CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
July 15, 2009 – 8:06 p.m.
GOP Escalates Effort to Link Health Bill, Abortion
By Alex Wayne, CQ Staff
Anti-abortion Republicans are escalating efforts to link Democratic health bills to the divisive and emotional issue.
They contend the bill their chamber will debate this month would lead to more abortions because insurers would be required to pay for the procedure.
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“This legislation will mandate and subsidize abortion and then tax the Americans who stand for one of the very principles that this nation was founded on — the right to life,” said Rep. Joe Pitts , R-Pa. He said he will introduce amendments to the bill when the Energy and Commerce Committee considers changes to the measure in sessions that begin Thursday. His amendments would prohibit requiring insurers to cover abortion, except when a mother’s life is threatened or when the pregnancy resulted from rape and incest.
Democrats portray the issue differently.
A longstanding provision in the annual spending bill that funds the Department of Health and Human Services, named for former Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill. (1975-2007), prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions. Democrats who support abortion rights have long chafed at the inclusion of the Hyde amendment in the bill, year after year, but have not tried to remove it since taking over Congress for fear of inflaming abortion opponents.
But those Democrats say Republicans are now simply trying to expand the Hyde prohibition to all health care services, and that they won’t stand for it.
“I think that if anti-choice Republicans or others see this as an opportunity to expand prohibitions on a legally allowed and medically appropriate practice, then they are wrong,” said Diana DeGette , D-Colo., vice chairwoman of Energy and Commerce. “We are not going to use the health care bill to expand prohibitions on a legal medical practice, period.”
In that case, Republicans say, the slow decline in the number of abortions performed in the United States over the last three decades will likely be reversed. There were more than 29 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 1980, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute. The rate fell to 19.4 per 1,000 women by 2005.
The Guttmacher Institute, which was founded by a former president of Planned Parenthood, says that one in four Medicaid-eligible women who wish to terminate their pregnancies are instead forced to carry their children to term because the program will not pay for abortions.
Anti-abortion Republicans say that this is good: “Millions of children walk the earth today because of the Hyde amendment, because the money wasn’t there to fund their destruction,” said Christopher H. Smith , R-N.J.
Most people with employer-sponsored insurance also must pay for abortions out of their own pocket. “Most insurers offer plans that include this coverage but most employers choose not to offer it as part of their benefits package,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry’s trade association.
There is no language regarding abortion in the House health overhaul, and Democrats say they do not intend to require that insurers and employers cover abortions under the bill.
But Pitts, Smith and their allies say logic suggests that abortion will be a required service under minimum benefit standards the Obama administration would be authorized to create, under the bill. President Obama, who supports the right to an abortion, has said that he considers reproductive health care an essential health service.
History, Smith says, is instructive. In 1983, he won passage of an appropriations rider that forbade the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) from covering abortion. But in 1993 and 1994, when President Clinton was new in office and Democrats controlled Congress, Smith’s amendment was not renewed.
The FEHBP covered abortions during that period. But Smith won passage of his amendment again in 1995, and the program has not covered abortions since.
Pitts said that he does not expect to win approval of his amendments to the health overhaul at the committee level, but that he might attract more support on the House floor, when anti-abortion Democrats could support them.
That is, of course, if he can get his amendments to the floor.
The House Rules Committee decides what amendments to put in order during floor debates, and Smith said the committee has ruled three of his abortion-related amendments out of order already this year.
Comments
The bill proposed are a disgrace to be called "reform"-they are moves to socialized medicine-which will be a disaster.
Why would socialized medicine be a disaster? Evidence to back up your statement or are you just believing the health insurance industry's PR campaign that is using 1.4 million dollars a day; which is essentially taxpayer dollars paid on rising premiums, to stop reform?
Hopefully this amendment makes it to a vote and is passed. I am not anti-choice, I am pro-LIFE and I refuse to pay for abortions when I am morally opposed to them and it is not fair that we should be asked to.
as a mother of 5 and grandmother, I do not advocate for abortion, but I do not think that anyone has the right to tell another woman what she must do or not do with her body. If you are very sincere in your beliefs, there are many children looking to be adopted in good homes. Let's push birth control throughout the world as over-population does more to hurt our planet than all the greenhouse gases.
Abortion is legal. How can we have a concern about rationing health care then refuse to have it cover a legal procedure? How do we raise a fear that this legislation will put Washington between the patient and their doctor then not want it to fund a legal medical procedure? I am against abortion but I believe this is the wrong venue to fight this battle. The end product if we add abortion to this legislation could later mean a section of the population may decide we won't cover black lung decease, sickle cell anemia because it primarily impacts blacks, HIV treatment since it primarily impacts the gay community, lung disease if you smoke. This legislation is about providing medical converge and abortion should be debated through its own legislation. As long as abortion is legal, there is no lawful reason any health care policy shouldn't cover it. I understand many of us are pro-life but we what we need is for congress to make it illegal so that it will be illegal to pay for with public monies. We had a conservative congress for 6 of the last 8 years and they failed to act. We had our chance and our guys let us down.
Well, if you do not want a abortion funding how about funding these mothers who have to carry the child to term then stuggle to raise it without any government help................... How about that you rightious bigot.
Well, as we all can see, normal American citizens really don't have a say in what takes place in Washington, D.C. However, we do have a say in what takes place in our own homes and families. The best way to change the system is to not partake in it. If we don't want abortions funded, find the woman who are pregnant and counsel them to have their baby! If abortions aren't being done, they can't be funded! Sounds really simple doesn't it? I believe woman, if educated on their bodies and told they should respect their bodies as being holy, they may choose differently on many issues. People who respect Life should stand up and defend it. I am a mother of three, and if good holy families want to populate the world, heck, overpopulate it for that much! Praise be to God!
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