A Crazy Idea That Just Might Work
December 2, 2009 - 10:00am (Print)
This post originally appeared in America Magazine, the national Catholic weekly
The issue of federal funding for abortion threatens to derail final passage of a health care bill. All sides claim the same goal: Extending the logic of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from covering abortions in any current government insurance program, to the newly configured exchanges and public option. But, translating that goal into legislative language that both pro-choice and pro-life legislators can live with has proven elusive. And, unlike other potential impediments to health care reform, the abortion issue is all about principle, moral principle at that, and so it is not easily the subject of a compromise.
Pro-life groups, most especially the nation’s Catholic bishops, were thrilled when the Stupak Amendment passed the House because it really does bar federal funds from going to pay for abortion coverage. Of course, the Stupak Amendment produced a backlash among pro-choice groups, and in the Senate, pro-life senators are in the minority. The current Senate bill tries to avoid federal funding in subsidized health insurance by "segregating" the money that comes from the government from the money contributed by the individual, and only paying for abortion coverage from the individual’s contribution. The bishops have said this "segregation" of funds is only an accounting gimmick (money is fungible) and the non-partisan group Factcheck.org agrees with the bishops. Now, both sides have dug in and they are talking past each other, insisting that their way is the only way to achieve the goal both acknowledge they share. That means it is time to seek a new way forward, a different approach from that envisioned by either the Stupak Amendment or by the "segregated" funds approach of the Senate bill.
The most nettlesome difficulty is how to deal with insurance plans to be purchased with a mix of federal subsidies and private premiums in the proposed exchanges. Stupak says: If you get a federal subsidy you can’t buy a plan with abortion coverage. The Senate bill, as noted above, merely indicates that the federal funds will be segregated from the private funds. But, if the subsidies are calculated based on a person’s income, and given to the individual as a voucher to shop with in the exchange, why should we not let the individual choose whatever coverage they want? If they prefer a more expensive plan with abortion coverage, the voucher is not going to increase, so they really are making their own decision about what to do with their money and de facto as well as de jure they are buying their abortion coverage with their own funds. Additionally, the voucher is going to the individual, not the insurance company directly, so this arrangement does not constitute federal funding in any way.
Vouchers are currently used to cope with another complicated issue, helping poor parents pay for tuition at religious schools. There the difficulty arises from the First Amendment not the Hyde Amendment, but the idea is the same. In the health care debate, the difficulty arises from the profound ambivalence of many Americans about abortion: They do not want the procedure to be illegal but they really don’t want to encourage it with their tax dollars. The Hyde Amendment, after all, was never about saving money, it was about expressing this ambivalence about abortion. The idea of using vouchers was floated this summer, but not embraced. At the time, a spokesman for the U.S. bishops, Richard Doerflinger, told Beliefnet.com that the idea of using vouchers was "such a crazy idea it just might work." That is not an endorsement, but it is also not a veto. It is time to explore the "crazy idea."
The public option, already in great difficulty because the GOP succeeded in framing it as a "government take-over," is further complicated by the abortion issue. Again, Stupak is straightforward: the public option does not cover abortion, period. In the Senate, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has to jump through some hoops to get abortion in the public option, but it is not excluded. It should be. The public option should be as close as possible to the health care coverage congressmen receive. (This might also help Democrats sell the public option. There are worse tag lines than "Because you should have access to the same insurance your congressman gets!") Although the hysterics from pro-choice legislators like Cong. Diana DeGette and Sen. Barbara Boxer about the Stupak Amendment putting women back to the days of back alley abortions suggest otherwise, the fact is that DeGette and Boxer do not have abortion coverage in their health care because they are federal employees. Do either of them really want to equate their situation with that of women in the 1960s?
Finally, the last difficulty is the easiest to fix. The Stupak Amendment does not technically bar plans that are purchased in the exchanges completely with private funds from offering abortion coverage, but it has that effect because the insurance companies say the pool of people not receiving federal subsidies would be too small to offer such a plan. In this sense, pro-choice critics are correct that Stupak goes beyond Hyde. The law should require that the exchanges have at least one plan with abortion coverage and one plan without such coverage. And, because people with federal subsidies would be using vouchers, you do not have to separate those who are paying with their own money from the pool of those people receiving subsidies. The pools would be large enough to ensure both kinds of policies are offered.
Those of us who are lifelong pro-life Democrats were heartened when President Obama said he sought "common ground" on abortion and pledged that health care reform would not entail government funding of abortion. We were willing to look the other way on the Mexico City policy and we understood that the decision on embryonic stem cells would have occurred if John McCain had won the election too. As well, it is difficult to see how passing health care with abortion funding will help the Democrats: They stand to lose enough seats in next year’s midterm elections without also replacing a group of pro-life Democratic legislators with pro-life Republican congressmen. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to remain Speaker, she needs to have Democrats representing more conservative districts like NC-14 and VA-5 and MI-1, currently represented by pro-life Democrats Health Shuler, Tom Perriello and Bart Stupak, respectively.
Catholic social teaching is unambiguous when it comes to the fact that health care is a right not a privilege. In today’s political climate, there is simply no alternative to the current legislation making its way to the President’s desk. It would be criminal to see this goal derailed because legislators can’t find a way to achieve what they all admit they want: health care coverage that does not include federal funding of abortion, especially when all that is needed is some creative thinking and a new approach. Instead of getting dug in, both sides need to reach out.
MSW says: All sides claim the same goal: Extending the logic of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from covering abortions in any current government insurance program, to the newly configured exchanges and public option.
I don't know where he got that idea. The compromise goal of those who are pro-choice is to ensure that the Hyde Amendment is not extended beyond the appropriations measures that currently include it. The pro-choice side never accepted Obama's sloppy formulation of no federal funds for abortion (since we know that even under Hyde federal funds are used for administration of state plans that do pay for abortion. Nor do we agree with Obama that the Hyde Amendment should be considered a "tradition" rather than an annual struggle to restore poor women's access to abortion, a goal the president says he shares.
Common ground requires great listening skills and the ability to say back to the "other" what the "other" actually said. It is not a tool for political advantage.
Frances,
I agree wholeheartedly with your points, and found this article deeply troubling on a number of levels.
First to reiterate, I know of no pro-choice person or group who agrees with this statement:
Extending the logic of the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funds from covering abortions in any current government insurance program, to the newly configured exchanges and public option.
The Hyde Amendment is neither "logical" nor a goal of the pro-choice movement. How exactly is it "logical" to discriminate against the lowest income women in this country? Just because people in power can do it does not make it logical. It is blatant discrimination and a human rights violation written into law by a white male Congress nearly 40 years ago and sustained by a largely white, male Congress since then.
Mr. Winters uses selective language and history in his arguments. First, the premise of this article is to suggest we find a compromise and that "we all just get along" and that "both sides need to reach out," without much understanding it appears of history, and recent history at that.
This is either a product of a failure to research this issue thoroughly or a willful attempt to mislead by ignoring basic facts. It was the Bishops, as we all know, that asked in the first place for "abortion neutral" health reform legislation and it was the Capps Amendment that was used to strike that balance, with all sides involved at that point in time. As Jessica Arons and Ellen-Marie Whelan underscore in their piece on RHRC this weekend, "the Bishops have moved the goalposts" they originally set up in the first place.
He speaks to the "morality" of abortion but does not acknowledge that many of us feel abortion is and can be a moral choice, made by a woman according to her own circumstances and needs. No better, no differently, no more or less divine than adoption or any other choice. A choice.
Mr Winters' call for "getting along" also is belied by this statement:
Although the hysterics from pro-choice legislators like Cong. Diana DeGette and Sen. Barbara Boxer about the Stupak Amendment putting women back to the days of back alley abortions suggest otherwise, the fact is that DeGette and Boxer do not have abortion coverage in their health care because they are federal employees. Do either of them really want to equate their situation with that of women in the 1960s?
First: Hysterics? How's that for a start at dialogue? How convenient to use the stereotypical claim against any woman that stands up strongly and vocally for her rights....."hysterical."
Second, no, I doubt that Congresswoman Degette and Senator Boxer equate their own sitaution with that of women in the 1960s for a number of very rational reasons. Both of them are well beyond the levels of poverty and near-poverty that affect women who have few reproductive choices and whose access both to contraception and to abortion are deeply limited by income, transportation, language barriers, workplace/work-time barriers and so forth. Both of them are women who even given their federal insurance are well-positioned to afford an early-term abortion if they were to have been faced with that need. I can not speak to the effects on either of them of catastrophic costs of a late abortion that might be needed were either of them during their own reproductive years faced with the kind of situation experienced by Tiffany Campbell and thousands of others, many of whom have told their own stories publicly especially in the aftermath of the death of Dr. Tiller. But the fact is that insurance coverage writ large for the time being and the legal status of abortion today make the situation far different. What they are speaking to is the need to avoid returning to the situation pre-Roe.
The Bishops--who don't represent the majority of Catholics much less the majority of Americans writ large--don't run this country. It is a shocking revelation for them, I am beginning to understand, but one with which they need to come to grips.
Likewise, the so-called pro-life Democrats don't run the country either, though I understand they are attempting to use a "political tyranny of the minority" in Congress to do so.
The fact that these discussions go on and on with people who refuse to make contraception universally affordable and accessible leaves me to wonder why we even are having these conversations. It might have made sense for some political calculation by the White House at some point, but really, all that has transpired shows just how hollow that call for "common ground" really is and was.
You can't gain common ground on anything by using women and especially low-income women as the sacrificial lambs for a religious dictate in a pluralistic society.
Jodi
Jodi Jacobson, Senior Political Editor on December 6, 2009 - 7:36pm: "How exactly is it "logical" to discriminate against the lowest income women in this country?"
How is not giving someone money "discriminating" against that person? Are you discriminating against me by not sending me checks? If poor women want the same buying power as rich women, they can work hard so that they can become wealthy.
"[The Hyde Amendment] is...a human rights violation..."
How is not wasting society's limited resources on promoting selfishness and irresponsibility a human rights violation?
"He speaks to the 'morality' of abortion..."
Where in the article does the author discuss morality? The "find" function on my browser takes the position that he never used that word.
"Both of them are well beyond the levels of poverty and near-poverty that affect women who have few reproductive choices and whose access both to contraception and to abortion are deeply limited by income, transportation, language barriers, workplace/work-time barriers and so forth."
If these women are so poor, how can they afford to engage in the selfish and irresponsible acts of sexual intercourse that lead to the vast majority of aborted pregnancies?
How is not giving someone money "discriminating" against that person? Are you discriminating against me by not sending me checks?
I'll let your mayor know that he is clear to slash funding for police protection in your neighborhood. After all, he won't be discriminating against you.
If poor women want the same buying power as rich women, they can work hard so that they can become wealthy.
Ah, so you are willing to provide jobs in which these poor women can "work hard?" And child care for those who already have children? And accommodations for those who are disabled? How very generous of you!
How is not wasting society's limited resources on promoting selfishness and irresponsibility a human rights violation?
Please don't change the subject to corporate subsidies.
If these women are so poor, how can they afford to engage in the selfish and irresponsible acts of sexual intercourse that lead to the vast majority of aborted pregnancies?
So, you're saying it's more selfless and responsible for poor women to carry these unwanted pregnancies to term? If you would rather pay to support these children than for the abortions that their mothers would have wanted, then I suggest you waste your money in a manner that doesn't waste mine.
If these women are so poor, how can they afford to engage in the selfish and irresponsible acts of sexual intercourse that lead to the vast majority of aborted pregnancies?
Last time I checked, most women can still have sex for free. As a matter of fact, it is just about the only 'pleasure' which people can reliably find free.
The voucher approach would probably be better than the segregation approach, but would still result in tax funding of abortion. Because the President promised that the health care bill would not include tax funding of abortion, he would be breaking his promise if he signed a bill with such an approach.
The bishops have said this "segregation" of funds is only an accounting gimmick (money is fungible) and the non-partisan group Factcheck.org agrees with the bishops.
Funny how fungibility is totally rejected by the Church in other areas where it might impact their assets:
"Gonzaga University is fighting every attempt to link its fortunes to the province. Separately incorporated and registered 125 years ago, the private college with 7,200 students will not volunteer money or other resources to settle the bankruptcy, said Mike Casey, Gonzaga's corporation counsel. ... The university steadfastly denies any liability for the actions of Jesuits who sexually abused children, including former university President John P. Leary, who sexually abused boys until Spokane police gave him a 24-hour ultimatum in 1969 to leave town or face arrest.
Leary fled, and the Jesuit hierarchy relocated him.
It took the Jesuits 37 years to reveal the scandal and cover-up. http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/rural/story/1043550.html
