The Right-to-Life Lobby Has Some Trumpcare Demands - and Is Not in a Mood for Compromise

June 27, 2017
1:32 pm

By Ed Kilgore

As Senate Republicans deal with the complex process of trying to get to 50 “yea” votes for their version of Trumpcare, the prevailing calculus is about how to keep restive conservatives onboard while throwing money at the concerns of “moderates.” That is why yesterday’s CBO “score” of the bill, bad as it was, provided some glimmer of hope for Mitch McConnell. CBO showed individual market insurance premiums going down in a few years (mainly because the benefits such premiums would cover would shrink), addressing a key demand of conservatives. The score also showed $321 billion in deficit reduction — which in theory gives McConnell a golden slush bucket of $100 billion in free money to give party moderates for concessions like opioid-treatment programs, risk-pool funding, and perhaps a slower phase-out of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. It won’t be easy. With Rand Paul and Dean Heller looking un-buyable, McConnell has no margin for error at all. But it’s not beyond the realm of possibility.

There is another GOP faction, however, that absolutely must be placated for this legislation to pass, and nobody much is talking about it: the anti-abortion lobby. Indeed, here and there you read that McConnell might be able to get Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski onboard by tossing out language “defunding” Planned Parenthood for a year.

That is not happening. Right-to-life advocates, who have veto power over the votes of multiple senators and probably even more House members, are making militant noises not just about the Planned Parenthood language —which, after all, was included in the 2015 “trial run” Obamacare repeal legislation over the objections of Collins and Murkowski — but about an additional provision added in the House that prohibits use of health-care tax credits to obtain private insurance that provides abortion services. Just yesterday Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council conveyed their demands via Breitbart:

<< The expectations of the pro-life movement have been very clear: The health care bill must not indefinitely subsidize abortion and must re-direct abortion giant Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding to community health centers. The Senate discussion draft includes these pro-life priorities, but we remain very concerned that either of these priorities could be removed from the bill for procedural or political reasons. We are working closely with our pro-life allies in the Senate to prevent this from happening as it could result in our opposition. >>

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