Senate Majority Leader Reid announced that he will include a “public option” (government-run insurance plan) in the final Senate health care reform bill. While the language of the final Senate bill, like the final House bill, is not available for public consumption, it is not hard to predict what the inclusion of a “public option” means for abortion funding and coverage.
Reid’s bill is a conglomeration of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Bill, the Senate Finance Committee (Baucus) Bill, and whatever else the Democratic leadership wants. While the HELP bill included a public option; the Baucus Bill did not, including a “co-op” instead. The HELP bill did not state whether or not abortion coverage would be included in the public option; it left that decision to an administrative agency. The Baucus bill specified that private plans could not be forced by an administrative agency to provide abortion coverage; however, it did not speak to a public option because it did not have one. So, how do we know that the public option in Reid’s bill will include abortion coverage and funding?
Look across the Hill: The Capps Amendment, added to the House health care reform bill (H.R. 3200) explicitly allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to include abortion coverage in the public option. The amendment also requires funding of such abortion coverage if the Hyde Amendment is ever eliminated from the Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) annual appropriations bill.
What does this have to do with the Senate?
The abortion provisions in the Baucus bill were carefully modeled after the House Capps Amendment – the only reason the public option provision is missing is because the Baucus bill lacked a public option. Therefore, it is highly likely that Reid will borrow the Capps public option provision and apply it to the public option in his own bill.
Even if Reid does not borrow the Capps language for his public option provision, administrative agencies and the courts are certain to include abortion as a mandatory minimum benefit in the public option, as they have done with statutory language in the past (see The Vulnerable Hyde Amendment and Abortion Mandate Flow Chart).
That is why health care reform, including any public option, must include explicit language prohibiting abortion coverage and funding. However, amendments to add such language were defeated in both the HELP and the Finance Committees.
So while AUL does not support or oppose the public option itself, we have grave concerns about what the inclusion of a public option will mean for thousands of unborn children, and for the American taxpayer who does not want to pay for abortions.
TAKE ACTION: Join Team Life via AUL Action’s RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com and make your voice heard in Washington.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I too fully oppose the Abotion clause and lack of a concrete wording prohibiting any federal or any other source of funding by the U.S. Government for abortions here in the United States, or anywhere in the world, by the U.S. Taxpayer.
I, also, oppose the abortion clause and any
federal or any other source of funding by the U.S.
Government for abortions in the U.S. or any other
place in the world by U.S. taxpayers. This is
MURDER!! Life being deliberately destroyed! Is
there something you don’t understand here or is it
your lack of COMMON SENSE!
It just blows my mind that our President and some of our elected Representatives have not seriously reflected on what Abortion is. There is no way of getting around it. ABORTION IS MURDER!!! They are taking away a fundamental right to life. It is very hard for me to fathom that a human being can be so calloused as not to see how brutal an abortion is. Do they not realize that they have to answer to the Creator of these precious little ones for this brutality??? I just do not understand. I have contacted my representatives over and over again and it just does not seem to make a difference. It seems to me that my concern for the life of the unborn fall on deaf ears and hardened hearts. I can’t believe they can be so heartless and hard. I find it VERY FRUSTRATING!
It just blows my mind that our President and some of our elected Representatives have not seriously reflected on what Abortion is. There is no way of getting around it. ABORTION IS MURDER!!! They are taking away a fundamental right to life. It is very hard for me to fathom that a human being can be so calloused as not to see how brutal an abortion is. Do they not realize that they have to answer to the Creator of these precious little ones for this brutality??? I just do not understand. I have contacted my representatives over and over again and it just does not seem to make a difference. It seems to me that my concern for the life of the unborn falls on deaf ears and hardened hearts. I find it VERY FRUSTRATING!
I appose all abortions wheather the tax payers money or privite venture capital. No one has the right to take the life of another human being except the Creator of Life and that is God. And we are not Him. Where is our moral code of living, that was given to us by God.