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Edited on Mon Nov-09-09 03:35 PM by Kurt_and_Hunter
We are assured by the self-appointed politruks (A very useful word) that every set-back, sell-out and Hobson's choice in HCR is part of a glorious march toward an actual national health apparatus.
And I largely agree. I support even some hideously stupid and kleptocratic measures as part of getting our foot in the door.
Eventually this will all evolve into a national single-payer system that works.
That is the argument. Perhaps it is a bullshit argument designed to deceive the infinity credulous element of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party but if so, I am dumb enough to accept it.
Now then...
If the government paid no money toward any healthcare anywhere, ever, then a rule that government money cannot be used to terminate a pregnancy would be offensive but harmless. Nobody would lose out because no government money goes to any health procedure.
Add medicare and veterans health services. Most veterans are men and few people over 65 need abortions. So far the effect is minimal.
Add medicaid. Now we are getting into an area where abortion matters, and a class of people who are--by definition--too poor to pay full price for any surgical procedure, no matter how routine. The ban on government funding for poor women with little political clout is so heinous that it attracts some sympathetic private charity funding to make reproductive services available at subsidized rates. (Like Planned Parenthood.) The numbers are large but still only a fraction of the healthcare sector.
Now add an insurance reform plan meant to extend to almost everyone who cannot afford insurance...
Now add a mandate that individuals acquire insurance plans...
Now add government programs to make private plans cheaper and easier to access for the middle class...
Now add a single-payer system that applies to everyone...
As the government role in paying for and increasing access to healthcare increases the ban that started out as meaningless becomes more powerful.
Even if we play Devil's advocate and accept the argument that Stupak is "just Hyde" it is STILL an expansion of Hyde. The expansion of government's role that makes up the entire rest of the House bill is a de facto expansion of the abortion ban.
The government is getting involved, putting its thumb on the scale to favor and disfavor certain private plans. Participation in an exchange, for instance, is a benefit for an insurance plan. (Otherwise no company would offer any plan through the exchange.)
That benefit is NEW. It is created by the bill. That benefit is with-held from choice-friendly competitors.
To say that is not a new burden, a new restriction is bizarre. In a competitive setting a benefit to one entity is a handicap for all other entities.
Those who are surprised by the passions this issue is generating given that federal abortion funding has been banned since 1976 should revisit the history of passions regarding the slavery status of new states/territories before the Civil War. Just because slavery existed in Georgia did not mean that people were supposed to quietly acquiesce to its expansion into Kansas or Missouri.
None of us will see the elimination of evil, but we can certainly draw the line at its expansion! When new territories are opened--in this case, new frontiers in government involvement in healthcare--we have to fight the same old fights as new fights because they are new fights.
This does not require that one oppose the whole bill.
It does, however, suggest that one stop saying that the bill does not introduce new burdens, sanctions or stigmas to reproductive choice.
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