Anti-Abortion Language In Senate Health Care Bill Is A “Bookkeeping Gimmick”
So says Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska:
Sen. Mike Johanns of Nebraska said in a Thursday conference call that Harry Reid’s abortion language in the Senate health care bill was merely a “bookkeeping gimmick” that would not prevent federal funding for abortion.
Under the language approved by the House of Representatives, nobody could use federal subsidies toward the purchase of a policy that covered abortion. But under pressure from pro-choice groups, Reid placed language in the Senate bill that would work out a complicated formula aimed at segregating funds so that women who received federal subsidies could still purchase policies with abortion services as long as the subsidies didn’t support the cost of the abortion coverage.
“It’s a bookkeeping gimmick,” Johanns said. “The same argument was made on the House side and it was just aggressively rejected by the pro-life community and by those House members who stood up.
He explained, “A premium is a premium. The government is going to have its dollars in that and this idea that somehow you’re segregating that just isn’t going to past muster. You just can’t draw that line in a bookkeeping entry, and they know it. What they’re trying to do is to provide some cover to pro-life members, but the pro-life community has aggressively rejected that.”
What the Senate is trying to do is send a bill back to the House for an up or down vote that has some semblance of anti-abortion language in it so that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t lose the narrow majority she has on the bill while simultaneously having that language watered down enough so that abortions still get funding.
Will the ruse work? It depends on whether or not pro-life Democrats in the House feel like they can vote for it without suffering some major consequences brought on by angry constituents.
