Government Insurance Would Allow Coverage For Abortions

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_health_care_overhaul_abortion

Check this out. I thought it was worth sharing. Please post your thoughts! :)

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/god-and-country/2009/08/05/does-obamas-healthcare-plan-fund-abortion-take-5.html

Does Obama's Healthcare Plan Fund Abortion? Take 5
August 05, 2009 02:30 PM ET | Dan Gilgoff

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Rep. Lois Capps's office calls to point out that the Capps amendment to the House healthcare bill isn't silent on how abortion would be funded in the public health insurance option, as I wrote yesterday, but that it prohibits federal money from funding such abortions because the public option must abide by the same rules as the private plans offered through the proposed health insurance exchange. So the debate over whether the government funds abortion through the healthcare bill is over whether the Capps amendment really uses premiums paid by individuals—as opposed to federal funds—to pay for abortion.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, calls the Capps amendment's segregation-of-funds clause a "bookkeeping sham" because money from the government, individuals, and employers effectively goes into the same pot to finance health insurance benefits. But Democrats note that the amendment stipulates that government "affordability credits are not used for purposes of paying for services" that are prohibited under the Hyde Amendment, which bars Medicaid from using federal funds for abortion except in limited circumstances.

Should congressional Democrats decline to reauthorize Hyde amendment—which must be voted on each year with the appropriations bill for the Health and Human Services Department—the Capps amendment stipulates that federal funds could finance abortion. But President Obama's 2010 budget left the Hyde Amendment in place. And Democrats say a fight over the Hyde Amendment, and abortion, should be separate from the debate over a healthcare bill.

I really don't know what's going to happen with this, but the way I look at it is basically this: If religious organizations get tax breaks, why can't a government health plan cover abortions?

reform, and do think they should be separate issues. Ideally they wouldn't, but the brains in this country just aren't there yet.

Having said that, abortions are legal.

If religious organizations get tax breaks, why can't a government health plan cover abortions?

Could you explain this?

On its face, it makes no sense whatsoever.

This is related to a debate I had with someone over universal health care. Someoene said that they were Christian and didn't want their tax dollars going to fund someone's abortion because it violated her religious beliefs. So, I replied with: "if religious organizations get tax breaks, why can't a government health plan cover abortions?" Basically, my point was that seeing as how the woman wanted a rule about health care based on religious rhetoric, if tax breaks can break the separation of church and state, why can't a secular medical procedure be covered by the government? I was showing how it would be hypocritical for a religious institution to be sponsored by the government while at the same time a legitimate medical procedure was not being covered by the government.

seems to always be left in place! Saying that, I don't understand how a procedure that is legal can be denied. Makes no sense to me.

it's just a question of who's paying for it.

There are many procedures that are legally allowed, but insurance doesn't cover all of them.

It depends on the area where you live. While there may be dozens of insurance companies across the country, the simple truth is that other than a few really populated areas, most people only have a choice of a handful of companies.

In the areas where abortion is politically popular, it is covered, in other areas, it is hit or miss. One of the major roadblocks a public option faces is the nationalization of what is covered, and what is not.

Women give birth. Women get pregnant. That is what happens. Does society think women are so evil that we get pregnant on purpose just so we can get an abortion?

Give us some goddamn birth control without making us feel less of a person for not wanting to become pregnant. Women are not fruit trees; we do not have to produce every year to make the world go round.

Why do women have to be slaves to their bodies? To children? Who do men think they are? Men are not Gods that is for sure. Seems men want to have it both ways, always. Please stop hating the human race.

Women deserve freedom too!

Indeed. And when a woman is pregnant, she needs healthcare. What healthcare she decides to get is up to her. And any insurance plan that covers any healthcare associated with pregnancy must cover all.

When I had recurring respiratory infections as a young adult, having had tonsillitis throughout my childhood, I was offered a choice of having a tonsillectomy or not. The tonsillectomy was entirely elective; it was one form of healthcare to deal with a medical problem. Nobody told me that my care would be covered if I chose to keep seeing doctors and getting antibiotic prescriptions for respiratory infections but not if I had tonsillectomy. My business, nobody else's.

Having said that ... abortion services were the wedge issue that killed single payer healthcare in California some years ago. Sometimes you have to work with the material you've got.

A few right-wing fundie assholes in Canada carry on a lonely battle to delist abortion from covered healthcare services. We have better material to work with here, and we already have universal health insurance, so we have the luxury of not having to make a choice that you may not have down there.