The health care reform bills being pushed in the U.S. Congress right now include a new marketplace of government-subsidized insurance and government-run insurance plans that provide federal funding for abortion. As a pro-life person, I cannot support the current state of health care reform legislation, as it essentially overrides the decades-long Hyde Amendment’s restrictions on federally funded abortions.
Furthermore, some news media, abortion advocates and, to some degree, President Barack Obama have inaccurately lumped abortion into the category of common myths about health care reform. It’s an attempt to make little of pro-life concerns, a tactic often used by pro-choice advocates.
Let me go over the facts as I understand them. According to FactCheck.org, Obama’s Aug. 19 statement that health care reform legislation doesn’t include federally funded abortions is inaccurate. House Bill HR3200 has an amendment (the so-called Capps Amendment) offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) that says the public insurance option shall cover abortions allowed under the Hyde Amendment, namely those involving rape, incest or the life of the mother. But the Capps Amendment also allows for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether other abortions would be covered. The current Secretary of HHS is Kathleen Sebelius, who has had a pro-choice political career.
And although the Capps Amendment, as Obama has been apt to point out, does not allow for so-called public money to pay for elective abortions, it still allows for the public plan to pay for those abortions with money derived from the so-called private money from public insurance premiums. That means people who want to opt for the public plan would be paying for abortions through their premiums even if they are pro-life themselves. Furthermore, there would be federal subsidies given to people with low or middle incomes to pay for public insurance or private insurance that covers abortions.
As Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, told the Associated Press, “It’s a sham. It’s a bookkeeping scheme. The plan pays for abortion, and the government subsidizes the plan.”
Moreover, I don’t understand how public plan premiums are not public funds. The money from those premiums would go to the U.S. Treasury, according to National Right to Life.
What is also telling is that the House Energy and Commerce Committee not only adopted the Capps Amendment but also rejected a more moderate compromise submitted by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) that would have retained policies like those in the Hyde Amendment.
The Affordable Health Choices Act before the Senate is also open to include federally funded abortions not relating to rape, incest or the life of the mother, according to the Associated Press.
After his Aug. 19 misrepresentation of abortion in the health care reform bills, Obama released a weekly radio and Internet address Aug. 22 that made the same misrepresentation. “Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform – also false,” he said. At first, I found it naively difficult to accept that Obama blatantly misrepresented the facts, as I thought the president should be so much more informed than I am. But he seems to have fallen into a certain misunderstanding of abortion in health care reform, as have many journalists. I’m not just saying that either. The Associated Press has had opposing fact checks on whether or not the Hyde Amendment restrictions would apply to the reforms.
Now, with all of that in mind, what is disturbing to me is that health care reform in the United States, which I think is an urgent matter, is being undermined as a result of party agendas.
This undermining exists in the form of Republican language about death panels and in the form of Democrats pushing an abortion agenda. Save agendas for later. Almost 50 million Americans are uninsured. Passing health care reform could do without the abortion debate for now.
For an objective look at how the
current health care
legislation would affect the
funding of abortion, visit
factcheck.org/2009/08/abortion-which-side-is-fabricating.
Matt Watson is a graduate student
majoring in Spanish. He can
be contacted at [email protected].