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In two town hall forums last week, Senator Ben Nelson spent a good portion of the time debunking the myths manufactured by the right-wing to kill health care reform. These myths were also the subject of President Barack Obama's weekly address. One of the more prevalent myths each has faced is the claim that health care reform will lead to government paying for, promoting, or even forcing abortions.
Such claims are obviously being manufacured by the right-wing noise machine to drown out the facts and to drum up opposition from religious conservatives who might otherwise be inclined to support reform as a moral obligation. To reach that audience, President Obama confronted this claim head-on in his weekly address:
Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform.
The ban to which Obama refers is the the 1977 Hyde Amendment, which outlawed the use of federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment. So long as that remains in effect, you have to wonder who it is that's promoting the idea that health care reform is going to lead to taxpayer funded abortions. Well, in Nebraska, it's none other than our Republican Senator Mike Johanns.
In the video at right (from the McCook Gazette), Johanns tells the audience at an August 11 meeting:
People don't want their dollars being spent for abortions. But, here's what happened. The Democrats did pass an amendment that requires all insurers to contract with organizations that provide women's preventative services. They explicitly affirmed abortion-related services would be allowed through entities like Planned Parenthood.
Now, on the House side, an amendment was defeated, was voted down. This is what that amendment said, quote: "Abortion could not be a required basic benefit of any government or private plan." So, the amendment was going to ban abortion from any goverment or private plan - "could not be required as a basic benefit" is the way it was put.
Ladies and gentlemen, given the opportunity to say abortion could not be required as a basic benefit of any government or private plan, it was voted down. Now, what does that tell you? That tells me all I need to know - that, at least today, you are going to see a basic benefit plan that provides for abortion services.
Let's say that this co-op or plan or whatever gets put into place and somewhere along the line your employer says to you, "Guess what, we want you on the government plan." Now, as a matter of conscience, you are in a plan that provides - under this at least, to date - an abortion option.
I can't imagine - knowing the pro-life groups, the Knights of Columbus or whoever, the pro-life people that have supported me - I can't imagine for a second that they will sit still for that.
Johanns is being disgustingly disingenuous throughout this whole statement. For starters, the amendment Johanns takes issue with in the Senate HELP Committee's bill has nothing at all to do with abortion. The only things "explicitly affirmed" were coverage of preventive care and screenings for pregnant women and women of child-bearing age.
To claim these services are "abortion-related" is an insult to every woman in the state, which should outrage every medical professional who understands their importance. What's hard to gauge is whether this shows the depths of Johanns' ignorance about women's health or the depths of his cynicism that he would so blatantly exploit the passions of the pro-life community to serve the right-wing's anti-reform agenda.
As for the House legislation, Johanns is right that its plan "provides for abortion services." What he doesn't mention is that the plan only mandates coverage in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment - doing little more than maintaining the exceptions that already exist to the Hyde Amendment.
Of course, there is a shred of truth in Johanns' claim that the current House bill does not outright ban abortion from any goverment or private plan that would be provided in a new insurance exchange. Where he's being so misleading, though, is in the suggestion that people with private insurance through their employers are suddenly going to find themselves funding abortions if health care reform passes.
As the Guttmacher Institute reports, 87% of employer-based insurance policies already cover abortions. It's Johanns and his fellow defenders of the free market who are manipulating the health care reform debate to promote the idea that government should suddenly intervene in the insurance market by imposing strict limitations on abortion coverage that already exists.
There is no honest principle behind this argument besides one - killing health care reform at any cost. Mike Johanns, like most other Repbulican Party leaders, is willing to say practically anything to assist that effort to kill reform. This sort of manufacturing of outrage and preying on peoples' passions is certainly nothing new, but it might be unprecedented in its scope - not just in the numbers who are being manipulated but also in the size of the opportunity they are being asked to forsake. We can only hope they see through the lies and the rhetoric before it is too late.
