20 House Dems now claiming that the House Health Plan has an aborton Poison Pill

[Perky]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic lawmakers opposed to federal funding for abortions said Tuesday the House leadership's health care bill contains a ''hidden mandate'' that would allow taxpayer dollars to be used to end pregnancies. It's the latest controversy to hit the health care overhaul in a week that has seen Republicans sharpen their attacks and some Democrats start to waver on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

Abortion is not mentioned in the 1,018-page bill that Democratic leaders hope will be approved by the last of three House committees this week. Supporters of the legislation say that means the bill is neutral. But abortion opponents say the bill's silence is precisely the problem.

Without an explicit prohibition on federal funding for abortion, it could be included in taxpayer-subsidized coverage offered through the health overhaul plan, abortion opponents say. ''We cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan,'' a group of 20 Democratic representatives said in a June 25 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

When the legislation was unveiled last week, it failed to include language abortion opponents were seeking. Now they are going public. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., who helped draft the letter to Pelosi, plans to join lawmakers of both parties Wednesday at a news conference to criticize the legislation.

The Supreme Court has established a woman's right to abortion, but federal law prohibits government funds from being used to pay for the procedure in most cases. However, nearly 90 percent of employer-based private insurance plans routinely cover abortion.

The Democratic health overhaul plan envisions setting up a new health insurance marketplace through which individuals and businesses could get coverage similar to what's now available for employees of large companies. Government subsidies would be available for individuals and families making up to four times the federal poverty level. Abortion rights supporters say prohibiting plans in the new market from covering the procedure amounts to taking away a right that women now have.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., is trying to find a compromise, but that may not be easy. Not only do abortion opponents want to block funding, they also want to make sure that the procedure is not included in the benefits package.

In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus vowed that he would not let abortion controversies ''embroil'' the health care overhaul.

''Health care reform is not about that issue at all,'' Baucus, D-Mont., said Tuesday. He said the Senate plan would be ''neutral -- status quo.''


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Umm ....unless it voids the Hyde amendment this argument is just silly,

[AnnieBW]

1. They just want to scare people

"Using taxpayer money to kill babies! Horrors!" Doesn't matter that the babies will die if their moms don't get good prenatal care, or good nutrition, or have regular check-ups after they're born. Once the Holy Fetus is out of the womb, yer on yer own, kid.

[WCGreen]

20. Yea, but it's okay to kill children via taxpayer funded drones...

Oh that's right, they are brown skinned and muslim so they don't count...

[jody]

2. Does the draft bill by ignoring abortion in other language permit abortion? I'm pro-choice. n/t

[rwheeler31]

3. Oh good god they are out of bullets when they blame women.

[namahage]

4. FWIW, it's actually 19.

Text of the June 25 letter here:
http://minnesotaindependent.com/38412/peterson-oberstar-to-bail-on-abortion-inclusive-health-care-plan

Dear Honorable Pelosi:

As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly is unacceptable.

We believe in a culture that supports and respects the right to life and is dedicated to the protection and preservation of families. Therefore, we cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan. We believe that a government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan, should not be used to fund abortion.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care. The health care reform package produced by Congress will be landmark, and with legislation as important as this, abortion must be addressed clearly in the bill text.
Furthermore, funding restrictions save lives by reducing the number of abortions. The Guttmacher Policy Review, a leading pro-choice research organization noted “that about one third of women who would have had an abortion if support were available carried their pregnancies to term when the abortion fund was unavailable.”

Thank you for taking the time to consider our request. By ensuring that abortions are not funded through any health care reform package, we will take this controversial issue off the table so that Congress can focus on crafting a broadly-supported health care reform bill.

Sincerely,

Dan Boren (Okla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Penn.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tim Holden (Penn.), Paul Kanjorski (Penn.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Charlie Melancon (La.), John Murtha (Penn.), Jim Oberstar (Minn.), Solomon Ortiz (Texas), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), and Gene Taylor (Miss).

ETA: In the letter, they quote the Guttmacher Policy Review, which is a pro-choice research association. Here's the quote they pulled, in context (emphasis added):

Perhaps the most tragic result of the funding restrictions, however, is that a significant number of women who would have had an abortion had it been paid for by Medicaid instead end up continuing their pregnancy. A number of studies have examined how many women are forced to forgo their right to abortion and bear children they did not intend. Studies published over the course of two decades looking at a number of states concluded that 18–35% of women who would have had an abortion continued their pregnancies after Medicaid funding was cut off. According to Stanley Henshaw, a Guttmacher Institute senior fellow and one of the nation's preeminent abortion researchers, the best such study, which was published in the Journal of Health Economics in 1999, examined abortion and birthrates in North Carolina, where the legislature created a special fund to pay for abortions for poor women. In several instances between 1978 and 1993, the fund was exhausted before the end of the fiscal year, so financial support was unavailable to women whose pregnancies occurred after that point. The researchers concluded that about one-third of women who would have had an abortion if support were available carried their pregnancies to term when the abortion fund was unavailable.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/10/1/gpr100112.html

[madfloridian]

5. Yes, just us silly women thinking the majority we worked for counts

Silly old women should sit down and shut up.

[FreakinDJ]

6. Does it include mandatory Sterilization for Lunatic Fundies

in that case I might be willing to compromise

[MrModerate]

7. Counting on my fingers, I don't think we need these 19 goniffs . . .

So have Obama send 'em an "I respectfully disagree" note and let 'em stew in their own juices.

[jberryhill]

8. Does it mention appendectomy?

Does it mention tonsillectomy?

How many specific medical procedures are recited in there?

[customerserviceguy]

11. None that I've seen

You want a nose job? It's not prohibited in the drafts of the bills that I've seen.

[jberryhill]

14. "You want a nose job?"

You know, the last time someone from New York said that to me, I just backed away slowly.

[yourout]

16. How about penis enlargement.....I wouldn't mind another inch or two.

[customerserviceguy]

24. You sound like

my girlfriend!

[Fearless]

9. Now we see why I can't stand centrists.

:banghead:

[MrModerate]

15. Wait a minute: spineless chauvinist is *not* necessarily synonymous . . .

With "centrist." These guys may pretend that "the center" wants some bullshit prohibition on a woman's right to choose, but it's not supported by the facts.

If you measure the spectrum from those who think that abortion is an inalienable right all the way to those who really, really wish women wouldn't get pregnant when they didn't intend to and didn't have to face the prospect of abortion, you've already got the center well covered. Most people don't have strong objections to federal funding for abortion.

And, if you factor in that a substantial number of those who do insist that abortion must not be funded federally are men (whose opinion carries less weight), the the "center" clearly allows for federal funding of abortion procedures.

These guys are just mealy-mouthed political cowards.

[Fearless]

22. Perhaps I'm unclear...

The Democratic Party is made up of people at all degrees of "leftness". It may make our party look stronger or whatever, but in the end, we don't really have the Senate super-majority that we do on paper. On any particular issue, abortion included, there are those who espouse the opposition's point of view. Then also there are those who let their pockets do the talking, but that's a whole other set of issues.

[MrModerate]

23. OK, I get it. But I wouldn't characterize such spavined fuckwits as "centrists."

I'd characterize 'em as spavined fuckwits.

[Thrill]

10. wow just wow

thats all I can say

[CreekDog]

12. I'm watching these doofuses

I helped in an out of state election before and i might just have to do it again.

:rant:

[Sebastian Doyle]

13. Another reason to move to Single Payer, and be done with this fucking bullshit.

Nobody would have to worry about what corporate plans covered abortion or what public plans didn't, because there would be no corporate plans.

[Ewellian]

17. So we would do away with

the corporate plans that cover abortion and all be covered by the public plan that doesn't???

[madfloridian]

18. Exactly.

[Ewellian]

25. and then

contraception will be next to go.

[madfloridian]

19. You don't think the conservative Dems would want it out of single payer?

I do.

[Sebastian Doyle]

21. Fuck those Repuke pandering traitors

We had a real opportunity to begin undoing the last 30 years of damage done by the Bush Crime Family and their partners in the DLC, and we're letting this handful of treasonous nothings stand in our way. Fuck them, and fuck Spineless Reid and Jellyfish Pelosi who enable them.