Quick Fact: Doocy suggests that Stupak amendment would simply prohibit federal funds from being used for abortions
In an interview with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) during the November 17 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy falsely suggested that Stupak's amendment to the House health care bill would simply "mak[e] it very clear that federal money will not be used to end a life."
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From the November 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: Yeah, but, Congressman, when you heard David Axelrod say that over the weekend, over on one of the other channels, your jaw must have dropped, because you've -- you guys have been burning the midnight oil trying to make this thing work, making it very clear that federal money will not be used to end a life, and yet, it makes it sound like just in a back room somewhere before it's all done, we're gonna just change everything.
Fact: NY Times wrote that amendment makes "it largely impossible to use a policyholder's own dollars to pay for abortion coverage"
In a November 9 editorial, The New York Times wrote that the amendment to the House bill offered by Stupak and Joe Pitts (R-PA) would affect "women eligible to buy coverage on new health insurance exchanges" and "would prevent millions of Americans from buying insurance that covers abortions -- even if they use their own money." The Times noted that the amendment's supporters "reached far beyond Hyde and made it largely impossible to use a policyholder's own dollars to pay for abortion coverage" because the amendment "would ban the use of federal subsidies to pay for 'any part' of a policy that includes abortion coverage." As the Times noted, the Hyde Amendment "bans the use of federal dollars to pay for almost all abortions in a number of government programs." The Times further wrote:
If insurers want to attract subsidized customers, who will be the great majority on the exchange, they will have to offer them plans that don't cover abortions. It is theoretically possible that insurers could offer plans aimed only at nonsubsidized customers, but it is highly uncertain that they will find it worthwhile to do so.
In that case, some women who have coverage for abortion services through policies bought by small employers could actually lose that coverage if their employer decides to transfer its workers to the exchange. Ultimately, if larger employers are permitted to make use of the exchange, ever larger numbers of women might lose abortion coverage that they now have.
The restrictive language allows people to buy "riders" that would cover abortions. But nobody plans to have an unplanned pregnancy, so this concession is meaningless. It is not clear that insurers would even offer the riders since few people would buy them.
Fact: Status quo already allows people participating in federally funded plans to obtain abortions as long as funds are segregated
According to the Congressional Research Service, the Hyde Amendment was originally passed to prohibit federal funding for abortions through the Medicaid program and has since been expanded to other areas. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the prohibition on federal funding for most abortions under Medicaid, according to a September 1 study by the Guttmacher Institute, 17 states provide coverage under Medicaid for "all or most medically necessary abortions," not just abortions in cases of life endangerment, rape, and incest. Therefore, in 17 states, Medicaid, a federally subsidized health care program, covers abortions in circumstances in which federal money is prohibited from being spent on abortion.
As the article pointed out, most who find themselves needing the option don't expect to do so in advance. Say you were signing up for insurance and treatment for pancreatic cancer was an option for which you had to pay extra. Most people would assume, quite reasonably, that they were not likely to get pancreatic cancer so they would pass on the expense. That's the problem with adding coverages on a piecemeal basis; the sum total of those unlikely medical treatments add up to where it becomes fairly likely that one of them would pop up. As long as abortion is a legal medical procedure, there is no reason to exclude it from basic coverage.
The Guttmacher Institute?! Well, how can one argue with such an objective, unbiased source?
The fact that some states are circumventing the Hyde Amendment no more argues against that amendment -- or, Rep. Stupak's efforts -- than states which fail to adequately enforce federal gun laws.
I thought the mantra of the abortion rights movement was "choice"? . . . which means "elective" . . . which makes me wonder why those who want abortions aren't paying for them out of their own pockets (at the very least, for the principle of the thing).
DEATH PENALTY
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By the way, dont count on your government health care paying for mammograms under 40...
Because this allows insurance companies to dictate what the "life and health" of the mother means. So, do you think that they're going to pay for a late-term abortion of a dead fetus, or just wait and hope that the mother's body expels it before it becomes septic? Do you think that insurance companies will pay for an abortion of a fetus that has most of its organs growing on the outside of its body? Hell no. That ain't the "life" of the mother.
And these are going to be the cases where women really, really need abortion services covered. Later term abortions are more complicated, more dangerous, and thus more expensive. Early abortions--when most of them occur--can still be a financial hardship, especially for poorer women. But it's much, much easier to scrape together $600 for an "elective" abortion than it is to pull together $6,000 for when a very wanted pregnancy goes wrong.
And even purely "elective" abortions have a great deal to do with women's ability to control their own lives, their own bodies, their own destinies. Abortion and pregnancy just aren't like anything else in health care needs, so it's kind of facetious to compare them to tattoo removals and cosmetic breast enhancements.
(And even boob jobs aren't just that simple. Some women need reconstructive surgery after an accident or cancer. Some women need breast reductions for medical reasons. Some women have very differently sized breasts and require surgery to make them more similar.)
and if women control their bodies, they wont need or want an abortion.
You obviously aren't married, had a spouse with complications from pregnancy, and had to make very difficult decisions about seeing your spouse (and mother of your elementary school children) die as a result of complications.
Before you project "irresponsible behavior" you should talk with an OB/GYN.
20% of all pregnancies in the US do not result in live birth....due to "natural causes." I'll leave it to you to do some reading to educate yourself on why you've been mislead.
Government has no business between a patient and a doctor. Period. You make your own decisions and keep your grubby self-righteous hands away from me.
Obviously I am married...or so my wife insists.
If you want the government out of your business FIGHT GOVERNMENT FUNDED AND CONTROLLED HEALTH CARE!! Any time someone pays for something they gain control. When I wa adjusting health, I refused PAYMENT not treatment. Big difference huh?
My wife, and my mother, and my daughters insist that abortion be legal but not insured, as it is a predictable result of a specific activity.