I'm inexcusably late getting to this, but I want to draw your attention to Steve Waldman's proposal for defusing the abortion-related vitriol in health care reform. Steve writes:
Lost in the vitriol about abortion is a surprising development: key pro-life and pro-choice leaders both say they don't intend to use health care reform to shift the balance of power in their direction. Activists have said health care reform should reflect the status quo in the abortion stalemate.
That being the case, we need a truly neutral governmental position on abortion, re: subsidizing health care? Steve has an ingenious suggestion for how to get there:
First, let's apply this principle to the "public option" -- a new, government-backed insurance plan that may or may not be included in a final health reform bill. Congress could decree that the basic public insurance option doesn't include abortion but then offer consumers the ability to buy, with their own money, a rider to the policy that would cover abortions. Then the full direct cost of abortion coverage would be unambiguously carried by the consumer who chooses it.
Read Steve's full post for a more complete description of his proposal. I think it's a pretty great solution. Will it make pro-choice folks completely happy? No, but it's a compromise they should be able to live with, in exchange for pro-lifers withdrawing their abortion-based opposition to health care reform.
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If the HR-3200 bill has no specific language on abortion, why would anyone assume that the status quo becomes the default position. If there is no specific language to exclude abortion, then I take it as a given that the objective would be to have the procedure included. There would be some legal definition or precedent used in order to have it covered. I mean really, can anyone imagine a 1000-pg bill that fails to advance the progressives' agenda for including abortion?? Somewhere in this process there has to be an amendment that makes the exclusion as plain as day! Quite frankly, I don't understand why we don't use this issue to open up a secondary front against the entire proposal. When you've got them on the run - keep up the "skeeter'!
I made a similar suggestion back on July 1st on the BlueMassGroup blog: "The only acceptable solution is to remove all controversial and ideological funding from the plan and leave only the most basic uncontroversial medical care, like circa 1980 medical care. Abortion and other extras can be covered by private supplemental plans."
The difference in my ingenious suggestion is that people would choose private supplemental insurance for things like contraception and abortion, organ transplants, etc, that wouldn't be covered by the universal automatic coverage that everyone would get.
Of course, the issue of "pre-existing conditions" looms quite large for abortion insurance and organ transplants, but maybe that could be fixed by forcing people to buy supplemental plans like cell phone contracts, with a two year agreement and penalties for breaking the contract. Hmm, but then, why not skip the insurance all together and just bill the patient for the cost of the operation over a two year period, and have private charities to help poor people who can't pay the actual cost.
J,
what you don't get is that if the sum of the premiums would pay for the abortion than there is no need for insurance. insurance was originally created to SHARE risk and pay for (LARGE) CATASTROPHIC events not as a buying service. there is peanut butter insurance or light bulb insurance. the expense are predictable and small. most abortion cost around 500 bucks, why is there is such a need for this typically rare event.
its the moynihan principle: the genius? of the democratic party is that politics shapes culture. its the same reason gay rights isn't enough, we need gay "marriage". normalize. force cooperation. force people to choose between their livelihood and their beliefs. ostracize anyone who says some act or behavior is better than another. devalue everything valued until everything is the same. and then claim all you want is diverse ideas and tolerance. if people can stand up and say abortion is not "just another medical procedure" than the democrats loose.
PS fertility is NOT a disease and pregnancy is NOT an illness.
Gregson said, "If the HR-3200 bill has no specific language on abortion, why would anyone assume that the status quo becomes the default position."
Because there is already a federal law that prohibits all funding of abortions, except for the mother's health, rape, or incest. If the health care bills do not specifically address abortion, the current law would rule.
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