Republicans Playing 'Abortion Card' On Health Reform, American Prospect Opinion Piece States

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 20 Jul 2009 - 3:00 PDT

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The "religious right and its Republican enablers" are "playing the abortion card" with health care reform legislation by contending that "federal government dollars will pay directly for abortions," according to an American Prospect opinion piece by Dana Goldstein, an associate editor for the magazine. It is "unlikely" that federal money would be used this way, but the groups "want grassroots conservatives to believe it will, hoping the resulting outcry will scuttle attempts to reform our expensive health care system," Goldstein continues. She writes, "This rhetoric is beyond hyperbolic -- it is downright deceptive."

Goldstein quotes Adam Sonfield, a senior policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, who said discussion of family planning in federal law "'never includes abortion.'" She adds, "In actuality, 'family planning' language refers exclusively to contraceptive services, in part because of the Hyde Amendment," which bars the use of federal Medicaid dollars for abortion. She also notes that reproductive health issues are "so politicized ... that even to offer birth control to poor women who do not meet Medicaid's strict eligibility requirements, individual states must apply for a waiver from the federal government." About half of states have done so, she says. In "choosing what services to cover under any potential public insurance plan," the HHS secretary "will likely be bound by all of the existing laws that prevent the federal government from financing abortion," according to Goldstein. She adds, "None of these restrictions would be explicitly overturned by any of the health reform proposals currently being considered in Congress."

Antiabortion-rights Senate Republicans have said they will oppose any health reform bill "that subsidizes abortion coverage or even includes, in the proposed health insurance exchanges, private insurers that cover abortion," Goldstein writes. She adds that 87% of existing health plans include some abortion coverage, meaning that most women would lose coverage under the Republicans' demands. "The result would be a near-blanket restriction on women's access to insurance-subsidized abortion, one far more radical than the Hyde Amendment," Goldstein says. Meanwhile, women's health advocates have said that overturning the Hyde Amendment is not currently their top priority because "they are simply too busy playing defense on health reform" and do not have the votes, Goldstein writes.

According to Goldstein, by "playing the abortion card, the real goal of anti-choicers is not only to maintain existing restrictions on abortion access, but to use health reform as a vehicle to expand them to the majority of American women." She writes, "If such efforts lead to legislative impasse, many conservatives will be delighted." She concludes, "After all, they've never really put any political muscle behind fixing our inadequate health care system" (Goldstein, American Prospect, 7/14).

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