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Subsidizing Healthcare
Bart Stupak's abortion amendment prevents any insurance plan that is purchased with government subsidies from covering abortions. These subsidies, of course, go only to poor and low-income workers. Ezra Klein takes it from there:
Rep. Bart Stupak's amendment did not make abortion illegal. And it did not block the federal government from subsidizing abortion. All it did was block it from subsidizing abortion for poorer women.
Stupak's amendment stated that the public option cannot provide abortion coverage, and that no insurer participating on the exchange can provide abortion coverage to anyone receiving subsidies. But as Rep. Jim Cooper points out in the interview below, the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by Stupak's amendment. It's the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free.
That money, however, subsidizes the insurance of 157 million Americans, many of them quite affluent. Imagine if Stupak had attempted to expand his amendment to their coverage. It would, after all, have been the same principle: Federal policy should not subsidize insurance that offers abortion coverage. But it would have failed in an instant. That group is too large, and too affluent, and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch their access to reproductive services. But the poorer women who will be using subsidies on the exchange proved a much easier target. In substance, this amendment was as much about class as it was about choice.
Yes. But aside from the iron hand of path dependence, there's another dynamic at work here: most people simply refuse to view tax breaks as the equivalent of federal subsidies. But in most cases they are. In the case of health insurance, the employer tax break means that workers whose employers offer insurance pay less for coverage than they otherwise would. Likewise, subsidies mean that workers whose employers don't offer insurance pay less for coverage than they otherwise would. The differences between the two are slight.
But nobody who gets a special tax break sees it that way. So we continue to pretend.
It makes no sense. The poor
It makes no sense. The poor are the last people you would want to force to breed.
Liberals view all the money
Liberals view all the money in the economy as belonging to the government first and foremost. Failing to confiscate it is a "cost" to the government.
those liberals
I love generalizations ! And stereotypes ! Let's see, all republicans and conservatives are stupid, ignorant assholes. See, that wasn't so bad, now was it ?
those liberals
I love generalizations ! And stereotypes ! Let's see, all republicans and conservatives are stupid, ignorant assholes. See, that wasn't so bad, now was it ?
class effect is collateral damage not intent.
At least thats the way I see it. It is mainly a way for the right to claim moral highground amongst the anti-abortionist crowd. Actual on-the-ground effects are not important to the politicians.
MNPundits comment, assumes that logic, and longterm impact have something to do with policy. Get over it, only optics count. Them unworthy poor who sleep around gotta be punished with unwanted children!
I don't like the Stupak
I don't like the Stupak Amendment, but does anyone have any idea of how much the abortion rider would cost?
Guttmacher says there are 20 abortions for every 1000 women (2008) http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
And they say the average cost of an abortion is $500 (in 2001), so let's say the average cost is $1500.
So we have $30,000 in abortion costs each year to be covered by 1000 women, or a rider of about $30.00 plus some outrageous markup. Call it a $100 rider based on 2001 costs multiplied by three and a 200% markup.
Does that sound at all in the ballpark?
regressive reproductive choice
The poor women who will be MANdated to purchase health insurance that does not cover their reproductive choices end up subsidizing the reproductive insurance coverage for the higher classes, whose health insurance costs are a write off.
I get it, MAN dated because
I get it, MAN dated because you like to blame men.
Except of course 2 Democratic women and 15 Republican women (if I counted right) voted for the Stupak Amendment as well, making your position just a stupid, inaccurate, and needlessly divisive one.
But hey, maybe you strive for inaccurate, stupid, and needlessly divisive.
You must be a clever boy who
You must be a clever boy who wants the poor to subsidize your health care while denying them the same coverage.
Another Brad is right
I have to agree with Another Brad (at least on this narrow point). The law makes a big distinction between funds that are appropriated out of the public treasury and valid tax deductions from gross income. For example, you can make regular donations (to pick a politically unpopular group) to the Church of Satan if you wish, the IRS will let you take the charity tax deduction. As long as the Church's 503(c) paperwork is in order, there'd be a First Amendment issue if the IRS refused the deduction.
It would be a different kettle of fish were Congress to appropriate public funds to further the Church's many Satanic goals and works. Even if the Church jumped through the hurdles required for faith-based organizations to receive tax dollars (e.g. tax money wouldn't go to the Church directly, but rather to its Satanic Social Services affiliate), I dare say most Americans would disagree with Kevin and find a distinction between a tax deduction and a congressional appropriation. I used the
What's wrong with paying for
What's wrong with paying for your own abortion? It's a glib question of course but a significant portion of the population find it offensive to use their tax money to pay for what some consider to be taking a human life. Is that so hard to understand?
A significant portion of the population...
...find it offensive to use their tax money to pay for state executions.
In fact, significant portions of the population find it offensive to use their tax money to pay for a great many things.
.
I find it offensive for my
I find it offensive for my tax dollars to pay for executions. Y'know, like the one happening here in Virginia, today. But the taxes pay for other things too. Is that so hard to understand?
Anyway...why don't people take up the issue of women's health w/r/t HCR from the angle of something much, much more popular, and much, much more pervasive: contraception, contraception, contraception. Anecdote: I had to choose from the "Catholic" plan at my latest job (no coverage for women's health issues, basically, at all) and other plans that were not nearly as comprehensive -- but they covered the things that I actually worry about. And let me tell you, being presented with that information after I had already taken the job was VERY upsetting. I would not have left my old job, if I had known.
Oh wait, aren't we supposed to be getting RID of this "job lock" issue? Hmph.
Um, just poor women?
I didn't hear about the subsidy levels, but in an earlier version of the House bill subsidies were set at 400% of poverty level. For a single woman this puts the subsidies at somewhere in the upper 40K range. Hardly impoverished.
The fact is that the Stupid, er Stupak amendment strikes directly at the ability of middle class women to get medically necessary abortions since the reporting on the Stupid, er Stupak, amendment is that the only exception is for rape and incest.
Really?
"most people simply refuse to view tax breaks as the equivalent of federal subsidies."
Really? Who are you drinking cocktails with?