Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) is frustrated that his Democratic gubernatorial opponent, Terry McAuliffe, is polling so much better among women.
After all, Cuccinelli told "Fox & Friends" host Elizabeth Hasselbeck on Friday, McAuliffe supports the Affordable Care Act and women do not want the government coming between them and their doctors.
"Women make 75 percent or so of the health care decisions in this country, and the government is coming to get in between the decision-makers and the doctors and what they’re allowed to do in treatment," Cuccinelli said. "That’s something that women very much react to -- a lot more than men do, for instance. And the fact that federal bureaucrats are going to have access to our health and income records, that sits particularly poorly with women."
He was raising two conservative claims that Media Matters has named among the 15 myths of Obamacare. In fact, the government will not interfere in doctors' treatment of patients. The bureaucrats in question will look at broad Medicare policies and are specifically forbidden from making recommendations that would restrict benefits or ration care.
Cuccinelli's comment about "access to our health and income records" is simply a reference to the fact that Americans will be confirming to the Internal Revenue Service that they have insurance coverage -- and therefore need pay no penalty. IRS agents will not be accessing anyone's medical records.
Beyond his questionable interpretation of the Affordable Care Act, Cuccinelli apparently does not see his own history of anti-abortion activism in the state government as interference in women's health care decisions.
Yet as a state legislator, he proposed a fetal personhood amendment that would recognize a fertilized egg as a person for legal purposes and would ban abortion entirely.
Then, as attorney general, Cuccinelli strongly urged the Virginia Board of Health to approve a new set of rules for abortion clinics that will force them to undergo expensive and medically unnecessary renovations in order to hold onto their licenses. The clinics will have to expand the size of their janitor's closets, for instance, and build spacious staff lounges with showers -- an endeavor that some of them will not be able to afford.
In January, Cuccinelli's spokesperson told The Huffington Post that while Cuccinelli believes the mandatory ultrasound bill that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) had signed into law might be unconstitutional, he still thinks that "government can and should require that the doctor offer to share the image with the patient, so she has the information she needs to make a fully informed decision."
But Cuccinelli told Hasselbeck that his opponent's attack ads about his record on abortion and contraception are "lies" and that he can "absolutely" get Virginia women back on his side.
"They’ve run out of other things to attack on," he said. "There’s no positive vision from my opponent, so all they’re left with is trying to scare women. And, of course, I have a pro-life record, so they come after that vigorously."
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