If Bart Stupak was Pinocchio, his nose would just keep growing and growing.
Right after midnight on Friday November 6th, Bart Stupak began his testimony to the House Rules Committee. The (be)witching hour. Less than 24 hours later the vote began on his amendment. Not much time to understand his amendment.
It was a bait and switch. There had been an earlier amendment whose language had circulated. It prohibited the use of federal dollars, i.e. federal subsidies, in only the public option, not the newly created exchanges. The new amendment did much more. It extended the prohibition to the exchanges. By doing that, it will in short order, 2-3 years after the exhanges begin operating, eliminate almost ALL insurance coverage for abortion.
Rep. Bart Stupak lied in his testimony. When he lied in his testimony before the Rules Committee. Therefore he lied to those 64 Democratic members who voted for the Stupak-Pitts-Kaptur-Dahlkemper amendment. Some of them are having buyer's remorse. It should be further inflamed by this. They were sold a dishonest bill of goods by Rep Stupak. How did he do that? Let us count the ways.
These words are my transcriptions from listening to his testimony over and over (oh vey!)
"This amendment does one very simple thing. It applies the current law, the Hyde amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion except for rape, incest and the life of the mother. The Hyde amendment has been the law of the land since 1977. A it appies to all federally funded programs from S-chip, Medicare (really Medicare), Medicaid, Indian Health, Vetreans Health, Military and Federal Health Benefit Progam ( for all federal employees)
You are all familiar with as are all our prolife mebers and what this amendment seeks to do,
WE WISH TO MAINTAIN CURRENT LAW WHICH says no public funding for abortion"
Does his amendment do one simple thing --maintain the Hyde amendment?
Does this maintain current law?
The answer is NO and Bart Stupak knew that it went much further than Hyde. He knew that even as he proposed it
Henry Hyde's amendment is unethical and vindictive.. It was initially targeted at the weakest and most vulnerable among us. Poor women whose lives would only be further blighted by the vicious provision.
Hyde should be repealed...but repealing Hyde would not eliminate it from the Health Reform Act. Hyde is a restriction on the federal budget which must be reauthorized each year. The Stupak amendment would be a continuing provision in the health care reform bill. Repealing Hyde would still leave it intact.
The Stupak amendment is broader and deeper than Hyde. It has very long tentacles and would pull the entire health insurance market into its vortex.
Bart Stupak made claims that he knew couldn't really be true. He put phantom provsions into his amendment which could not happen.
First:
No funds authorized or appropriated by the Act (or amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion,
(c) OPTION TO OFFER SUPPLEMENTAL COVERAGE OR PLAN -
Notwithstanding section 303(b), nothing in this section shall restrict any nonfederal QHBP offering entity from offering separat supplementa coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section, or a plan that includes such abortions, so long as-
(1) premiums for such separate supplemental coverage or plan are paid for entirele with funds not authorized or appropriated by this Act;
(2) administrative costs and all services offered through such supplemental coverage or plan are paid for using only premiums collected for such coverage or plan; and
(3) any nonfederal QHBP offering entity that offers an Exchange-participating health benefits plan that includes coverage for abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section also offers an Exchange-participating health benefits plan that is identical in every respect except that it does not cover abortions for which funding is prohibited under this section
The principle here is simple: Follow the Money Another Simple Metaphor: The federal money is like a dye which taints the pool....the insurance plan
As long as a plan gets federal subsidies ---and anyone making less than $88,000 a year will be subsidized, then THAT PLAN CAN NOT OFFER ABORTION. At present the 40 million plus uninsured would go into the exchanges. So would additional millions of people who are now in the private insurance market...the self employed, consultants, solo practitioners from lawyers to real estate agents.
Then there are 2 other parts of the bill which Bart Stupak would have known extended the reach of his amendment to every plan in the exchange.
Guaranteed Issue and Risk Adjustment. Guaranteed issue means insurance companies must take all applicants...Can't turn you down just because you have subsidy money. Voila! Every plan in the exchange can't provide abortion coverage.
Risk Adjustment is like NFL profit sharing. The money gets redistributed to avoid the problems of adverse selection. Presto chango! Federal subsidy money goes into every plan. The end result? NO PLAN IN THE EXCHANGES CAN PROVIDE ABORTION COVERAGE.
When Bart Supak offered this amendment he knew all this. He knew that provison (b) and (c) of his amendment were fundamentally impossible from the first day the exchanges would begin operation. Insurance companies would know that too. They would not offer such plans because they could not.
His entire principle is that federal money taints the pool. He rejected the Capps amendment because it has a mechanism for keeping federal money separate from private money. To him all money is fungible. Funny I bet that neither he nor the Catholic Bishops would apply that to the Church. The Church that gets taxpayer funds for charitable work and its hospitals. The church pays no taxes and it keeps this IRS status despite the fungibilbilty of money. Apply Bart Stupak's and the Church's own theory to itself, then the Church either has to give up federal funds or lose its IRS status.
Representative Diana De Gette on what happened Saturday after the midnight Rules Committee.
From the Paul Rosenberg interview with Open Left. Rep De Gette, co chair of the women's Pro Choice caucus describes confusion on the parts of some Members as a result of the misdirection and lies by Bart Stupak
I think a couple of things happened. Number one, a lot of people did not realize that this wasn't just Hyde, because Congressman Stupak unto this day keeps saying he's just putting Hyde in there. But this is unprecedented, because now it says people with their own money-either in the exchange or the public option--cannot buy insurance policies that buy abortion. So that's a expansion.
Hyde says that no federal funding. Somehow he thinks that if there's public money and private money, that then the private money's tainted by the public money. So, that's not in current law.
Open Left: So do you believe that that confusion is what accounts for the margin that he was able to win on?
Congresswoman DeGette: Absolutely. Absolutely. No question about it, Because I had quite a few people say to me 'This is just Hyde.' And I was running around... Most people found out about this on Saturday morning, when they got there, because the decision was made late Friday night, and I was literally running around, trying to tell people what it did.
At the same time, a lot of people were being pressured by their bishops, which, you know, that's a whole different thing. So they thought, 'Well if this is just Hyde, then no big deal.' But I had several people after that vote say to me... people who voted for Stupak, they said, 'This needs to be fixed by the conference.'
And we have several people who have 100% pro-choce voting records who voted for it.
Congress has been authorizing the Hyde Amendment in its annual budget every year since 1977. Lots of them just thought they were voting for the usual, pro forma vote for Hyde. That doesn't excuse them.
Pressure must be brought on those Members to make it clear to their constituents and the public that they don't support Bart Stupak's attempt to sneak in the biggest blow to the reproductive right of women since Roe via the back door.
This is what happens when you give up fighting for fundamental principles. Ignore the symptoms, neglect the signs, think everything is going to be okay because we have someone who campaigned as prochoice become President. Sit quiet and be good girls. It becomes a cancer that kills.
For more than 30 years national pro choice groups never entered the arena on this fight. So over time Hyde expanded its ugly tentacles from the initial Medicaid prohibition to Medicare, military, veterans programs, federal employees and now soon it will be almost all women. National groups endorsed candiates who were for the Hyde amendment. what could they expect?
So Bart Stupak fooled them into believing it was just Hyde...no biggie...why not get some brownie points with the anti choicers... it's so third way, it's so now
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