Abortion

Stupak Fires Back At GWU Study, Says Abortion Amendment No Big Thang

Brian Beutler | November 21, 2009, 11:16AM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) takes issue with a George Washington University study, which found that his anti-abortion amendment to House health care legislation would ultimately cause insurance companies to stop covering abortions altogether.

"The idea that insurers will stop providing abortion services because of the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment is nothing more than speculation," Stupak says, in a statement to TPMDC. "There is no language in this amendment that in any way prohibits private health insurance companies from offering these services."

To the contrary, the amendment clearly states, "nothing in this section shall restrict any nonfederal QHBP offering entity from offering separate supplemental coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section." The language in Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts is completely consistent with Hyde language, which in its 30 years of existence has not inhibited private health insurers from offering abortion services. There is no reason to believe a continuation of this policy would suddenly change that.

It should also be pointed out that the Federal Employee Health Benefit plan, with more than 8 million members, does not allow abortion coverage. Yet the companies that offer abortion free plans to federal employees also offer plans with abortion coverage to private individuals. Given insurance companies are already offering separate plans with and without abortion coverage it seems unlikely it will be a significant hardship to continue to do so on the Exchange.

The GWU study concluded that insurance companies would respond to the abortion restrictions in the Stupak amendment by whittling down abortion coverage over time until they stop offering it altogether--a business decision not strictly mandated by the legislation itself, but the impact would be the same. .

Abortion

Nebraska Republican: A Vote To Proceed Is A Vote For Abortion

Brian Beutler | November 19, 2009, 2:42PM

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE).

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) better have a chat with his friends on the other side of the aisle.

At a press event this afternoon, Republicans lambasted the Senate health care bill for not adopting the language in the House's Stupak amendment, and reiterated their point that a vote to proceed to debate may as well be a vote for abortion.

"This first vote is the key vote," Nelson's Nebraska colleague, Sen. Mike Johanns, told reporters today.

That statehood camaraderie isn't likely to be lost on Nelson, who will soon have to decide whether to vote to allow the bill to proceed to debate. Nelson has gone to great lengths to distinguish this early procedural votes for more consequential votes down the line. But he says he still hasn't decided what his next move is, and isn't too pleased with the abortion provision in the Senate health care package.

Health Care

GOP Claims Senate Bill Forces Taxpayers To Pay 'Abortion Fee'

Christina Bellantoni | November 19, 2009, 2:39PM

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH)

House Minority Leader John Boehner's office has posted a long statement blasting the Senate health care plan, specifically targeting the abortion provisions with an accusation it levies an "abortion premium fee."

As we have been reporting, abortion has been a major negotiating point, though the Senate version of the health care bill seems to be winning approval from pro-choice lawmakers today.

Boehner (R-OH) claims on his blog that "a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan" under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's plan.

The GOP office says:

"It's right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under 'Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.' The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services. ... The Commissioner must charge at a minimum $1 per enrollee per month.

We've asked senate officials for a response and will update when we hear back.

After the jump, the language from page 122 (and more) of the bill related to abortion. Read the bill in full here.

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Abortion

Senate Abortion Provision Wins Support Of Key Pro-Choice Democrats

Brian Beutler | November 19, 2009, 1:54PM

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

We now have much more clarity on how the abortion provision in the Senate health care bill will work, and it's won the support of both senior administration officials, pro-choice Senators, and the co-chair of the House pro-choice caucus.

"I am pleased that the U.S. Senate has maintained current law when addressing the abortion issue," says Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) in a statement to reporters. "By adopting a common-sense abortion provision, the U.S. Senate ensures that no federal funds will be spent on abortion coverage while not further restricting a woman's right to choose. The health care bill is about providing access to quality health care to over 36 million Americans. I encourage the U.S. Senate to work towards producing a bill that works for everyone."

DeGette included a breakdown of the Senate's abortion provision, which I've included below the fold. One of the key sections reads, "Issuers of health insurance plans that offer coverage for abortion beyond those permitted by the Hyde amendment must segregate from any premium and cost-sharing credits an amount of each enrollee's private premium dollars that is determined by the Secretary to be sufficient to cover the provision of those services."

Which is a fancy way of saying insurers will have to set up an accounting system to keep private money separate from federal money, and only draw upon the private money when paying providers for abortion. Compare that to the Stupak amendment to the House bill, which both requires separation of funds, but also prevents women who receive federal premium assistance from purchasing policies that cover abortion, and it's no wonder Harry Reid's compromise is being met with praise by pro-choice members.

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Abortion

National Right to Life Committee: Shame On Reid

Brian Beutler | November 19, 2009, 1:09AM

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)

The National Right to Life Committee blasts the Senate health care bill for allowing people who receive federal premium assistance to purchase insurance that covers abortion.

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nv.) has rejected the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts Amendment and has substituted completely unacceptable language that would result in coverage of abortion on demand in two big new federal government programs," reads a statement from NRLC director Douglas Johnson. "Reid seeks to cover elective abortions in two big new federal health programs, but tries to conceal that unpopular reality with layers of contrived definitions and hollow bookkeeping requirements."

The key: "the bill creates new tax-supported subsidies to purchase private health plans that will cover abortion on demand."

The Stupak amendment to the House bill would prevent anybody who receives such subsidies from buying insurance that covers abortion, except in rare instances.

You can read the entire statement below the fold.

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Health Care

Reid Outlines Bill For Caucus, Warns Conservative Dems That Reconciliation Is Still An Option

Brian Beutler | November 18, 2009, 6:45PM

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)

At a special evening meeting of the Democratic caucus tonight, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid outlined, in broad strokes, the details of his health care bill, which the CBO has found, in a preliminary analysis, will expand coverage to 94 percent of Americans while reducing the deficit. And earlier in the day, during a separate meeting about floor procedure, Reid let three of his party's key skeptics know that if they join Republicans at any stage of the process to block the bill, he still retains the option of passing major parts of it through the filibuster proof budget reconciliation process.

In response to a question from TPMDC Nelson told reporters that, at a meeting this afternoon with Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Reid "talked about process, procedure, discussion about reconciliation and a whole host of issues of that sort."

"Nobody's really jumping up and down to push for reconciliation," Nelson said, "he's not threatening that, but anybody can conclude that if you don't move something on to the floor, that is one of the possibilities."

Nelson said he has still not committed to vote for even the first procedural vote, but in a sign that he's leaning toward bringing a bill to the floor, he emphasized his view that the floor debate is a chance to improve the legislation. "I wanted to make it clear that that is, unlike some are suggesting, is not the vote...it's a motion to enter into the debate and possible amendments and improvements of the legislation" Nelson said. "The vote is the second cloture vote, and that is the cloture on a motion to cease debate, and I wanted that clear, because I've already begun to see people out there say, 'oh no, no, if you vote [to take it up] you've voted for health care."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has explicitly stated that the Republican party will treat Democrats who vote for any procedural motion as if they've voted for the entire health care bill.

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Abortion

DeGette: Study Confirms Radical Implications Of Stupak Amendment

Brian Beutler | November 18, 2009, 2:26PM

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

I just spoke with Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, who insisted that the findings of a new George Washington University study confirm many of her suspicions about the Stupak abortion amendment.

"Certainly if it doesn't confirm my suspicions about the intent, it concerns my suspicions about the effect the Stupak amendment would have," DeGette said. "What the findings show are that women who want to purchase policies with their own money--with their own premiums--will not be able to buy insurance policies.... That's frankly the intention of the anti-choice movement now."

DeGette says she's spoken in private to many of the pro-life Democrats who voted for the Stupak amendment, some of whom have acknowledged that they didn't realize what they were voting for.

"I will say that I have spoken privately with several pro-life members about the Stupak amendment, and they acknowledged that the Stupak amendment goes far beyond where they thought it did," she told me.

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Bart Stupak

Study: Stupak Amendment Will Eliminate Abortion Coverage 'Over Time For All Women'

Brian Beutler | November 18, 2009, 10:56AM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

A new study by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services adds some expert imprimatur to what many progressives have been saying all along: The Stupak amendment to the House health care bill--which will prevent millions of women from buying health insurance policies that cover abortion--is likely to have consequences that reach far beyond its supposedly intended scope.

The report concludes that "the treatment exclusions required under the Stupak/Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange."

In other words, though the immediate impact of the Stupak amendment will be limited to the millions of women initially insured through a new insurance exchange, over time, as the exchanges grow, the insurance industry will scale down their abortion coverage options until they offer none at all.

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Abortion

DeGette: Stupak Agenda Is Much Wider Restrictions On Abortion

Brian Beutler | November 13, 2009, 5:24PM

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO)

As co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) is leading the fight in the House to strip the Stupak amendment, which would forbid millions of women from buying comprehensive insurance policies that cover abortion, from the final health care bill. And she takes issue with Stupak's interpretation of the events leading up to the vote that completely changed the stakes of reform debate.

"Basically Congressman Stupak moved the goalposts, and I think it really took [House] Speaker [Nancy Pelosi] and other people by surprise," DeGette told me in an exclusive interview.

She says, after his abortion amendments went down in the House Energy and Commerce Committee (a panel on which she also sits), he demanded he get another crack at it when the Rules Committee set the contours of the floor debate.

"After we defeated him in committee," she said, "he said that he wanted to have an amendment in order on the floor... and that if he didn't have his amendment made in order then he had 40 people to vote against the rule."

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Abortion

CREDO To Send Coat Hangers To Pro-Choice Dems Who Voted For Abortion Restriction Amendment

Brian Beutler | November 13, 2009, 4:36PM

Credo Action Pro-Choice Petition Website

This isn't for the squeamish. It's about as hardball and brutal as it gets.

The liberal group CREDO Action will soon ask over 1,000,000 members to sign a petition condemning the Stupak amendment...and with each signature, CREDO will send a coat hanger to the 20 supposedly pro-choice members of Congress who voted for it.

"We know what happens when women are denied access to reproductive health care including abortion," the petition reads. "And we can't go back to an era of coat hangers and back alley abortions. Reconsider your vote on the Stupak Amendment. Tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that the final health care bill that emerges from the conference committee can't turn the clock back on women's rights."

The email hasn't been sent yet, but you can read the language below the fold.

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Abortion

Stupak Sticks To His Guns, Blames Liberals For Abortion Amendment

Brian Beutler | November 13, 2009, 12:42PM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) says that House liberals backed themselves into a wall during health care negotiations, and got stuck with a harsher abortion amendment than they would have had if they'd just played nice. And now, he says, there's no going back.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Stupak says "Speaker Pelosi went to present [House liberals] what she agreed to with us, that it would be part of a manager's amendment.... [T]hey're the ones who insisted, 'No, Stupak doesn't get to go in the manager's amendment, we want it on the floor.' They're the ones who insisted on bringing it to a vote. They're the ones who wanted to vote against me, they were the ones who said they would win this vote."

If they hadn't rejected the Speaker on Friday night, to use their words, there would have been a less restrictive amendment that would have been part of the manager's amendment. They rejected that. They could not live with it. Even the less restrictive language. And therefore the Speaker came back and said, 'Bart, I'm sorry, but our deal's off. So I have no choice, because we made an agreement, I'm gonna have to give you an amendment,' and I said, 'Well, with all due respect, Madame Speaker, I'm not gonna send the amendment we agreed to, because if the deal's off, then I don't have to hold to that agreement, Hyde-lite, and I'm putting up the original Hyde language that I offered in committee, that Joe Pitts and I offered.' That's why it's called the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

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Abortion

Who Would Be Most Impacted By The Stupak Amendment?

Brian Beutler | November 12, 2009, 2:47PM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

The Stupak amendment has touched off a furious argument among Democratic politicians and elites--one that could tank the entire health care reform project if it's not resolved by the time legislation comes up for a final vote in the House.

For the most part, the argument has been about justice. The Stupak amendment would forbid anybody who receives new government health insurance subsidies from buying policies that cover abortion. So why should women's health care be treated differently than other kinds of health care? Is it fair to prevent women, forced into the health care market, from buying any insurance policy she wants, even if they have some government assistance?

But somewhat less prominently, these same combatants have been at odds about what the practical effect of the Stupak amendment would actually be. There's substantial lack of clarity on that score--many say it's likely that there will be no abortion coverage in the exchange at all, and others hypothesize that, over time, the norms in the exchange will come to dominate the norms across the insurance market. At this point, that's all theoretical. But there is at least some data on the immediate practical implications of the Stupak amendment: It will, at least, directly and immediately impact a small, but growing number of poor and middle-class women.

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Bart Stupak

Think The Stupak Amendment Is Bad Now? It Could Have Been Worse

Brian Beutler | November 11, 2009, 2:57PM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which voted way back in July to advance health care legislation to the House floor. At the time, the legislation stipulated that no federal funds authorized by the bill would be used to pay for abortions, except in cases of incest, risk to the life of the mother, and rape. And at the time, that was good enough.

But even back then, Stupak was trying to strengthen the language in the bill restricting the availability of abortion services under the House health care plan.

A day before the bill passed out of committee, Stupak co-sponsored, and voted for an amendment written by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA)--distinct from the now notorious "Stupak amendment"--that would have limited the government's ability to include abortions in benefits plans to cases of incest, life of the mother, and forcible rape.

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Bart Stupak

Clyburn: Stupak Amendment Won 10 Votes

Brian Beutler | November 11, 2009, 10:15AM

Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-SC)

On Monday, I noted that 40 Democrats had voted for the Stupak amendment--which would prohibit low- and middle-class women from buying health insurance policies that cover abortion--and then voted for final passage of the health care bill. That's a large number, but a key question remained unanswered: How many of those 40 would have voted against the final bill if the Stupak amendment had failed, or not been given a vote?

Well, House Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has some answers.

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Abortion

Key Dem Senators Say Stupak Abortion Amendment Goes Too Far

Brian Beutler | November 10, 2009, 12:54PM

Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), Senator Max Baucus (D-MT)

A number of high-profile senators have come forward today to say that a controversial amendment to House health care legislation that would limit a woman's right to purchase insurance that covers abortions goes too far and should not be a part of the Senate.

At a Capitol Hill event this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid implied that the Stupak amendment exceeds the strictures of the years-old Hyde amendment which prohibits federal funds from financing abortions. "I expect that the bill that will be brought to the floor will ensure..no federal contribution to abortion, and that [the] rights of providers, health care facilities like Catholic hospitals, are protected," Reid said. "The one thing that we're certain to do is to maintain what we have had in the past. I had the good fortune, as did Senator Durbin to serve with Henry Hyde, the Hyde amendment has been a pretty good way to go through this last couple of decades."

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) was more explicit. At a health care event this morning, Cardin said, "The right policy is to avoid coming down on one side or the other on the abortion issue and to handle health care reform as a separate issue."

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Health Care

Pro-Choice Groups Plan Campaign To Get Senate To Reject Abortion Amendment In House Bill

Christina Bellantoni | November 10, 2009, 9:58AM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

The Stupak amendment blocking abortion funding has become the hot button of the left, replacing (for now) the fight over the public option.

As President Obama suggested he doesn't think the measure belongs in the bill, reproductive rights groups are mobilizing to make sure the amendment doesn't make it any farther in the process.

"This is a middle class abortion ban and I don't think women are going to accept it," said Laurie Rubiner, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's vice president of policy.

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Bart Stupak

Controversial Stupak Amendment Sows Anger, Confusion On Capitol Hill

Brian Beutler | November 9, 2009, 6:55PM

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI)

When Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) authored an amendment several months ago to prohibit federal dollars from being used to pay for insurance policies that cover abortion, Democratic leaders and health care principals didn't take his proposal very seriously. As a result it was never subjected to the sort of rigorous analysis that controversial legislation is often treated to. That was a miscalculation. Liberals were forced this weekend to accept the amendment as the price of passing an otherwise progressive health care bill through the House. And now, everyone on both sides of the abortion issue is scrambling to try to figure out what the amendment's language actually means and the practical effect it would have if enacted into law.

As one House Democratic health care aide put it, "there are a ton of unanswered questions."

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Abortion

Nelson: I'll Filibuster A Health Care Bill That Doesn't Include Strict Abortion Restrictions

Brian Beutler | November 9, 2009, 6:32PM

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE)

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) wants Senate health care legislation to contain strict restrictions on abortion funding, much like the House bills now does. And he says he'll filibuster if he doesn't get his way.

"As a pro-life person, I believe that something like the [Rep. Bart] Stupak amendment should be included in the Senate version," Nelson told reporters this evening. "But if it isn't included to that effect, to make it clear that no government money should be used for support, for the subsidies, or direct payments, or even tax credits, should be used to support abortions," he will oppose it.

"If it doesn't make it clear that it does not support abortion, does not pay for abortion, you can be sure I will vote against it."

I asked Nelson if his promise extended to procedural supermajority votes. He had a one word answer: "Yes."

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