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The pro-choice argument against healthcare reform
When pro-choicers argue against pro-life amendments to the healthcare reform bill, should they actually be arguing against the bill itself? On Slate, William Saletan makes an interesting point.The pro-life amendments are making sure federally subsidized healthcare plans don’t cover abortion, and Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion organizations are arguing that this will lead to women losing abortion coverage altogether. Saletan notes:
The argument these groups make is perfectly logical: If you standardize health insurance through federal subsidies and coverage requirements, people might lose benefits they used to enjoy in the private sector. But that’s more than an argument against excluding abortion. It’s an argument against health care reform altogether. …
Saletan goes on to say, “The left’s argument against abortion exclusion is the right’s argument against socialization.” In each case, it’s the government coming between the patient and dictating what’s covered and what’s not.
back to top18 Comments to “The pro-choice argument against healthcare reform”
A stopped clock is right twice a day, too.
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Amen Bob
I’ve heard too that this nationwide electronic medical record will show who has had an abortion, and STD and I presume psychiatric care as well.
Dont get me started about HIPAA and all it requires.
Limbaugh pointed out young Patrick Kennedy has introduced a bill to exclude documtation about abortions or STDs from the electronic super-chart. His rationale?
“Hey, you gotta protect the family!”
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No, the left’s argument is legit and the right’s is not.
Private sector healthcare will always be more attractive to the middle and upper classes (their current customer base) precisely because people who can afford to will pay more for better coverage.
The federal subsidies are designed to make health care affordable for people who can’t afford it now.
The middle class woman will always be able to opt into a healthcare plan that covers things she needs or wants that aren’t standard (like a water birth or an abortion), but working class women (who are not currently in the health market) can’t afford to pay up, and the Fed shouldn’t be setting a standard that basic health care doesn’t cover reproductive health.
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Unless its on army time Bob
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But if we have govt-provided subsidized health care, that would include all the free prenatal and post-partum care pregnant gals need, right? The proAborts have for years said many women abort cuz (bereft of any support from the sperm donor) these women simply cannot get adequate affordable health care.
Well, that problem is solved by Obamacare. The prochoice crowd can now presumably encourage their “clients” to carry the baby to full term now, right?
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Army time, Bob rolls his eyes.
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Mynock, how is abortion, reproductive?
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Go ahead an argue with semantics, Thorn.
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If the lemon is abortion funding (however construed or misconstrued) the lemonade is free abortion services for all women, or all women with incomes below something like 200% of poverty.
Saletan’s interesting point is Aristotle’s perennial point, that everything in politics and ethics can be stated otherwise. Every successful argument against an opponent is potentially a weapon of self-destruction.
Private philanthropists and foundations give about $1 billion a year to reproductive health charities, specifically earmarking a quarter of that for abortion. Although most of the abortion money is spent internationally, about $63 million is distributed here. This level of giving suggests that a private fund could easily handle the $300 million cost of giving abortions to poor women. It could be set up as a health insurance plan. A hundred million men and women paying a few dollars a year could make abortion free. Contraceptive services could lower that cost.
Saletan sometimes talks as if rhetorical stalemates should push antagonistic factions toward pragmatic compromise. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Liberals have to take action. Pro-Life groups are unreasonable extremists who will say anything to block consensus. So: squeeze, add water, sweeten, and stir. People never forget a nice glass of lemonade, or who said no.
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Mynock,
and the Fed shouldn’t be setting a standard that basic health care doesn’t cover reproductive health.
I’m sorry.. how does that follow?
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Yeah, I didnt think you could justify it as reproductive…thanks.
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. . . all the free prenatal and post-partum care pregnant gals need, right?
Your beef on that score isn’t with leftists, SAWGUNNER. Take it up with swing voters — the somewhat libertarian restrictionists.
Leftists would be thrilled to support young women (yes, I’m a pedant) whose families pressure them for abortions or poor women who can’t bear to bear.
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Your tone is reasonable, SAWGuNNER, but your meaning is viciously hypocritical. It’s the pro-life extremists in Congress who have torpedoed practical efforts to reduce the number of abortions.
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Abortion is not a “health care issue”, unless one considers the health of the murdered child health care. Abortion is a decision on the part of a woman, and very often a woman who is pressured into it for convienience sake. Men and families are as responsible as the woman. To say it is a Hhealth issue” is a smoke screen by Planned Parenthood and other Child killing agencies. I believe that all federal and State funding of abortion should be cut off. Let Planned Parenthood and others raise their own finances as Pro life counceling services are required to do. If they had to do so, there would be a mass exodus from the very profitable business of legal infanticide.
Blessings
Roger
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Si, any woman whose heart aches with a desire to keep her baby but just can’t afford it should get free money from the state so she doesn’t have to choose between having a baby and feeding herself or her other kids. And we should get that money by raising income taxes to Reagan levels!
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This argument by PP simply makes no sense, and provides further evidence that the radicals on both sides of the abortion debate are equally as stupid.
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In what media accounts are casting as a serious setback for President Barack Obama and lawmakers who back the “public option,” the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday voted against including the provision in the bill. Reports also remark on GOP unity against the provision, which they compare to the Democratic split apparent in Tuesday’s committee votes. Where I am a health insurance agent with http://www.benefitsmanager.net/SelectHealth.html . I find this frustrating somewhat. I don’t agree with the design of the “public option” where it works against a health system in place now and causes a financial burden on tax payers. But, I think we need one out there. I need the ability to get my clients a insurance policy that won’t decline them for pre-existing medical conditions. See Utah’s response to health care reform and health insurance reform. http://www.prweb.com/releases/utah_health_insurance/health_care_reform/prweb2614544.htm.
Perhaps the feds should look at the only second state case attempt for reform as a model. What about TORT reform? That honestly impacts doctor insurance costs as well as health insurance premiums by 13% See study in prior link.
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It turns out that Republicans have almost universally voted for federally run, mandated, and subsidized property iinsurance which the government pays insurance companies $1 billion a year just to market and sell. Texas is the no. 1 fan of this socialistic program, which is being broadened from floods to other kinds of natural disasters.
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