RSS Feed MenuSomewhere on Capitol Hill, six Senators (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) are tirelessly working together to tackle the behemoth that is “comprehensive health care reform.” However one issue yet to be navigated, abortion, could impede both sides from reaching an agreement. This would be a shame.
The Washington Post details today that the six Senators are moving towards a deal that would seek to satisfy both sides. The article notes that lawmakers are claiming that the emerging Finance Committee bill:
would shave about $100 billion off the projected trillion-dollar cost of the legislation over the next decade and eventually provide coverage to 94 percent of Americans, according to participants in the talks. It would expand Medicaid, crack down on insurers, abandon the government insurance option that President Obama is seeking and, for the first time, tax health-care benefits under the most generous plans.
Given the source of the claims (the lawmakers themselves), it remains to be seen whether or not the actual bill seems likely to match any of these claims. However, were a bill that actually did these things emerge, it would be, I certainly think, a triumph of compromise and, all in all, a victory for the broader public interest.
But the negotiations that would lead to such a bill emerging are incredibly complex and the road to health care reform is covered in political land mines. None of these landmines is as contentious as abortion.
Abortion is an issue notoriously unsusceptible to compromise. That makes it a perfect issue for people who want to derail a Senate health care deal.
The trouble for Republicans is that the deal taking form in the Senate looks to be pretty good from a conservative point of view. In fact, Republicans may well like it better than they like the status quo. That status quo after all does devour a lot of dollars that could be used for something else, even tax cuts.
So maybe for once a compromise is in order.
Split the difference and say that government money can cover half of the procedure or just agree to flip a coin. Democrats can call it in the air, since they control both houses of Congress and the White House.
While abortion is undoubtedly an issue about which many people on both sides feel very strongly, the health care debate isn’t about abortion. Trying to control health costs is hard enough without bringing the culture wars into this.
Not a RINO // Aug 6, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Wow, so government can pay for killing 1/2 of the babies murdered by abortion each year instead of 100% as the Democrats want. What a compromise! Come on, the GOP should never compromise on protecting the most innocent among us, the unborn. To do anything else is downright immoral.
Churl // Aug 6, 2009 at 7:19 pm
“…six Senators (3 Democrats and 3 Republicans) are tirelessly working together to tackle the behemoth that is “comprehensive health care reform.”
So six Senators are huddled in private to fix health care for us, eh? They could start by whittling down the 1017 page House behemoth to understandable and feasible dimensions. Oh, and by the way, have them unhuddle from time to time and let the other 299,999,994 of us know what they are letting us in for.
By the way, who are they? Which staffers and lobbyists are huddled with them? I’d like to know if I had the chance to vote for any of them.
BoolaBoola // Aug 6, 2009 at 7:49 pm
But if we don’t pay for the abortions, we’ll have to pay for the childbirths, at least the indigent women’s childbirths. MUCH more expensive! So, you won’t be PAYING for abortions; you’ll be enjoying a REDUCTION in taxes (or public debt) by providing them.
I am sympathetic to conscience-protection, because when I was in med school I was required to violate my conscience and faith. You see, I believe, as a matter of conscience and faith, that right-to-lifers should not reproduce, nor be helped to reproduce. And yet, I was forced to provide pre-natal care and obstetric care for right-to-lifers of all stripes–Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, all kinds of right-to-life rural inbreeders (probably including some cannibalistic ones. Western Pennsylvania has more of them than Texas and they come in cults, not just single families.) I was actually forced to help deliver babies which my faith says I should have aborted!
I guess we all have to compromise in order to SERVE THE PATIENTS.
BoolaBoola // Aug 6, 2009 at 7:53 pm
We should allow people to opt out of paying the portion of the taxes that pay for abortions, but those who opt out have to pay TWICE as much for the births.
So, put a question on the tax form: “Do you wish your money to be KEPT SEPARATE from the fund that pays for abortions?” and tax those who check YES an extra thousand bucks or so.
No problem!
sinz54 // Aug 6, 2009 at 8:25 pm
The problem is, the Finance Committee is not the entire Senate; and the House is more liberal than the Senate.
So this compromise from the Finance Committee may not survive intact.
So it boils down to this: If the public option, structured as it is now to lead us to single-payer by stealth, remains in the final bill that comes up for a floor vote, then that bill must be stopped by ANY and ALL means possible.
I’m pro-choice. But if the abortion issue can help defeat the public option, then I say let’s use that issue and anything else we can get our hands on. And we’ll destroy the Dems’ chances for a public option. And then:
Today: The public option.
Tomorrow: Obama himself!
torourke // Aug 7, 2009 at 9:00 am
Jeb,
“The trouble for Republicans is that the deal taking form in the Senate looks to be pretty good from a conservative point of view. In fact, Republicans may well like it better than they like the status quo. That status quo after all does devour a lot of dollars that could be used for something else, even tax cuts.”
Polls show that an increasing number of people are satisfied or very satisfied with their current health insurance, with Republicans voicing this opinion in overwhelming numbers. Polls also show that an increasing number of Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling health care, and yet you deduce from this that somehow Republicans might prefer whatever “reform” we end up with to what they have now. Because, you surmise, the money being spent on health care now could conceivably be sent back to the American people in tax cuts. Never mind that the current health care packages in Congress would add at least a trillion dollars to the deficit and require tax increases. And never mind that Democrats control both chambers of Congress and the White House–making the idea that we’re going to enact some sort of broad-based tax cut in the near future with the money that Democrats plan to spend on health care positively delusional.
“So maybe for once a compromise is in order.
Split the difference and say that government money can cover half of the procedure or just agree to flip a coin. Democrats can call it in the air, since they control both houses of Congress and the White House.
While abortion is undoubtedly an issue about which many people on both sides feel very strongly, the health care debate isn’t about abortion. Trying to control health costs is hard enough without bringing the culture wars into this.”
So with Democrats increasingly on the defensive on this issue, we should compromise by allowing taxpayer funding for abortion? Huh? Are you aware that 71% of the American people oppose their tax-payer dollars going to pay for abortion? Are you aware that only four states have elected to have their state tax dollars fund abortion, with nine others doing so under judicial fiat (meaning that the other thirty-seven states prohibit this sort of funding)? Are you aware that even the Alan Guttmacher Institute acknowledges that tax-payer funding for abortion would increase the abortion rate?
So let’s summarize: Republicans are gaining some serious leverage in this health care debate, but we should cave on an issue that the American people are overwhelmingly with us on, with a higher abortion rate as a result. Great idea! I guess it’s not enough that we have–outside of Canada–the most radically permissive abortion license out of any developed nation on Earth. We should allow tax-payer funding for abortion to make ourselves appear more reasonable to the left.
And sinz54 is right, abortion was one of the reasons why Hillarycare went down in flames, and that was back when America was measurably more pro-choice than it is today. So again, why surrender on an issue that Americans overwhelmingly support?
Look, I understand that David Frum is pro-choice and is trying to cultivate young conservative wrtiers who are like-minded, but is it too much to ask that the contributors to this website have some knowledge of the basic facts of the abortion debate before opining? I’ll give Jeb some credit though. He at least–unlike Christian Hines–is aware that abortion is part of the health care debate.
torourke // Aug 7, 2009 at 9:03 am
BoolaBoola,
“I am sympathetic to conscience-protection, because when I was in med school I was required to violate my conscience and faith. You see, I believe, as a matter of conscience and faith, that right-to-lifers should not reproduce, nor be helped to reproduce. And yet, I was forced to provide pre-natal care and obstetric care for right-to-lifers of all stripes–Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, all kinds of right-to-life rural inbreeders (probably including some cannibalistic ones. Western Pennsylvania has more of them than Texas and they come in cults, not just single families.) I was actually forced to help deliver babies which my faith says I should have aborted!”
So your faith has shaped your conscience into supporting bigotry and eugenics. Which faith tradition might this be?
sinz54 // Aug 7, 2009 at 3:22 pm
BoolaBoola sez: “You see, I believe, as a matter of conscience and faith, that right-to-lifers should not reproduce”
Do you ever have the guts to tell those of your patients who are pro-life, just what you think of them?
Claude // Aug 8, 2009 at 4:10 pm
“Don’t Let Abortion Derail Needed Health Reform”
Well how about letting it derail unneeded health reform?
greg_barton // Aug 9, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Fellas, there’s no need to respond to BoolaBoola. You should be able to spot a fake poster.
Or maaaaaybe some of you are playing along?