House GOP to Raise Abortion Questions as Health Overhaul Markup Begins
House GOP to Raise Abortion Questions as Health Overhaul Markup Begins
July 15, 2009
By: Alex Wayne
Anti-abortion Republicans are escalating efforts to draw a link between the divisive, emotional issue and Democratic efforts to overhaul the health care system.
House GOP to Raise Abortion Questions as Health Overhaul Markup Begins
July 15, 2009
By: Alex Wayne
Anti-abortion Republicans are escalating efforts todraw a link between the divisive, emotional issue and Democraticefforts to overhaul the health care system.
The health care overhaul bill (HR 3200) would authorize a new appointed committee to recommend minimum benefits that all health insurers would be required to offer. Without a prohibition against including abortion among those benefits, the Republicans said, history suggests insurers will be required to cover the procedure.
"This legislation will mandate and subsidize abortion and then tax the Americans who stand for one of the very principles that this nation was founded on — the right to life," Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said on July 14.
Pitts said he will introduce amendments to the bill at the Energy and Commerce Committee's markup, beginning Thursday, that would prohibit requiring insurers to cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's life is in danger.
Hyde Amendment
Democrats portray the issue differently. A longstanding provision in the annual spending bill that funds the Department of Health and Human Services prohibits Medicaid from paying for abortions. Democrats who support abortion rights have long chafed at the inclusion of the amendment, which is named for Rep. Henry J. Hyde, R-Ill. (1975-2007), but they have not tried to remove it since taking over Congress in 2007 for fear of inflaming abortion opponents.
But those Democrats say Republicans are now simply trying to expand the Hyde prohibition to apply to all health care services, and they won't stand for it.
"I think that if anti-choice Republicans or others see this as an opportunity to expand prohibitions on a legally allowed and medically appropriate practice, then they are wrong," said Diana DeGette, D-Colo., vice chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. "We are not going to use the health care bill to expand prohibitions on a legal medical practice, period."
In that case, Republicans say, the slow decline in the number of abortions performed in the United States over the last three decades will likely be reversed. There were more than 29 abortions per 1,000 women ages 15-44 in 1980, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute. The rate fell to 19.4 per 1,000 women by 2005.
The Guttmacher Institute, founded by a former president of Planned Parenthood, says that one in four Medicaid-eligible women who wish to terminate their pregnancies are instead forced to carry their children to term because the program will not pay for abortions.
Anti-abortion Republicans say that's a good thing: "Millions of children walk the earth today because of the Hyde amendment, because the money wasn't there to fund their destruction," said Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J.
Most people with employer-sponsored insurance also must pay for abortions out of their own pocket. "Most insurers offer plans that include this coverage, but most employers choose not to offer it as part of their benefits package," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's trade association.
Drawing Conclusions
There is no language regarding abortion in the House health care overhaul, and Democrats say they do not intend to require that insurers and employers cover abortions under the bill.
But Pitts, Smith and their allies say logic suggests that abortion will be a required service under the minimum benefit standards that the bill would authorize the Obama administration to create. President Obama, who supports the right to an abortion, has said that he considers reproductive health care an essential health service.
Smith pointed to similar cases in the past. In 1983, he won passage of an appropriations rider that forbade the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) from covering abortion. But the amendment was not renewed in 1993 and 1994, when President Bill Clinton was new in office and Democrats controlled Congress.
The FEHBP covered abortions during that period. But Smith won passage of his amendment again in 1995, and the program has not covered abortions since.
Pitts said he does not expect to win approval of his amendments at the committee level, but that he might attract more support on the House floor.
That is, of course, if he can get the Rules Committee to allow them on the floor. Smith said the committee has barred three of his abortion-related amendments already this year, ruling them out of order.
The issue has the potential to complicate House passage of a bill already viewed with suspicion by some moderate members of the Democratic Caucus. On June 25, 19 anti-abortion House Democrats sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying they could not support "any health care reform proposal unless it specifically excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan."