Health Reform Should 'Permanently Exclude' Funding Of Abortion Coverage, Family Research President Perkins Writes

Main Category: Abortion
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 29 Jul 2009 - 4:00 PDT

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"No matter what form of health care reform emerges from the current debates and discussion," Congress should include a "provision to the legislation to permanently exclude abortion from taxpayer-funded health care or health insurance," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins writes in a Politico opinion piece. Although some argue that the government "cannot or should not restrict benefits when it purchases insurance, the same way it does when reimbursing directly for medical procedures," that argument "already failed when it came up in the 1990s in the context of Medicaid managed care plans," Perkins writes, adding that the Hyde Amendment was "revised to cover them, as well."

There also are arguments in Congress that "if people can opt for private health insurance that funds abortion and receive a tax break for their purchase of such insurance, then poor people dependent on direct government payments for their health insurance cannot be denied similar coverage," according to Perkins. However, "this presumes that there is no difference between what people may do with their own money and what they may do with the taxpayers' money," Perkins writes, adding that such an argument "makes sense only if we assume it's all the government's money in the end" (Perkins, Politico, 7/28).

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