A Shocking Blow to Women's Health: HR 3962
My source on HR 3962, Timothy Jost of Health Affairs Blog, says this about Saturday night’s big change in the House health care reform bill, the Stupak amendment:
The Stupak amendment ... prohibits the use of any funds authorized or appropriated under the Act “to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage for abortion,” except in cases of rape, incest, or physical life endangerment, even if the abortion coverage is paid for with a separate premium. Private plans can only offer abortion coverage to persons receiving federal affordability subsidies if the coverage is offered as separate supplemental coverage, paid for with premiums that are not subsidized under the Act and that fully cover the administrative costs of the abortion coverage. The public plan may not offer abortion coverage at all. Private plans that participate in the exchange and include abortion coverage (i.e. plans that are sold without affordability credits) must also offer plans through the exchange that are identical in every respect except for not covering abortion. Exchanges are not required to offer plans that cover abortion.
The amendment covers all funds authorized and appropriated under the Act. It is not, therefore, limited to the affordability credits, but also to credits paid to small employers to encourage them to insure their employees and presumably to other programs like school-based health clinics, nurse managed health centers, or health services for Native Americans that are also funded under the Act. (The Act already contained separate abortion coverage prohibitions for school-based and Native American Health Services.
In other words, any plan, public or private, that wants any Federal money, cannot offer abortion services.
As a foster parent who has taken the impoverished, unwanted and neglected children of drug abusers into my home, I can honestly say that in some cases, abortion would have been preferable to the abuse they suffered as babies and children, often homeless, beaten, and unfed. It’s not easy to raise a child: it takes love, training, and a fair amount of money. Children having children helps no one. And the dream of adopting all these kids is far-fetched: most foster children NEVER get adopted.
I’m not talking here about abstract issues of women’s rights, although of course I (a woman) believe in them. I’m talking about grim reality. I took my foster daughter to get an abortion at Planned Parenthood when she got pregnant at 16 by a ne’er-do-well, and now she is a happy mother of 25. She thanks me every day. And by the way, I paid for that out of my own pocket.
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Marcia Angell, M.D.: Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing?
The House Health bill just throws good money after the bad. And because costs will keep rising, there is now a danger that people will conclude reform is impossible, when in reality, we still haven't really tried.
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"In other words, any plan, public or private, that wants any Federal money, cannot offer abortion services."
The Stupak amendment is not as proscriptive as it appears at first glance; it could turn out to be much worse. I understand that this amendment was written for the most part by a Catholic Bishop (please correct me if I'm mistaken about this). Keeping in mind that the Catholic church considers ALL forms of birth control (except abstinence) as being a sin, how long do you suppose it would take, given that this amendment stays in the bill, that ANY form of birth control and/or reproductive care gets ruled as a "preemptive abortion" and coverage is refused? Denying coverage for necessary health care to half of our nation, based only on one's sex, is discrimatory and reprehensible. Get religion out of our politics; it has no place there. After all, that's one of the things that some of our politicians vilify about politics in the Middle East - the heavy influence of religion in government policy-making.
I hope the children you refer to never hear that you think they might have been better off aborted.
I am pro choice but I cannot remember when the right to an abortion included having tax payers pick up the tab.
As tax payers, we don't get to choose where our tax money goes. Besides a great number of abortions are a medical necessity - when the mother's life is in danger. Or the fetus is greatly damaged, deformed, etc.
"In other words, any plan, public or private, that wants any Federal money, cannot offer abortion services."
The author has very succinctly summed up what President Obama said to Congress and the American people.
The President informed us of his decision which had been formulated from his personal, moral and religious beliefs.
So why are people shocked and surprised when Congress attempts to have their bill in agreement with the President.
Most of what people are moaning about the Stupak Ammendment is an application of the Hyde Ammendment that has been law for three decades. The health care bill was never expected to be a means of overturning the Hyde Ammendment.
Whether or not the Stupak ammendment will be the disaster to reproductive rights that some are portraying it as really boils down to one question. How inexpensive and readily available will the supplemental coverage for abortions be? My expectation, and I am not alone in thinking it, is that the private insurers will make abortion supplements for their own plans easily available and nearly free. The reason is that covering an abortion, even a late-term abortion, is way cheaper than prenatal and maternity and infant care. Insurance companies consider abortion coverage a cost-saver. That is why so many employer-provided plans include it.
On the other hand the public option will also not cover abortion even as a supplement. We never should have expected that to be possible under the Hyde Ammendment anyway. So, will private companies step in with an abortion supplement. I can see a creative insurance company offering a plan that includes most forms of birth control, up to 3 doses per year of morning after pills, and elective abortion coverage to people on the public optioon for about $15 a month. That is less than the retail price of the birth control pills alone (but insurance companies don't pay retail).
Hey "faux pro-lifers"- To be REALLY pro-life is to provide at least BASIC health care to all American citizens
Dr. Rick Lippin
Southampton,Pa
http://medicalcrises.blogspot.com
Fanned and faved. Thank you.
How dare you say those children were better off dead than alive.
Because sometimes its true. I was adopted as a child and have always thought my birth mother would have done me a greater favor by having an abortion. My childhood was the stuff of nightmares.
Just being alive does not mean you are better off. If my mother had had an abortion maybe "god" could have sent my soul to someone who actually wanted a child. Not to be adopted by the "good christian" pedophiles who adopted me.
But the difference is that you are speaking for yourself, and not someone else.
As a foster parent who has taken the impoverished, unwanted and neglected children of drug abusers into my home, I can honestly say that in some cases, abortion would have been preferable to the abuse they suffered as babies and children, often homeless, beaten, and unfed.
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incredibly bad logic
This is a bad bill i would like health care reform but this isn't reform this is corporate welfare for the health industry!
Agreed and well said. Health care reform died the day Obama took single payer "off the table". It was buried the day Pelosi double crossed the single payer crowd to get this corporate welfare bill passed with the abortion double cross.
As my husband brilliantly pointed out: what woman ever plans on having an abortion? Therefore, why would they ever buy the additional coverage?
no one plans on having a car accident...
Also true, but getting in a car accident is totally understandable.
Meanwhile getting an abortion is culturally taboo. The vast majority of women think that they, personally, will never be in a position to go get one. Even though the odds are fairly decent that they will get pregnant unexpectedly even WITH precautions.
And the women who think they might need it, can either afford to get "frivolous" coverage like that, or they are women who cant even afford to get birth control (and are at a higher risk of unwanted pregnancy). But if they can't even afford to get birth control, then how could they afford supplemental coverage?
Look, no one's going to buy the extra coverage. Even though I'm sure that ther will be plenty of women out there who will regret it. Rather, it should just be included in the insurance plans people ALREADY get. After all, abortion is a contingency that no one ever wants to have happen, and never forsee happening to them personally, but very well could.
Because that's what insurance is for. Nobody plans on break a leg or getting a brain tumor.
True, but you don't buy coverage specifically for brain tumors.
If you had to, you would never get it because the odds of that happening are so low (for most people). So why spend the extra money in a tough economy?
And if a woman is on birth control, the odds of her becoming pregnant is .001%. Would you spend the extra money on that? No, because a .001% is not really considered much of a risk.
But at the same time it is, becuse that means that 1 out of 1000 women will still get pregnant even though they took precautions............
Besides, wouldn't you wonder about the women who DO buy the extra coverage? Are they just being super cautious, or are they thinking they will probably need it?
It is the 21st century, and I am wondering how much longer American women will have to suffer the indignity of having their reproductive health care rights discussed in a political forum and legislated. Regardless of one's feelings about abortion, can we not as a citizenry find in ourselves the decency to respect a woman's right to make her own choices about the most private of matters. Yet, it is these very same people who cannot respect a woman's choice that are the first to rail against social programs, support abstinence only education, and do nothing to help the plight of the working family. They self-righteously set-up a puritanical Catch-22.
To further add insult to injury, for many years, health insurance companies did not even pay for birth control. Yet, as soon as erectile dysfunction drugs appeared they were covered because we all know how life threatening this can be.
Thank you for crystallizing my feelings exactly here. What you say should be inscribed in stone and put in Washington DC until these rights - and women - are respected.
And now a word from a child who should have been aborted--get the state the heck out of this decision! I have been abused, used, exploited, hungry, and generally unloved by my family. My mother's health broke down and, in the end, many lives were damaged. God's plan? No way!
Thank you for your informative and heartfelt post. It is not right to ask women to take this hit for the team. Republicans know that if they can wedge abortion in their they can destroy healthcare reform. If it makes it out of the Senate, women (and men!) should take to the streets.
Thank you for shining a light on the reality of foster care and adoption. In an ideal world, foster care, adoption, or abortion needn't be practiced; but in our world, it does for many various reasons. Many opponents don't seem to grasp this inevitability.
Yes, many people live in a dream world about "right to life" and what happens to these kids. When I had them in my home, it got very clear to be about right to choose.
You make an important point : very often women who abort an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy do go on to have wanted and desired children who they can actually do a good job of raising. These children would not exist if the woman had to devote her resources to a child she could not afford.
And for those who say, 'why not just give up your baby for adoption ?' and get on with your life, it's not
that simple. There are cultures where it is considered morally responsible to abort a baby and immoral
to give up (or sell) children into situations where they will be raised with no knowledge of their biological family. You may disagree, but from an energetic perspective this version of responsibility makes sense.
Exactly. Many groups would NEVER give a child up for adoption, no matter how unrealistic their visions of their ability to raise it are.
In what cultures is abortion considered more morally responsible than adoption?
Well, 9 out of 10 women in the US whose amniocentesis is positive for Down syndrome choose to abort. I'd say that most of those women sleep well at night and believe they have made a morally correct choice. So, I'd argue, based on Down's fetus abortion rates ( among those women getting prenatal tests like amniocentesis) of 90%, that there is at least a subculture, if not a full-blown culture, in the US that finds abortion to be a morally acceptable choice.
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