Health Care Reform: Public Option Uncertain, Abortion In
- Oct 13, 2009 -
The Senate Finance Committee just became the last of five congressional committees to give its nod to a health care reform bill. Noticeably absent from Chairman Max Baucus’ (D-MT) bill, distinguishing it from the other committee bills, is a government-run public option. But alarmingly present in the Baucus bill, and consistent with the other four, is authorization to federally fund abortion in the name of health care.
Under the Baucus plan, the government would be permitted to subsidize part of the premium costs of private health plans that include abortion. This is a clear shift from existing policy. Worse still, the bill that emerges in the coming days on the Senate floor is expected to be even more expansive on abortion.
With the Finance Committee’s 14-9 approval of the Baucus bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will merge it with the Senate Health Committee bill, which includes a public option with no provision to block the government from mandating coverage of elective abortions. The House bill is no better. H.R. 3200, as amended by the Capps Amendment, authorizes federal funding of abortion, though Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) and other proponents are trying to claim otherwise, hiding behind what the National Right to Life Committee calls a “bookkeeping scheme.”
Messaging from the White House is also sowing confusion. During his prime-time address to the nation in September, President Obama stated that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.” Last week, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stuck to that message, saying, “There’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion. That isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.” Unfortunately, this is not the case. The Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding of abortion with the exceptions of rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother, applies only to the annual Health and Human Services appropriations legislation, and would not apply to the health care bill.
This raises a basic question: If the president and congressional leaders ushering through health care reform are so certain that abortion is excluded from the plan, then why not explicitly say so in the bill? It also makes one wonder why abortion rights groups have not been up in arms demanding abortion coverage.
Intentions to include abortion coverage have all but crystallized. The five House and Senate committees have rejected every proposed amendment to exclude abortion mandates or subsidies under health care reform. And President Obama, while campaigning for the Oval Office, said “reproductive care is essential care” and will be “at the center, the heart of the [health care] plan that I propose.”
Yet such a plan is out of step with a majority of the citizens to whom they are accountable. By a 55 percent to 42 percent margin, Americans “think it would be wrong for the government to pay for abortions,” according to a recent Susan B. Anthony List poll. A Public Opinion Strategies poll found that 58 percent of those questioned disagree that “if the government is going to make a public health plan available for all Americans it has an obligation to provide abortion services under that plan.”
Meanwhile, a sizeable number of representatives are also being silenced. On Sept. 28, Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA), joined by 181 other House members, sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY)—the key managers of House floor debate—asking them to allow a vote to prohibit government funding of abortion under the health care plan. No word yet from the congresswomen.
Clearly, countless unborn lives and the consciences of millions of Americans are at stake in this debate. While the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission has multiple concerns on proposed health care reform, protecting innocent human life tops the list. On that we will not yield.
If you share our concerns, please continue to tell your senators and representative to oppose any health care bill that fails to explicitly exclude federal funding of abortion and include conscience protections for health care workers.