Abortion // Current

Health Care Senate Debate: Why Should We Pay For Abortion?

HEY SENATOR HATCH! How Bout Those Of Us Who SINCERELY BELIEVE WAR IS WRONG?

Jenime
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7 hours ago
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The Senate Evisceration of Roe v. Wade: Hyde on Steroids

NOW (National Organization for Women) warns that the Senate will vote on an amendment similar to Stupak-Pitts that would prevent millions of women from obtaining insurance coverage for abortion under their version of health care reform, S1796. Is that the bill number or the year they intend to regress to?

It appears advocates will use this amendment to hold health care reform hostage unless this affront against women is included. http://www.capwiz.com/now/issues/alert/?alertid=14342106

This comes on the heals of the passed house Stupak-Pitts, anti-abortion amendment and the more recent mammogram media blitz tactic that blamed the White House for an independent private sector task force recommendation. It appears the health care insurance industry and their friends in Congress are out to target women in an all out effort to discredit health care reform. http://lafilmonline.com/oitsf/?p=74

NOW posted the following to it members on their website:
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Reportedly, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Bob Casey (R-Penn.) may offer a version of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to be attached to the Senate bill. That means, in all likelihood, if the Senate adopts this harmful amendment, it will remain in the final Senate-House conference bill and become law. Alternatively, a modified variation of Stupak-Pitts could be incorporated into the bill. Either way, millions of women lose -- big time.

Please Take Action NOW!

The Stupak-Pitts amendment explained:

* The ban on abortion coverage in insurance would apply to both the proposed public option and to private health insurance plans sold in the new regional health insurance exchanges. It is estimated that some 36 million uninsured persons would be purchasing insurance policies through new exchanges and would be eligible for federal affordability subsidies.
* Health insurers may not sell plans that cover abortion to customers who are paying without a subsidy, if even just one person who is receiving the federal affordability credits (the subsidy) were to purchase a plan. In other words, even if you are paying 100 percent of your insurance costs, abortion coverage would not be available in your plan if anyone with affordability credits joins the same plan.
* Women may purchase a separate abortion "rider" for coverage, though many doubt that these riders would be offered by the insurance companies.
* Small companies (fewer than 100 employees) would also likely purchase health insurance through the exchange, but if any of their employees received affordability credits no abortion coverage could be included.
* Eighty-seven percent of employer-based insurance plans now cover abortion services, but if employers withdraw coverage and send their employees to the health insurance exchanges, those employees would likely lose abortion coverage under these new prohibitions.

There may be a modified version of this harmful amendment that is included in the Senate health care reform bill that will be debated next week. We want to make sure that Stupak-Pitts language is not used and that no variation of this harmful amendment is passed. Please send a message to your senators that you oppose any restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion. Thank you for all the work you do for women's rights.
________________________________________________________NOW (National Organization for Women) warns that the Senate will vote on an amendment... more

JonRaymond
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3 days ago
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Church of Scientology accused of torture and forced abortions

Kevin Rudd, the Australian Prime Minister, has voiced “concerns” over the Church... more

WakeUpPeople
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4 days ago
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42 comments

Religious abortion rights backers push to change health care bill

Members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice want the Senate to alter... more

Vierotchka
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6 days ago
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8 comments

Abortions OK for Rich Republicans

The Stupak Amendment passed last week along with HR3962 would effectively prohibit... more

JonRaymond
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6 days ago
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IS ABORTION JUST A WOMEN DECISION OR BOTH, MAN & WOMEN

what you think?

GetWitIt
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8 days ago
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214 comments

Republican Health Plan Covers Abortion

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion... more

Future_America
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9 days ago
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1 comment

Who currently subsidizes abortion? Many pro-lifers don't know

As is now widely known, added to the health care reform bill just passed by the House of Representatives was a provision barring access to abortion called the Stupak-Pitts Amendment. Passed with the support of sixty-four Democrats, Stupak-Pitts doesn't merely prohibit coverage of abortion in a public option. It also forbids women who receive a federal subsidy from purchasing any health insurance plan that covers the procedure, even if the abortion is paid out of a separate pool of private premium dollars (for all the background and details, see my colleague Emily Douglas' post).

If this highly regressive amendment makes its way into the legislation that Barack Obama eventually signs, millions of less affluent women who obtain access to affordable health insurance will thus join the ranks of low-income women on Medicaid, most of whom live in states that don't cover abortion procedures. The two-tiered system that dictates who in America has "choice" (more privileged women do, less affluent women do not) will be further entrenched.

But if the social consequences of Stupak-Pitts are clear, the logic is not. Supporters of the provision evidently want to assure taxpayers that they will not be forced to subsidize abortion in any way. But if they are serious about this, why haven't they drawn up an amendment abolishing tax breaks for employer-sponsored health insurance? As Jonathan Cohn has pointed out, this is by far the largest subsidy in health care policy today. (It is also a regressive subsidy, but that's another story.) If the employer-sponsored insurance that a worker gets happens to cover abortion – which, in roughly half the cases, it does – than that taxpayer already subsidizes abortion.

The purists who don't want any of their dollars to subsidize abortion have another problem. As Amy Sullivan of Time has observed, plenty of pro-life people likely have no idea whether their private health insurance plans include abortion services (in which case their premiums indirectly fund the procedure). The same goes for pro-life organizations. Sullivan did a bit of digging and found out that Focus on the Family provides its employees insurance through Principal, a company that - you guessed it - covers abortion procedures.

"If health reform proposals have a fungibility problem, then Focus does as well," Sullivan notes. "And if they don't think they do have a fungibility problem, then it would be interesting to hear why they think the set-up proposed in health reform legislation is so untenable."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/494818/who_subsidizes_abortionAs is now widely known, added to the health care reform bill just passed by the House... more

WakeUpPeople
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11 days ago
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33 comments

Advice to GOP: Quit repulsing women

On Friday night, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) responded to the question, "Why should a... more

fountaingoats
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11 days ago
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Face it: The Democratic Party is not for women

Since the healthcare reform bill passed the House with the Stupak-Pitts amendment... more

fountaingoats
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11 days ago
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Boxer: Senate has votes to block Stupak amendment

One of Congress's foremost champions of abortion rights said on Monday that the Senate... more

fountaingoats
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11 days ago
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Reps. DeGette and Schakowsky won't support HCR that restricts reproductive rights

The health care bill passed in the House of Representatives on Saturday night makes... more

fountaingoats
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11 days ago
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Abortion Restrictions In House Bill Show Power Of Organized Religion In Politics

The Catholic Church successfully helped deliver a crushing blow to the abortion rights movement on Saturday by insisting that abortion restrictions be inserted into the newly passed House health care bill. But this isn't the first time that a religious organization has used its power, money, and influence to merge dogma with public policy.

Last Saturday, Democrats in the House of Representatives celebrated the passage of a health care reform bill that sought to finally provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. But the victory was bittersweet for many on the left because of a last-minute amendment offered by Democratic Rep. Bart Stupack that blocks those who receive federal health care subsidies or sign up for the public option from receiving any coverage for elective abortions. Advocates on both sides are calling the amendment the biggest turning point in the abortion debate in decades.

However, a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that in 2003 only 13 percent of abortions in the US were provided under health insurance and, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, only about half of those who have employer-based insurance have abortion coverage.

Five states, Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota, and Oklahoma, already bar private insurance from coving elective abortions; the federal employees’ health insurance program and most Medicaid programs do the same.

Therefore, the effect of the Stupack amendment on access to abortions would probably be minimal. However, the precedent that the amendment sets could prove disastrous for the pro-choice movement. If abortion rights are seen as a commodity to be traded away to secure the votes of conservative Democrats, abortion-rights activists could see their agenda eroded as a divided legislative body attempts to reach compromise.

Moreover, the success of the Stupack amendment underlines a disturbing trend—the influence powerful religious organizations exert over members of congress and even the President himself.

Advocates on both sides of the issue are largely crediting the Catholic Church with strong-arming the Stupack amendment into the House bill.

Starting in the summer, Catholic bishops began a letter writing campaign threatening to pull support for any health care bill that allowed federal dollars to directly or indirectly be spent on elective abortions.

On Oct. 8 three members of the bishops conference issued the following warning: “If the final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill.”

And Cardinal Seán O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, reportedly delivered a warning directly to President Obama telling him that the Catholic Church would only support the health care bill if it contained restrictions on abortion.

For years the Catholic Church has advocated for universal health care and has been an ally of the Democratic Party on this issue; loss of their support would be a major blow for health care reform.The Catholic Church successfully helped deliver a crushing blow to the abortion rights... more