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Will abortion derail health reform?
November 10th, 2009, 12:25 pm · 43 Comments · posted by Dena Bunis, Washington Bureau Chief
Rep. Loretta Sanchez talks about health reform on MSNBC's Morning Joe.
Forget about the controversy over a public option killing a health reform bill. What happened last weekend over the abortion rights issue has eclipsed that as a major sticking point in the debate.
While those who oppose abortion rights carried the day on Saturday and pro-choice Democrats held their noses on this matter and voted for the bill, the backlash is beginning.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, who describes herself as strongly pro-choice, was on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning and made an interesting point about the numbers. Sanchez said what many don’t realize is that there are probably only 150 of the 435 members of the current Congress who support abortion rights. So she was not surprised the amendment passed. Click here to see that interview.
Colorado Rep. Dianne DeGette is organizing a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying that if the Speaker she thinks their yes votes will be there in the end if the bill that comes out of the Senate also restricts abortion they have another thing coming. Click here to read the letter.
Sanchez, who is home in the district today for the Veterans Day break, said she has not read DeGette’s letter yet.
But the Santa Ana Democrat made it clear that her vote on health reform - which was yes on Saturday - does not hinge on the abortion language.
“I’ve never been a one issue person,” Sanchez said. “I didn’t come to Congress to just be pro choice. It’s an important issue to me. But I’ll have to see the whole bll in context.”
Pelosi basically threw abortion rights over the side on Saturday. The liberal Democrat, who voted against the abortion amendment, calculated that unless she allowed the provision to come to a vote, health reform could die in the House of Representatives.
Pelosi decided she couldn’t take the chance that the 40 Democrats who oppose abortion rights would follow through on their threat to vote no unless they got a vote on that amendment. The provision not only makes it clear that there would be no federal funding for abortion, but that no abortion services would be provided to those who participate in the new federally organized health insurance exchange.
Abortion rights supporters say, however, that this amendment goes beyond the 1977 Hyde amendment, named after former Illinois Repubican Rep. Henry Hyde. The Hyde amendment restricts federal funds from being used for abortions. In this case, because some of the money used to buy insurance in the exchange would be federal and some private, women who wanted to make sure they were covered for abortion wouldn’t have that coverage if they got their insurance through the exchange.
This, critics of the amendment say, will fall hadest on poor and middle class women. Poor women who get their health care through Medicaid already aren’t covered for abortion under that federal-state health program. Yet in some states, including California, state funds are used to provide abortion services to Medical recipients.
Sen. Barbara Boxermet with a group of women senators today to strategize on how to beat back the House amendment on abortion.
Boxer said the House amendment, authored by Michigan Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak “overturned decades of compromise on aboriton which has been respected by both sides of the debate, namely that no fedral funds be used for abortion while private funds can be used in accordance with law.”
The group plans to work to see that the status quo is maintained.
“I just feel confident tht we’re on a very good path once people are really thinking about this in a fair way, ” Boxer said. “We’re going to be able to keep the current compromise - no federal funds but a woman can use he4r own piate fund ian a way she sess fit without th govenrment telling her what to do.”
More on health reform:
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DENA BUNIS, Washington bureau chief, 202-628-6381 or dbunis@ocregister.com
BRIAN JOSEPH, Sacramento correspondent, 916-449-6046 or bjoseph@ocregister.com
JENNIFER MUIR, County government reporter, 714-796-7813 or jmuir@ocregister.com
JOEL WALSH, Washington bureau intern, 202-628-6381 or jwalsh@ocregister.com
MARTIN WISCKOL, Politics reporter, 714-285-2867 or mwisckol@ocregister.com twitter.com/MartinWisckol
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To me the abortion matter is not the deal breaker. I can go either way on that issue. I am adamantly opposed to the gobblement FORCING citizens (middle and lower middle class) to purchase a product from private corporation against their will. There is NO AMENDMENT OR PROVISION in the US Constitution that allows this (and if you disagree quote the amendment that applies). And not only would they FORCE to you buy something you don’t want…..IF YOU REFUSE TO PAY THE PENALTY IMPOSED THEY THROW YOU IN JAIL!!! Even the soviets didn’t do that to their citizens. No soviet citizen was forced to purchase a product against his will or risk fine and jail. This Bill is a HUGE moneymaker for the greedy insurance companies that got us into this mess in the first place. It would extort 30 million people to buy insurance and infuse $50 BILLION new revenue dollars into the insurance and medical delivery industries each and every year!!!
So abortion should not be the bone of contention here. American citizens should be crying that this Bill, as written, is unconstitutional and a violation of their civil rights!!!!
Auto insurance??
If one chooses to drive then one is forced to get auto insurance. Driving is a privilege, not a right.
I get what you are saying, but there is a difference.
The federal government has no control over compulsory auto insurance. That’s wholly a state issue. And there is no written document that gives our federal lawmakers the right to FORCE us to purchase a commercial product from a private corporation. None whatsoever.
I am forced to buy auto insurance if I CHOOSE to drive a car. However, now they are trying to FORCE me to buy health insurance for simply breathing. That is a violation of my civil rights.
This is simply a ploy to transfer wealth from the middle and lower middle class to the corporate insurance pigs. $50 billion a years! This is a payback to the insurance companies from those big campaign donations and under the table bribes!
We will await the news that you have disenrolled yourself from Medicare.
This isn’t medicare. Who are you trying to fool?? Only 2% of the population (the poorest of the working poor) would be part of the public option - READ THE BILL - most would just be FORCED to buy insurance against their will from a swine insurance company under threat of fine and jail. If everyone would be allowed to join a medicare-like program I would be in favor of it. Obama is simply robbing the middle class and lower middle class to enrich his corporate buddies. Obviously they have you fooled. READ THE BILL, Wade! EDUCATE YOURSELF!!!!
Abortion or not, our fearless government can’t even get the H1N1 vaccines out to the general population . . . what makes anyone think they are going to handle heathcare in general any better??
Wake up! You don’t need more government in your life!!
Medicare and the VA are government run insurance. Wake up older Americans and veterans! You don’t need more government in your life…oh, wait.
No, the abortion will not derail this monstrosity. In the end it will all come down to what is Obama willing to spend from the stimulus money to bribe the congressmen (Pro-life) and congresswoman (Pro-choice). After all re-election is more important than any moral or religious conviction. Money buys re-election.
OBAMACARE ENDORSEMENTS: WHAT THE BRIBE WAS
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on TheHill.com on November 6, 2009
As the suicidal Democratic congressmen proceed to rubber-stamp the Obama healthcare reform despite the drubbing their party took in the ‘09 elections, the president trotted out the endorsements of the AMA and the AARP to stimulate support. But these — and the other endorsements — his package has received are all bought and paid for.
Here are the deals:
* The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill…or else!
* The AARP got a financial windfall in return for its support of the healthcare bill. Over the past decade, the AARP has morphed from an advocacy group to an insurance company (through its subsidiary company). It is one of the main suppliers of Medi-gap insurance, a high-cost, privately purchased coverage that picks up where Medicare leaves off. But President Bush-43 passed the Medicare Advantage program, which offered a subsidized, lower-cost alternative to Medi-gap. Under Medicare Advantage, the elderly get all the extra coverage they need plus coordinated, well-managed care, usually by the same physician. So more than 10 million seniors went with Medicare Advantage, cutting into AARP Medi-gap revenues.
Presto! Obama solved their problem. He eliminates subsidies for Medicare Advantage. The elderly will have to pay more for coverage under Medigap, but the AARP — which supposedly represents them — will make more money. (If this galls you, join the American Seniors Association, the alternative group)
The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.
* Insurance companies got access to 40 million potential new customers. But when the Senate Finance Committee lowered the fine that would be imposed on those who don’t buy insurance from $3,500 to $1,500, the insurance companies jumped ship and now oppose the bill, albeit for the worst of motives.
The only industry that refused to knuckle under was the medical device makers. They stood for principle and wouldn’t go along with Obama’s blackmail. So the Senate Finance Committee retaliated by imposing a tax on medical devices such as automated wheelchairs, pacemakers, arterial stents, prosthetic limbs, artificial knees and hips and other necessary accoutrements of healthcare.
So these endorsements are not freely given, but bought and paid for by an administration that is intent on passing its program at any cost.
“despite the drubbing their party took in the ‘09 elections”.
That’s all you need to know about the tone of this article. Since when did negotiating with industries to get a bill passed become “blackmail”?
these democrats need to be arrested and deported to an island of our liking. we are broke, bankrupt, we have no money. we are printing money with no value. who wants free healthcare from a free doctor. are you kidding me. how many free doctors do you idiots know. war is upon us.
Here is how this bill will be implemented. Over time all private insurance will cease to exist and the only option will be a single-payer fee-for-service system like Medicare and Medicaid. Any one who has any experience in this field knows, a single-payer fee-for-service plan will not work as it will practically bankrupt the country. Finally, the government will have to nationalize all aspects of healthcare to maintain costs. Welcome to Cuban style healthcare where all solutions to all problems is a packet of Aspirin tablets.
Why do you only mention Cuba as having socialized medicine? Because they are a communist country and it’s much easier to spit out hyperbole against something that a communist country does? Just about every major world power has some form of socialized medicine. And, last time I looked, those countries are not bankrupt because of it (they maybe for many other reasons, though).
Canada and Britain have it and in most cases, the middle class suffers.
The countries that have successful socialized medicine also have great transportation system, state-of-the-art communication system, and great schools. In other words, the bureaucracy works in those countries. The bureaucracy does not work in the United States. Now, we want to hand-over healthcare to the same bureaucracy.
Socialized medicine does not work in purely socialistic and communist countries. Half of the doctors that are trained in Cuba work aboard so that they can earn enough money to have some kind of a life. In Russia you have to pay a doctor under the table before you get any service.
Check out the tax rate, (all taxes combined - NOT just “Income” taxes), in those countries. Then check out the cost of living.
And for the record, every Governments of Canada, Britain, France, Australia and many others have come right out and said, this very year, that their systems are NOT SUSTAINABLE, and that the only way to “save” them is to switch to a more privatized system.
You’re being fed a garbage stuffed turkey, and you’re eagerly gobbling it up. You’ll have no one but yourself to blame when you vomit it back up.
Unfortunately, by that time, you’ll have SUBSTANDAR healthcare AND you’ll be flat busted broke, right along with the rest of us in this Nation.
A single payor system is much better than what we have now. Compare our system with the rest of the civilized world. They pay half as much as we do, per patient per capita, and deliver better medical outcomes. Right now we are filling up the pockets of the fat insurance companies and enriching the corporate pigs. We pay 2x-5x more for our american made pharmaceuticals than the rest of the civilized world does. We subsidize the rest of the civilized world for their pharmaceutical care. More bribes to the politicians and YOU get hosed. See it for what it is!
sounds like you should be blaming the pharmaceuticals more than the insurance companies (sounds just like every Democratic ad. boo! insurance companies bad! boo!). but it’s also the fault of Congress.
let me know when the House addresses:
- tort reform? (not on the table)
- portability which allows competition by insurance companies on a national level (not on the table)
- disallowing advertising of prescription drugs (not on the table)
these will all lower costs. but other nations don’t have the huge numbers of illegal aliens using E/Rs as their primary care doctors for the sniffles, either. let’s be fair.
Agreed. All I am saying is a single-payer system with fee-for-service is a prescription for disaster. The single-payer system where the cost is managed by the single-payer is a much better model. That is why TriCare works and Medicare does not.
They have single-payor healthcare in Germany, France, Austria, New Zealand, Austrailia, Netherlands, Denmark, Scandanavia, etc…. THEY SPEND LESS THAN HALF OF WHAT WE DO, per patient per capita, AND DELIVER BETTER MEDICAL OUTCOMES!!!!
You can go to India and get a heart bypass operation by some of the best surgeons in the world (trained in the USA) for $20000 tops. Here it would cost you $200000.
Your system is BROKEN, bpsqwerty!
Pull your head out of the ground and face reality!
Why should I have to pay 2x-5x more for american made pharmaceuticals than a german, frenchman, austrian, dutchman, scandinavian, etc??? Why do I have to subsidize the rest of the world for their pharmaceutical care???
ocobserver:
LOOK AT THEIR COST OF LIVING! They’re being TAXED TO DEATH.
Ferretonov - I’ve lived over there. They have a higher standard of living than we do. Most are much happier than americans too. More leisure time and much tighter social networks. Look at all the HIDDEN taxes that we pay that they don’t!!! If you add up ALL the taxes YOU pay in America - fed & state income, property, sales, fees on RE transactions, fees in traffic tickets, fees on your car, fees on utilities, etc…. you pay close to 60% of your income in taxes whether you know it or not. The point that I made is that those nations pay LESS than HALF of what we do to treat the sick, per patient per capita, and deliver better medical outcomes. That FACT has nothing to do with taxes. 30% of our premiums goes to pay the fat insurance man. That would not change one iota under Obamacare. In fact, it would enrich them even more than they are today!
another flawed poll, yes or no.
Flawed, yes, as most of them are.
Howcome there’s no option, “There should be no federal spending PERIOD!”
“National defense?” Who’s guarding the borders while the administration tries to build an empire in the mideast?
Is it just me or has Loretta had some work done?
big time.
Gee that’s not hard to figure out.
Pelosi did that so the republicans would ease up on the health care bill.
I think she used it as strategy.
Does she really think they are that stupid?
Both abortion, and the bill are wrong, and should be eliminated.
.
agreed. are Dem leaders so stupid they think the Americans will be fooled into thinking 2 wrongs somehow make a right?
I don’t want my tax dollars funding wars!!!
just a suggestion, move to France. of course, when terrorists blow up the Eiffel Tower don’t worry, there will be Americans to rush in to help.
You mean like the ones who blew up our world trade centers???
The abortion question is simple: Whose property are you?
If your own body and your organs are not your own property, then whose property are they?
“Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; …”
And anti-abortionism is clearly a religious conviction.
I could give a rat’s a** whether your daughter, wife, or girlfriend wants to kill her fetus. But, don’t ask ME to pay for HER choice with HER body.
Perfect, Rich. Then the Government has NO right to tell me that I have to buy Health Insurance at all!
Excellent. Debate over.
Scuttle this piece of frap Bill and let’s get on with our lives. I’ll take care of MY business, you take care of YOUR business.
Can’t take care of your business? Feel free to ASK for Government help. I’ll handle it myself, thanks.
It seems like two issues eclipse every other debate in America: Abortion and Gay Rights. For now, I’ll just stick to the former.
I am overwhelmingly in favor of Abortion Rights for several reasons.
1.) Abortion rights are crucial to the health of women. I’ve seen women who were so desperate to have an abortion, but who couldn’t get one because of costs or peer pressure, that they tried to perform it themselves. Seeing a woman with intestines accidently yanked out through her vagina is sad and gruesome.
2.) Abortions promote womens’ rights and economic development. Child-rearing is the most common interruption to womens’ career development. Having the ability to stay in the work force allows women to progress in the job, be economically self-sufficient, and changes the power dynamic as more women occupy senior positions.
3.) Abortions keep down the deficit. Face it, kids are expensive. Our government spends so much money on subsidized meals, medical benefits, food stamps, and housing for people who couldn’t afford kids, but did anyways. Plus, every additional person means congested cities and streets, increased competition for already scarce jobs, and another carbon footprint.
4.) Abortions save lives. Ironic, huh? It’s not just the mother’s life that may be at stake during child birth. Also consider all the babies who are left for dead by people, often teenagers, who got pregnant, couldn’t get an abortion, and then ditched the baby in a dumpster or otherwise abandoned them. I think the child would have been better off never being born than forced to endure such cruelty.
There has been more abandoned and abused babies now with legal abortions then in the past. Does not take a genius to figure out that children have become the real victims.
can you prove your statement? I think you need to review the increase in the population and the change in our social values to understand the reasons for the increase in abandoned and abused babies.
Look at the survey question and response options:
Will abortion bring down health reform bill?
* Hope not. Fixing system more important.
* Hope so. Anything that stops this is great.
* It may have to. Can’t sacrifice abortion rights
* It should. No federally-funded abortions ever.
It asked the question but doesn’t have an option to say “NO, It will not”.
Its not about health care reform, or abortion, its all about power and control of our lives. That is truly the message the president and the so called progressives want. Any way this can be stopped is in the best interest of the people.
I’m pro choice but, I don’t support the government paying for the medical procedure. However, if the person can’t afford to pay for the abortion I doubt that she can afford to raise the child. So, will it save the government money to pay for the abortion vs the cost of welfare and all the other social benefits the child would be entitled to? I think the cost to cover the medical procedure would save us tax payers money.
OC: Suppose you’re a devout Christian, in the most fundamental sense…..suppose you’re a Catholic,……or a Buddhist…..or Hindu…..
All of these religions, and more, hold the sanctity of life as one of their most basic tenets. Whether you agree or not, all of these religions hold abortion to be not only immoral, but in some cases, outright Evil, with a capital “E”.
You say that “the Government” should perhaps cover abortion in order to “save us tax payers money.”?
Newsflash: “us tax payers” ARE the Government. The Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, and Hindus included. And it would be US paying for the abortions with our tax dollars. Again….that would include the Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, and Hindus who diametrically oppose abortion.
How can you FORCE these people to pay for abortion, after abortion, after abortion?
You can’t. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to Religious freedom, and expressly forbids the Federal Government from enacting any law which would infringe upon the free expression of religion by ANY citizen, or forces any citizen to violate their own religious beliefs in order to comply with said law.
It’s not quite as clear cut as some make it out to be.
Of course, I’ve argued from Day 1 that this whole BILL is unConstitutional. And if the Federal Government cannot force citizens to fund abortions via their tax dollars, (and they CAN’T, and they SHOULDN’T), then there’s no way in BLUE H*LL they can force tax paying citizens for purchase Health Insurance against their will.
This thing is gonna get UGLY.
Those who argue that this country’s freedom of religion allows religions to hijack the rest of us are wrong. Freedom of religion also means freedom FROM religion. Let’s start taxing the churches to pay the bills for all those babies. You want your religious leaders to stay tax exempt??? Keep them out of our political system!