House Passes Health Care Bill with Abortion Restrictions

NY Times: Abortion Was at Heart of Wrangling, by David M. Herszenhorn & Jackie Calmes:

It was late Friday night and lawmakers were stalling for time. In a committee room, they yammered away, delaying a procedural vote on the historic health care legislation. Down one floor, in her office, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi desperately tried to deal with an issue that has bedeviled Democrats for more than a generation — abortion...

Her attempts at winning them over had failed, and Ms. Pelosi, the first woman speaker and an ardent defender of abortion rights, had no choice but to do the unthinkable. To save the health care bill she had to give in to abortion opponents in her party and allow them to propose tight restrictions barring any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions.

The restrictions were necessary to win support for the overall bill from abortion opponents who threatened to scuttle the health care overhaul.

“If enacted, this amendment will be the greatest restriction of a woman’s right to choose to pass in our careers,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, one of the lawmakers who left Ms. Pelosi’s office mad.

Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, said the bill’s original language barring the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions should have been sufficient for the opponents. “Abortion is a matter of conscience on both sides of the debate,” Ms. DeLauro said. “This amendment takes away that same freedom of conscience from America’s women. It prohibits them from access to an abortion even if they pay for it with their own money. It invades women’s personal decisions."

L.A. Times: House Votes for Ban on Abortion Subsidies, by Kim Geiger:

Reporting from Washington - In a last-minute compromise seeking to secure a majority vote for a healthcare overhaul, House Democratic leaders agreed Saturday to essentially exclude abortion coverage from their bill except for insurance policies paid exclusively with private money.

The amendment, offered just prior to the vote on the healthcare bill, passed 240 to 194.

The compromise won immediate support from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which urged Catholics to "lend their full-throated support" to the Democrats' healthcare bill.

"The bishops' stamp of approval means that this bill is unambiguously pro-life and we will vigorously oppose those who suggest otherwise," the conference said in a statement Saturday.

In a letter to Congress, the National Right to Life Committee described the vote on the amendment as "the most important House roll call on federal funding of abortion" in more than a decade. . . .

The compromise amendment, offered Saturday by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), in effect bans abortion coverage by all plans that are purchased using taxpayer dollars. Abortions could still be obtained by policyholders who pay their entire premiums without government assistance or by individuals receiving federal subsidies in the event of rape, incest or danger to the mother's life.

Abortion rights advocates say the result would be a "de facto ban" on abortion in insurance plans sold under the new exchanges that would be created in the bill, because so many of the customers using the exchanges would be getting subsidies.