Members of the HCAN coalition are divided about the Stupak amendment to HR 3962. Some are pro-life. Most of are pro-choice.
As a organization, however, we are working to remove the Stupak amendment from both the Senate bill and the bill that comes out of the conference committee.
What’s Wrong With The Stupak Amendment
In our view, the Stupak amendment is not about federal funding for abortion. It is much broader than that. It prevents millions of women from getting insurance coverage that covers abortion services and that is widely available now.
From the beginning of our campaign, we have said that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. Yet for the millions of women whose current insurance plans include coverage for abortion care, that promise will be broken if the Stupak amendmetn becomes law.The unamended bill maintained the status quo. Those who wanted to purchase either a private or public policy that offered abortion coverage had to pay for that portion of the insurance with their own funds, not the federal subsidy. There would have been an additional costs to purchase insurance that covered abortion services and this would have been paid for with private funds by everyone, including those who received a subsidy for the rest of their insurance coverage.
The House bill without the Stupak amendment contained a compromise that reflects the status and & current law. It prohibited federal funds from being used for abortion but still allowed women to use their own money to buy the coverage they need. Insurance in the Exchange will, for most people, be paid for by a combination of an individual’s own funds and government subsidies. Those who have incomes about the threshold for a subsidy will pay for insurance with their own funds. This is true both for those how buy private insurance and those who purchase the insurance under the new public health insurance option.
Under the Stupak amendment the public option will not be able to offer insurance that covers abortion. And private insurance policies that are paid for in part with any public funds will not be allowed to cover abortion. So, even though most private insurance plans cover abortion today, millions of women who get coverage through the Exchange, from private or public insurance, will not be able to get coverage for abortion services. That is a step back from the status quo, a slap in the face to women, and a major infringement on the availability of affordable abortion.
Women will be able to buy coverage for abortion outside of the Exchange. But women today buy insurance policies as a whole not in pieces and typically don’t buy insurance for abortion alone. And since abortion is, almost by definition, a procedure that is unplanned, it is not something for which women are likely to purchase a separate insurance policy.
What We Intend To Do
We are going to work very hard to keep the Stupak amendment out of the Senate legislation and the conference committee bill. We expect to be successful. we believe that the bill that Majority Leader Reid introduces this week will not include the Stupak language. Thus the filibuster will work to our advantage since it will take 60 votes to add the language as an amendment to the bill.
We will be phone banking Senators Specter and Casey to ask them to vote against such an amendment. And if we need to find some compromise that morec clealry prohibits the use of public funds for abortion without going any further, we are hoping Senator Casey will take a leadership role on the issue.
If the Stupak language is out of the Senate bill, it is not likely to be in the conference bill.
The difficulty will be when the conference committee bill returns to the House. Some members of the House will receive enormous pressure to vote against the whole bill if the Stupak amendment is not included in it.
We are going to do everything we can to counter that pressure.
Why we are thanking members of the House
And if you wonder why we thanked a number of members of Congress in Pennsylvania who voted for the bill and the Stupak amendment, the reason is this: These members of Congress are in districts where, even though the legislation serves the constituents well, the Representatives had to work hard to overcome distrust of govenment and build support for it. We wanted to show these members of Congress that there was support in the district for the legislation, that we could help activate it, and that people who appreciate their vote for the legislation would step forward and express that support when the member of Congress needs it.
We never conditioned our praise for members of Congress on their vote for or against the Stupak amendment. We did not expect the Stupak amendment to come up for a vote. It was only a few days before the bill came to the floor that a number of members of Congress, including a few in Pennsylvania, said that they would block the rule—that is, the guidelines for debate and amendment which must be passed before debate and a final vote can take place—unless it allowed a vote on the Stupak amendment.
It was a change in the national debate, with the right to life groups and the National Conference of Bishops endorsing the Stupak amendment, that generated local pressure on some of Pennsylvania members of Congress to suddenly take this position on the rule.
Our Job
So our job in the next six weeks is to change the national and local debates. We need to make clear to everyone that the Stupak amendment goes much further in blocking access to abortion coverage than people realize. It is about more than limiting federal financing of abortion.
Our national partners are going to make that case. And we hope to do so as well in forums in the 4th and 10th Congressional districts and in op-eds and letters to the editor. We need you to help by attending these events and writing some of these pieces.
If we all do what we should, there is a reasonable chance that we can enact this legislation without the Stupak amendment.
The Health Care Bill and Women
I want to conclude by pointing out that, even with the Stupak amendment, this bill is a win for women.
Right now only about 13% of abortions are paid for by insurance. The women who have abortion coverage in their health insurance who might lose it under this bill are mainly working and middle class women who work for small businesses or are self-employed. They are going to want to to purchase insurance in the Exchange because it will be far cheaper. They will lose abortion coverage. Women who have insurance through big companies will, for at least the first four or five years of the bill, not be in the Exchange and keep the insurance they have.
The women who lose abortion coverage will, however, save thousands of dollars a year in insurance premiums, far more than the cost of an abortion in a year, except in the case of women who are having late term abortions, which is not uncommon for middle aged women.
So most women will not lose out in practice immediately. And millions of poor and working class women who have no health insurance now will get it under this bill although they won’t have the chance to get insurance that covers abortion. So, in practice, the legislation with is a win for most women and certainly for poor and working class women.
But it sets a terrible precedent and, as the Exchange grows to include people who work for larger businesses, more and more women will lose abortion coverage in their health insurance.
Health care reform shouldn’t ask women to sacrifice either an important principle or the ability to keep the insurance coverage they have now.
And that’s why we will fight to remove the Stupak amendment from the bill.