(2009-11-09) Anti Abortion Health Reform Clause

A restriction on Abortion coverage, added late Saturday to the Healthcare Reform bill passed by the House, has energized abortion opponents with their biggest victory in years - emboldening them for a pitched battle in the Senate. The provision would block the use of federal subsidies for insurance that covers elective abortions.... Both sides credited a forceful lobbying effort by Roman Catholic bishops with the success of the provision, inserted in the bill under pressure from conservative Democrats... Abortion rights advocates charged Sunday that the provision threatened to deprive women of abortion coverage because insurers would drop the procedure from their plans in order to sell them in the newly expanded market of people receiving subsidies... Not many women who undergo abortions file private insurance claims, perhaps to avoid leaving a record. A 2003 study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that 13 percent of abortions were billed directly to insurance companies.

The president and Democratic leaders alike have long promised that their proposed health care overhaul would not direct taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions. But the president (Barack Obama) has never spelled out his answer to the contentious question of how to apply that standard to the novel program of offering insurance subsidies or a government-run plan to millions of poor and middle-class Americans. House Democratic leaders had sought to resolve the issue by requiring insurers to segregate their federal subsidies into separate accounts. Insurance plans would have been permitted to use only consumer premiums or co-payments to pay for abortions, even if individuals who received federal subsidies used them to buy health plans that covered abortion. But the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, was unable to hold on to enough moderate and conservative Democratic votes to pass the health bill using that approach, forcing her to allow a vote Saturday night on the amendment containing the broader ban.

Advocates on both sides of the question weighed in, but the bishops' role was especially pivotal in part because many Democrats had expected them to be an ally. They had pushed for decades for universal Health Insurance.

Whenever the government gets into a business, the policies of that business become political. (State Capitalism)

Sure, Abortion raises lots of Moral arguments. But should we then have a bill to keep my tax dollars from going into stupid wars?