Jill Stanek does a good job, in my opinion, of uncovering the primary issue in the rush to provide (semi-) national health care: abortion. Jill quotes from Time magazine, July 8:
Should government-subsidized health coverage pay for abortion procedures? For more than three decades, that question had seemed pretty much settled. The Hyde Amendment, passed by the House on Sept., 30, 1976, forbade Medicaid — a program for poor people, jointly administered by Washington and the states, which had, up till then, paid for about 300,000 abortions a year — from using any federal money to pay for the procedure. All but 17 states followed suit, banning use of their own funds as well; with a few modifications, the ban has stood up ever since.
The prospect of sweeping health reform, however, has reopened the issue. While current versions of the legislation do not address the abortion issue at all, late last month, 19 antiabortion Democrats in the House sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, warning that they “cannot support any health-care-reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health-insurance plan.”
Then, on the other side (continuing the article):
If an explicit ban on abortion coverage were imposed, say sources involved in writing the legislation on Capitol Hill, it could have much further-reaching implications than the Hyde Amendment ever did. It could, in fact, have the effect of denying abortion coverage to women who now receive it under their private insurance plans. Nearly 90% of insurers cover abortion procedures, according to a 2002 survey by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization whose statistics are relied upon by both sides of the abortion debate.
Perhaps it’s time that you call the Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121 and let your voice concerning federally-funded abortion be heard.
