Obamacare Could Ban Abortion
As part of the deal-making to pass healthcare, conservative Democrats joined House Republicans in passing the anti-abortion Stupak amendment.
The amendment would forbid the coverage of abortion by any insurance policy sold through a health exchange.
Supporters of the pro-life cause argue that the Stupak amendment maintains the status quo. Since 1977, federal law has prohibited the use of any federal money to procure an abortion. Since the health exchanges will benefit from federal subsidies, the pro-lifers argue, the 1977 policy should apply to them as well.
But until now, relatively few women of childbearing age have had the benefit of federal funding. Poor women on Medicaid, under-18 girls on S-Chip, military women, and women who use the Indian Health Service were affected. But most women of childbearing age are enrolled in private coverage, and private plans almost always cover medically necessary abortions.
If the House bill or something like it becomes law, more women will shift into policies sold via exchanges. At first only a few women will purchase policies there, but over time, more and more. These exchanges mingle public and private dollars on complex sliding scales of subsidy. That almost certainly will mean no abortion coverage for any exchange-sold policy, whether the individual purchaser herself receives a subsidy or not.
More government = less choice, in every sense of that word "choice."