The Senate Health Bill: Taxpayer Funded Abortions

Chuck Donovan / November 19, 2009

Last night Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) released the version of health care reform he hopes will be considered on the Senate floor. The new bill devotes eight of its 2,074 pages to policy governing abortion in the structure of state health care exchanges and the public option it creates. Rather than retain the House-passed Stupak-Pitts abortion funding limitation adopted with 240 votes, Reid reverts to a variation on an amendment the House deleted that would both foster coverage of elective abortion and diminish the conscience rights of insurers that do not wish to cover elective abortion.

Nearly two dozen limitations on abortion funding have been enacted, many on an annual basis, for decades. The federal Hyde Amendment governing the Medicaid program has been enacted every year since 1978 as part of annual appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It permits Medicaid reimbursement to the states only when pregnancy poses a physical risk to the life of the mother and for instances of rape and incest. (more…)