Health Bill Includes Abortion Coverage

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Health Bill Includes Abortion Coverage
By AP / RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Wednesday, Aug. 05, 2009Print Email Twitter LinkedIn Buzz up!Facebook MORE...Add to my:
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(WASHINGTON) — Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.



Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the health of the mother. Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan.
(Read "Could Abortion Coverage Sink Health-Care Reform?")

Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange.

Advocates on both sides are preparing for a renewed battle over abortion, which could jeopardize political support for President Barack Obama's health care initiative aimed at covering nearly 50 million uninsured and restraining medical costs. "We want to see people who have no health insurance get it, but this is a sticking point," said Richard Doerflinger, associate director of pro-life activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "We don't want health care reform to be the vehicle for mandating abortion."

Donna Crane, policy director for NARAL Pro-Choice America, said abortion opponents "want an abortion ban in private insurance, and that's not neutrality at all — that's a radical departure from current law. They want something far more extreme than where I think the American public is."

A compromise approved by a House committee last week attempted to balance questions of federal funding, personal choice and the conscience rights of clinicians. It would allow the public plan to cover abortion but without using federal funds, only dollars from beneficiary premiums. Likewise, private plans in the new insurance exchange could opt to cover abortion, but no federal subsidies would be used to pay for the procedure. "It's a sham," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life. "It's a bookkeeping scheme. The plan pays for abortion, and the government subsidizes the plan."
(Read "Why the Blue Dogs Are Slowing Health-Care Reform.")

Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., author of the compromise, said she was trying to craft a solution that would accommodate both sides. Her amendment also would allow plans that covered no abortions whatsoever — not even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — to be offered through the insurance exchange. "With all due respect, not everyone adheres to what the Catholic bishops believe," said Capps, who supports abortion rights. "Our country allows for both sides, and our health plan should reflect that as well."
 
You left out this part: "Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., author of the compromise, said she was trying to craft a solution that would accommodate both sides. Her amendment also would allow plans that covered no abortions whatsoever — not even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother — to be offered through the insurance exchange."
 
So the right want to deny the freedom of the helath care polan participants to choose to have abortion coverage?

Has all this give up your feedom talk from the right just been empty rhetoric?
 
uscitizen said:
So the right want to deny the freedom of the helath care polan participants to choose to have abortion coverage?

Has all this give up your feedom talk from the right just been empty rhetoric?
Click to expand...


No shit.

And what happened to being opposed to faceless bureaucrats stepping between the doctor and patient. I suppose it doesn't apply when the faceless bureaucrat is an pro-life member of Congress and the patient is a woman.
 
maybe people don't want to be forced to pay for someones ABORTION..
who might believe it's the killing of a child..
 
uscitizen said:
So the right want to deny the freedom of the helath care polan participants to choose to have abortion coverage?

Has all this give up your feedom talk from the right just been empty rhetoric?
Click to expand...
This is what I am talking about. Would you trust the government if, say, the SCOTUS did change to something that would allow the criminalization of abortion?

Would they not seek evidence (pregnancies, but no issue) in this kind of information so easily available? Do you believe that they will always do what is right and in the best interest of the nation rather than their own careers?
 
Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the health of the mother.

Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan.
Click to expand...

God damn, fuck that.

You think any of those wingnuts would suggest putting in place restrictions on male reproductive treatments or pharmaceuticals?

Hell no. These elderly wingnuts aren't giving up their viagra.


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Cypress said:
God damn, fuck that.

You think any of those wingnuts would suggest putting in place restrictions on male reproductive treatments or pharmaceuticals?

Hell no. These elderly wingnuts aren't giving up their viagra. [/IMG]
Click to expand...


well, that made a lot sense..:rolleyes:
 
Damocles said:
This is what I am talking about. Would you trust the government if, say, the SCOTUS did change to something that would allow the criminalization of abortion?

Would they not seek evidence (pregnancies, but no issue) in this kind of information so easily available? Do you believe that they will always do what is right and in the best interest of the nation rather than their own careers?
Click to expand...

1. Ex post facto prevents them from prosecuting people for things that were legal when they did it.

2. They could just as easily dig up paper records.
 
Damocles said:
This is what I am talking about. Would you trust the government if, say, the SCOTUS did change to something that would allow the criminalization of abortion?

Would they not seek evidence (pregnancies, but no issue) in this kind of information so easily available? Do you believe that they will always do what is right and in the best interest of the nation rather than their own careers?
Click to expand...

Damo, you are well above the rightie pundits, no question on that.

However at this point privacy is a useless quest. Those who fear and those who lust will diminish the last vesitges of privacy.

Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated into the master database, which is more nearly complete already than most realize.

blame it all on IBM and the net if you want. Once we had those it was inevitable considering human nature.
 
Watermark said:
1. Ex post facto prevents them from prosecuting people for things that were legal when they did it.

2. They could just as easily dig up paper records.
Click to expand...
Yet if this existed when the law changed they could use it to find ones that had violated the law when it existed.

If the paper records were in their records already they could.

You keep getting stuck on the computer side of this. I don't care about that, I care that the government will have access to it. It is none of their business.
 
Damocles said:
Yet if this existed when the law changed they could use it to find ones that had violated the law when it existed.

If the paper records were in their records already they could.

You keep getting stuck on the computer side of this. I don't care about that, I care that the government will have access to it. It is none of their business.
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The government doesn't have to have access to it. It can be run by a private company contracted by the government, or a private company contracted by the insurance companies (mandatorily, and including the public option).
 
Watermark said:
The government doesn't have to have access to it. It can be run by a private company contracted by the government, or a private company contracted by the insurance companies (mandatorily, and including the public option).
Click to expand...
I can sue the company for violations far more easily than I can the government, especially a government that is abusing their authority. I've already told you I would feel more comfortable if such a database were maintained by other than the government.

I would also prefer to have it so that nobody can access the file without a key card and pin or password. Allowing health care workers to access with their password for information necessary for your care. The government should have no access to your information at any time (without a court order of course).
 
Tort reform can take care of that problem damo. After all we would not want the health database companies to have to pay big liability insurance rates now would we?
 
We've got unbeatable majorities in Congress and a progressive president.

With 47 million residents without health insurance at any given time, you'd think that the only debate would be how best to implement the moral imperative of taking care of the less fortunate.

Compassionless conservatives instead weave scare tactics out of thin air and propagandize in a doomed effort to delay the reform that the voters clearly want.
 
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