Stupak is as Stupak does
I’m a big believer in reaching across the aisle, but not when it comes to endangering women’s lives and restricting their (legal) choices. The Stupak Amendment reminds us all that we are to always be vigilant and on guard.
Bart Stupak sponsored an amendment to the health care plan that easily passed the House, compared with the struggle it took to get the health care plan itself over the hump. Where we the pro-choice women when this occurred? Asleep at the wheel or in front of Survivor, no doubt.
Listen up.
The overall bill establishes an exchange program where the uninsured can purchase coverage either from private companies or a public option. Federal subsidies will help to cover the costs of people who make less than 400 percent of the poverty level.
The Stupak Amendment will not allow anyone with a public subsidy to get health insurance that covers abortion.
This means that companies selling insurance under this program won’t include abortion coverage because why offer something no one can buy? Even if customers pay out of pocket, they probably won’t be able to find such a policy because the numbers of people who could afford to purchase it would be too low for the companies to realistically offer it.
Separate insurance riders won’t be readily available either, as is already the case in states where this sort of policy is already in place. (Big ups: Idaho, Kentucky, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma!)
A previous version of the bill already kept federal money far far away from abortion services without going overboard. Women already pay more than men for health insurance. Now the government is cutting back on the services women are entitled to receive for that money.
Unfair.
But it’s not too late. Urge your Senator to keep these restrictions out of the Sentate Health Care Reform Bill.
Before it *is* too late.
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Catherine Durkin Robinson
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she’s crafty
I rarely disagree with you, if ever. Maybe there is more to this, Stupak bill, than I understand. However, I’m not sure that I entirely agree that abortion should be covered. We talked about this the other day and you know I am not against abortion. However, I feel that it is expecting something to be covered that is in reality a choice not a necessity. I also understand that we as liberals can be just as prickly about our beliefs as those other people, but this is one that I’m not so riled about. All in all, and it’s going to sound awful putting into a dollar amount… an abortion costs less than most peoples car payments. Truthfully, first instinct. It’s never an absolute.
Bethe,
You do realize that abortion choice and not a necessity has nothing to do with it.
After all, do you see a similar prohibition on Viagra? Birth control pills? Vasectomies?
The Stupak Amendment (Daily Show had a picture of a t-shirt with an arrow pointed to the side and the phrase “I’m with Stupak”) may be necessary to get the bill through Congress (and just continues the prohibition that was in the Hyde amendment).
As the late Ted Kennedy said, “Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
I meant:
You do realize that abortion being a choice and not a necessity has nothing to do with it.
I relly shood proofreed mystuff b4 I post.
I’ve heard this amendment doesn’t allow any insurance company on the exchange to offer abortion coverage for any reason whether gov’t money is used or not. Is that true?
“Reaching across the aisle”?
Not quite, only one republican came over to vote yes.
I support this bill as amended and passed. We need to expand health care and Obama needs to move on to other critical issues.
Please tell your senator to vote yes!
The republicans are hypocrites, their own health plan covers abortion: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143936/hypocrisy_watch:_rnc_insurance_plan_has_covered_abortions_for_18_years/
The following Representatives in Florida Sided With Insurance Companies (and against working families) on the Health Care legislation HR 3962.
Voting no:
Democrats: Boyd, Kosmas.
Republicans: Bilirakis, Brown-Waite, Ginny, Buchanan, Crenshaw, Diaz-Balart, L., Diaz-Balart, M., Mack, Mica, Miller, Posey, Putnam, Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen, Stearns, Young.
My Representative, Kathy Castor helped pass it but may vote no on the final bill over Stupak. I ask her to continue to support this good health care bill with or without Stupak. Video:
http://newsouthstpete.blogspot.com/2009/11/representative-kathy-castor-on-hr-3962.html
I’ve kind of wondered how big a game changer Stupak really is. It seems the issue that’s really limiting the ability of lower income women to exercise their right to choice is access to a provider, not necessarily money.
Should national health care of some stripe go in, it doesn’t seem an unlikely assumption to think states with the lowest personal incomes will be those most likely to have high rates of ‘public option’ utilization. Currently, Louisiana has the dubious honor of being the “poorest” state in the union. However, Louisiana also has some of the nation’s most restrictive anti-choice laws. In fact, there are very few abortion providers in the whole of Louisiana. While correlation is not causation, there does seem to be a parallel that states with the strictest anti-choice laws tend to not only have fewer abortion providers and lower per capita incomes.
The point is, many women right now not only don’t have a health insurance plan (or health insurance period) that covers abortion but even if they did they, only have limited access to facilities and providers to get one.
Stupak is stupendously mean spirited, but it seems like just an exercise in political sophistry. It’s essentially meaningless except to those self-righteous Representatives that will now use it for political hay back in there benighted little constituencies.