issue that affects the women you love.
# # #
Byron Hurt is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti-sexist activist. Learn more at www.bhurt.com.
NOTE TO READERS: Feel free to cut and paste my statement and forward widely along with the link to the article and disturbing video footage of the shooting: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_brooklyn_gun_horror.html
I also recommend that you Google, buy, and read these five books to learn more about what we as men can do to help end violence against women:
• The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help - Jackson Katz• Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power - Edited by Shira Tarrant• The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life - Edited by Kevin Powell• NewBlackMan - Mark Anthony Neal• The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love - bell hooks
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