As part of the deal-making to pass healthcare, conservative Democrats joined House Republicans in passing the anti-abortion Stupak amendment.
The amendment would forbid the coverage of abortion by any insurance policy sold through a health exchange.
Supporters of the pro-life cause argue that the Stupak amendment maintains the status quo. Since 1977, federal law has prohibited the use of any federal money to procure an abortion. Since the health exchanges will benefit from federal subsidies, the pro-lifers argue, the 1977 policy should apply to them as well.
But until now, relatively few women of childbearing age have had the benefit of federal funding. Poor women on Medicaid, under-18 girls on S-Chip, military women, and women who use the Indian Health Service were affected. But most women of childbearing age are enrolled in private coverage, and private plans almost always cover medically necessary abortions.
If the House bill or something like it becomes law, more women will shift into policies sold via exchanges. At first only a few women will purchase policies there, but over time, more and more. These exchanges mingle public and private dollars on complex sliding scales of subsidy. That almost certainly will mean no abortion coverage for any exchange-sold policy, whether the individual purchaser herself receives a subsidy or not.
More government = less choice, in every sense of that word “choice.”
30 responses so far
1 sinz54 // Nov 9, 2009 at 9:07 am
No one expects the Stupak amendment will survive in conference committee after the Senate passes their own bill.
It was window dressing, political cover that could give pro-life Dems the chance to vote for the Pelosi bill and then go home to their constituents claiming that they were true to their pro-life principles.
2 rbottoms // Nov 9, 2009 at 9:35 am
Nice bit of judo trying to freak out pro-choice women. The goal here is to scare supporters of Obama’s efforts not the other way around.
3 DFL // Nov 9, 2009 at 9:48 am
It would be pretty to think so.
4 Raider1 // Nov 9, 2009 at 10:05 am
This bill will die in the Senate.
5 Independent // Nov 9, 2009 at 10:09 am
Congressman Bart Stupak, despite what sinz54 thinks, is a bulldog blue dawg. He is as strong a pro-Life supporter as lots of Independents and Republicans. If he doesn’t get what he and others like him want, his vote for ObamaCare disappears like hairplugs on Joe Biden’s head.
For anyone to argue otherwise is to misunderstand how important the issue is to the few, but well-positioned, pro-Life Democrats in the House. It is supreme naivete to dismiss the threat because a compromise bill might –someday, sometime, somehow– make it through the Senate.
6 sinz54 // Nov 9, 2009 at 10:54 am
Independent:
That may be,
but any bill that passes the Senate will necessarily be more moderate than the Pelosi bill from the House. (The Baucus bill certainly is.) And so the Dems can get a more moderate bill out of conference, enabling some other moderate Dems to vote for it even though they voted against the Pelosi bill. That will compensate for the loss of Stupak’s vote.
7 Reason60 // Nov 9, 2009 at 11:16 am
Rbottoms nailed it-
Nice job of trying to freak out the pro-choice Democrats. Apparently since the death panel schtick wasn’t working, we need another baldfaced lie to scream. In capital letters. With dripping red paint. Over a picture of Obama as the Joker.
OBAMACARE WILL CAUSE GOVERNMENT CHRISTIAN TALIBAN DOCTORS TO FORCE YOU TO GET PREGNANT, DROP OUT OF SCHOOL, AND COOK DINNER FOR YOUR 14 CHILDREN!!!
BE AFRAID CHILDREN, BE VERY AFRAID!!!!!
The actual fear- public health insurance will be like Medicare- a government service that everyone embraces, and wants to work.
BE AFRAID REPUBLICANS, BE VERY AFRAID!!!!!
8 balconesfault // Nov 9, 2009 at 11:29 am
Interesting dynamic in play here. Assume that the amendment were to stay in the final bill.
Let’s look a few years down the road … some number of middle class-middle America families have been shifted over to coverage under the public option. Complications late in second trimester. Abortion recommended by physician – of course, one of the more costly/complicated forms of abortion. Young family sent into bankruptcy.
Yeah, this is going to play out well long term for the right. Clearly, people will not blame the pro-life advocates who pushed through the amendment … but rather the left for passing a federal healthcare option.
Well, I have no doubt that the Randians will do so. Most people? Not so much.
9 Daniel99 // Nov 9, 2009 at 11:51 am
I am touched, touched, by the faith of the supporters of the “Obama” health plan that women’s rights to abortion paid by the government will be provided in its ultimate version. Such faith is rare in this era of cynicism and of the questioning of moral values.
And help is on the way! Did you notice the news item from Michigan? Some pro-abortion extremist shot an anti-abortion protester to death apparently enraged by the sign he was carrying. That’ll teach those pro-lifers. Can you imagine the effrontery of those who seek to protect the helpless misbegotten!
10 balconesfault // Nov 9, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Eh – Harlan James Drake is likely going to be found certifiably crazy. Not only did he shoot an abortion protestor, but he shot another man with no connection to the pro-life movement, and apparently had plans to kill another unrelated man. Next day in his jail cell he tried to kill himself with glass from a broken TV.
Sadly, the imagery borne by the anti-abortion protestor each day across the street from a public high school – a photo of an aborted fetus, enlarged many times over – was designed to prey on people’s emotions, to drive people from thinking of the abortion issue clinically and rationally, but viscerally.
Unfortunately, in the case of Drake, it worked.
We have people who are dangerously close to violent rage around us. Unless they have committed a prior felony or are diagnosed as insane, they can buy and carry a lot of firepower.
Hopefully expanded healthcare will help us get treatment for some of these people before they go over the edge and take others with them.
11 Arch // Nov 9, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I don’t think the pro-choice crowd is convinced that this rule wont make it into the final bill. I think they’re just prepared to accept that the majority of the people do not want federal funds to pay for abortions except in the most extreme cases. If this were a threat to Roe v. Wade, they’d be at war, but it’s not.
12 Raider1 // Nov 9, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Obviously Balcon is not among those whose taxes will go +5.4% to pay for the “uninsured.” This is just a government entitlement and wealth redistribution scheme disguised as improved healthcare…nothing more. I see no tort reform in here for example as anyone serious about bringing down costs of insurance would think is a must. (And you won’t as the dems are in the pocket of the trial lawyers.)
13 Palin Doctrine // Nov 9, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Oh, they’ll make sure women can get unlimited abortions by hook or by crook. It’s the holy sacrament of the Left.
14 ProfNickD // Nov 9, 2009 at 2:02 pm
No health care bill will pass the Senate — no health care bill be voted on in the Senate. The thing’s dead.
15 balconesfault // Nov 9, 2009 at 2:13 pm
This is just a government entitlement and wealth redistribution scheme disguised as improved healthcare…nothing more.
Well, first, I think that everyone accepts that universal healthcare isn’t going to happen without some “wealth redistribution”. To that extent, Medicare certainly has redistributive elements to it – and that’s ALL that Medicaid is.
But you’re right – I don’t make half-a-million a year, and my wife and I combined don’t make a million a year. That said, we are in the top 5% of AGI, and I personally would have no problem with tax increases being extended down to our bracket to help pay for wider universal care.
That said, a public option also creates an opportunity/incentive for some to purchase insurance – perhaps even only paying a portion of the premium – who are currently not doing so. The more people who are on some form of insurance, the more chance we have of encouraging early and preventative care, not to mention the less emergency rooms are left is the role as debt collectors who force people into bankruptcy.
I’ve heard it said that if men got pregnant, abortion would be a holy sacrament.
16 Raider1 // Nov 9, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Balcon, a public option will destroy competition. That is NOT good for anyone. If they really wanted to reform the system and keep in the free market realm they could.
This is not about healthcare. This is about implementing a misguided notion that a central government should be in control of the most important aspects of the lives of citizens. After all, “healthcare” is such a broad term that it could be used as wedge to begin controlling everything. Comsumption, polloution, manufacturing you name it.
How can it possibly be that on the anniversary of the fall of the BErlin Wall there are so many fools out there who still buy into the notion of a benign big government. It is false. It flies in the face of human nature.
The private sector may have its faults –which could be amply addressed if this were truly about “healthcare reform”–but big government is the portal to disaster for the human condition.
17 sinz54 // Nov 9, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Raider1:
It’s the fault of the GOP for not “amply addressing” health care reform when it had the chance. In the 1990s and 2000s, if the GOP had established itself as serious about reforming health care, the Dems wouldn’t be owning the issue now.
In 2001, McCain and Ted Kennedy offered a “Patients’ Bill of Rights” bill, which included some common-sense reforms like the right of every patient to a fair and independent appeals process if their insurer denied his claims for care. It got shot down by the GOP-controlled Senate.
When he was governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney helped push through a major health care reform bill in the Mass legislature. It mandated guaranteed issue, it provided a public option (for the poor ONLY), and it mandated all residents to obtain insurance. As the result, Massachusetts comes close to universal coverage, and the poor are well taken care of. But when Romney ran for President in 2008, he was forced to run AWAY from this achievement, because the GOP base considered it “socialism.”
Republicans in DC will say off the record to reporters that the GOP is just not interested in health care reform, except when it comes to heading off any Dem proposals on that issue.
18 SpartacusIsNotDead // Nov 9, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Raider1 wrote: “[A] public option will destroy competition.”
If this is true, why hasn’t the public option for workers compensation insurance in California destroyed competition there?
19 balconesfault // Nov 9, 2009 at 3:59 pm
If this is true, why hasn’t the public option for workers compensation insurance in California destroyed competition there?
Not to mention in Connecticut – home not only to Joe Lieberman, who is threatening a veto over the Public Option … but also of the Charter Oak Plan, a state run public option available to any uninsured Connecticutians.
20 MI-GOPer // Nov 9, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Sparty-Is-Brain-Dead writes: “If this is true, why hasn’t the public option for workers compensation insurance in California destroyed competition there?”
I don’t know, sparty; but in Michigan, 22 yrs ago, the state Legislature privatized the state-run worker comp insurance program because, after almost 15 yrs of study and dozens of blue-ribbon panels, it was clearly and overwhelmingly proven that the state govt program WAS running competitors out of business in Michigan and in 1987 we were down to two viable carriers in Michigan –both protected non-profit small business association groups– plus the state program.
When privatization occured, the state govt workers were given a chance to get hired by the new managers and the managers cut about 45% of the workforce at the start-up, increased the use of technology and streamlined ops and in the subsequent 5 yrs, cut an additional 18% of the original workforce.
Now the private company has driven everyone else out of the field and, guess what… premiums are climbing faster than Barney Frank’s lover can smoke dope. (I hear it makes living with the Barney more tolerable?) Last yr, premiums were finally priced at a point that it made some economic sense to underwrite Michigan workers again –who have a horrible record of injuries and a state who has an anti-business trial lawyer machine that rakes in the dough– but companies are loathe to enter the Michigan market because to invest personnel and product here for 5-6-7-8% of the market is risky.
The Legislature did a poor job of crafting the privatization plan. The state Atty Gen has done a poor job of busting up the pro-Democrat Blues who run the worker comp company.
It is a pure fallacy to argue that a govt run public option will bring competition to the marketplace. And only a pathological liar like Obama or Pelosi can get away with spinning that lie and still sleep at night.
21 SpartacusIsNotDead // Nov 9, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Mi-goper wrote: “Sparty-Is-Brain-Dead writes: “If this is true, why hasn’t the public option for workers compensation insurance in California destroyed competition there?” I don’t know, sparty . . . ”
Glad to see ignorance is no barrier to forming an opinion.
22 Independent // Nov 9, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I have to agree with MI-GOP on this one, spartacus. I don’t think his points, if true, are ingorant but I do see you trying very hard to discredit the superior argument, butressed with facts.
Besides, from what I’ve read of your rantings, you’ve got a near monopoly on ignorance around here.
23 Oldskool // Nov 9, 2009 at 8:54 pm
I think what upsets Republicans is the politics of any health care bill. Obama will get the credit which must make them batty. Alnd their total lack of credibility on health care makes their opposition to it hard to take seriously, same as when they dole out advice on war after their briliant idea to invade Iraq. At some point they should hang their heads and slink away.
24 MI-GOPer // Nov 10, 2009 at 7:59 am
Oldskool tries for a palm reading of GOP intentions, since his tin foil hat won’t allow him to mind meld; “Alnd (sic) their total lack of credibility on health care makes their opposition to it hard to take seriously”.
Spoken like a true barricade watcher stuck on the Democrats’ rampart of hate while the revolution edges closer to your post, eh? I guess that’s why the Obama’s polling continues to drop like a lead weight. I guess that’s why more Americans oppose the Democrats’ health care “reform” plan than even their cap & trade tax hikes. I guess that’s why the Democrat-controlled House had trouble mustering enough votes to pass it out of a chamber they control? It’s so popular and GOP support so incredible, nearly 2/3rds of the blue dawg Dems didn’t support their Party?
What was that nonsense you were sputtering on about?
25 ottovbvs // Nov 10, 2009 at 9:16 am
…….This amendment will probably not be in the final bill but even if it is there’s always signing statements…….remember those my GOP friends.
26 SpartacusIsNotDead // Nov 10, 2009 at 11:06 am
Independent wrote: “I have to agree with MI-GOP on this one, spartacus. I don’t think his points, if true, are ingorant but I do see you trying very hard to discredit the superior argument, butressed with facts.”
I’m not calling his points about the Michigan plan ignorant. I’m saying his ignorance about the public option in CA did not stop him from forming the opinion that it has ruined competition in the state. Neither he, nor Sinz nor any other poster on this site has been able to deal with the simple fact that there is a robust public option in CA that (1) does not rely on tax money, (2) has not run private insurers out of the market, (3) has lowered premiums, and (4) has made insurance available to every single business in the state.
Until you can reconcile this with the theoretical fears of a national public option, your arguments seem very weak.
27 MI-GOPer // Nov 10, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Sparty-is-brain-dead writes: “I’m saying his ignorance about the public option in CA did not stop him from forming the opinion that it has ruined competition in the state.”
Nope, I didn’t but like a good barricade watcher for the Obama Kamp as the revolution edges nearer you used your vast power of ignorance to miss my opening point… which was “I don’t know, sparty; but in Michigan, 22 yrs ago”… note the I don’t know –which neither dismisses nor agrees with your point about the public option in CA… merely steps aside of it and offers a far more compelling, complete review of a worker comp public option experience in Michigan?
Nawh, I didn’t think you could note that. It would, as others here rightly point out, destroy your inferior example and blunt your partisan powers of persuasion. Sparty-is-brain-dead writes: “… your arguments seem very weak”. Not at all, sparty. It’s only been 11 months but it seems all that time on the Obama barricades has left you punch-drunk and a bit tone deaf.
Don’t worry, in 2010 and 2012, I think there’ll be some Change and Hope chasing your team from the barricades and ramparts around the Obama. That’s if the Chicago Thugs don’t play more voter fraud games ala Karzai.
28 SpartacusIsNotDead // Nov 10, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Mi-Goper wrote: “note the I don’t know –which neither dismisses nor agrees with your point about the public option in CA…”
But, Mi-GOPer earlier wrote: “It is a pure fallacy to argue that a govt run public option will bring competition to the marketplace.”
Is Mi-GOPer stupid or what?
29 MI-GOPer // Nov 10, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Sorry, Sparty-Is-Brain-Dead, but the claim of stupid is borne out by your moniker, dewd. You’re tone deaf and punch drunk from all those hours manning the losing team’s barricade around the Obama.
I was wrong about one thing: “It is a pure fallacy to argue that a govt run public option will bring competition to the marketplace. And only a pathological liar like Obama or Pelosi can get away with spinning that lie and still sleep at night.”
I should have added your name to the list of Obama and Pelosi. Spinners all. You really need to either man-up or get a better act.
30 SpartacusIsNotDead // Nov 11, 2009 at 12:10 am
Instead of addressing the substance of my post, Mi-GOPer, formerly known as EscapeVelocity, goes off on another childish rant.
The fact remains, no poster on this site has been able to deal with the simple fact that there is a robust public option in CA that (1) does not rely on tax money, (2) has not run private insurers out of the market, (3) has lowered premiums, and (4) has made insurance available to every single business in the state.
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