Anti-abortion lobbyists could pen basically any sort of HCR language they want if they persuaded a single Republican Senator to permit an up or down vote on health care reform. The situation would throw Democrats into a tizzy, but it would be an offer they couldn’t refuse, notwithstanding the reconciliation route to health care reform.
The single Republican Senator wouldn’t even have to vote for HCR: he would only need to vote for cloture. Now I can understand why all Republican senators place their electoral prospects over the ostensible lives of the unborn. But why does the National Right to Life Committee et al play along? Are they sham organizations?
Arguably, the Senate bill isn’t especially pro or anti abortion and its the issue that is a sham and not any particular organization. I’m not sure. Reportedly it allows states to opt out of abortion coverage, but that apparently isn’t sufficient for some.
This question certainly has a speculative GD style answer. But anti-abortion activists might be on record on this issue, which is what I’m curious about. My google-fu fails me though. Is that National Right to Life Committee interested in curbing abortion funding or are they more concerned with staying in the good graces of the Washington Republican leadership?
Well, despite the vocal anti-abortion folks and the rhetoric at the health care summit, there is not actually any money for abortions in the bills. The House bill says out right that companies can’t offer insurance for abortions to people using federal subsidies, the Senate bill allows the offer of a rider on an insurance policy that would cover abortions, but spends a lot of time and ink making sure that the federal subsidy can’t be used to pay for it.
So there is really nothing for a Republican senator to offer. And frankly, after the Republicans have repeatedly voted against the bills despite the large number of Republican ideas that are included in them, why would the Dems believe one that says, “This time I will vote for it, really.”
That’s my impression as well: both bills contain strong concessions to the anti-abortion lobby. The House bill is only slightly tougher.
But that’s not what the players are saying. My link shows that Concerned Women for America was terribly disappointed in the Senate language. There was much hyperventilating about Ben Nelson of Nebraska (!) – he was even called a traitor.
Now the Senate abortion provisions apparently can’t be fixed via reconciliation (majority Senate rules), since the latter only applies to budgetary issues, not regulatory ones. But the anti-abortion lobby could do an end-run, by having a single Republican Senator vote for cloture on a combination HCR/abortion package.
Well, the Republicans have been obstructionists, but there aren’t a lot of reports of broken promises. There have never been any strings attached to their amendments. So I maintain that a single Republican Senator push whatever anti-abortion language they want (consistent with Roe v Wade of course). Stupak (D) and Cao (R) in the House could declare victory and lots of liberals would be pissed, which plays well among modern conservatives.
I’m not surprised that no Republican Senator volunteers to do this. I always suspected that the social wing of their party was all bark and no bite. But it seems to me that either the Senate abortion language doesn’t actually offend anybody- even the most staunch abortion opponents, or nobody takes this stuff especially seriously anyway, at least relative to Republican electoral prospects. After all, if HCR fails the Republicans will do that much better during this off-year election.
So which is it? Are the attacks of anti-abortionists on HCR wholly phony? Or are they real, but just of lesser importance than offending their Republican congressional masters?
Republicans are not supporting it anyway. They really have nothing to win by allowing any changes. They have staked their last year and the coming elections on blocking HCR in any form. One of them switching, even to do what you suggest, would be screwing the rest of them.
Plus, the only ones that would really be amenable to the idea are probably from conservative parts of the country. When they next have to go through a primary, what do you think their opponent would say? “He voted for the HCR bill in the Senate! It is his fault!” Even if he only votes for cloture, that is the message that would play. Ask John Kerry how that works.
I tend to agree with you. But what about the anti-abortion lobbyists? Why are they playing along? They seem more concerned with keeping elected Republicans comfortable than actually opposing abortion funding.
Here’s another example. Currently Stupak (D) in the House is saying he doesn’t want to vote for the Senate bill because it’s somewhat less restrictive on abortion than the House bill is. But as Matt Miller points out, the Feds already subsidize middle class abortions: “Today the feds devote at least $250 billion a year to subsidizing employer-based coverage, a subsidy that skews incentives horribly (but which big business and big labor wouldn’t let the politicians touch this year). A Guttmacher Institute study says that 87 percent of typical employer plans cover abortion, and a Kaiser study found that 46 percent of covered workers had abortion coverage.”
Again, I can understand why the Republican Party doesn’t care about that. But where is the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) et al? The abortion restrictions in the Senate bill seem a heck of a lot more restrictive than the massive federal abortion subsidies for the middle class enjoyed for the past 40 years or so. I’m beginning to think that the NRLC are a bunch of phonies. They have no objections when the federal government subsidizes middle class abortions: they just don’t like it when choice is exercised by the poor.
Maybe there is no especially charitable answer, as you intimate. Here’s two possibilities.
(1) They weigh whatever benefit to the cause comes from making the bill more anti-abortion against whatever benefit to the cause they foresee by killing the bill and the political gains the GOP will thereby reap. Presumably, an empowered GOP could do more for NRLC than any tweak in the language of health care reform. This is basically what you’re suggesting is the case, but I think this is a more charitable spin on it.
(2) There is no Senator who would switch on this one issue, because he foresees the political benefit of killing the bill to be greater than the political benefit of NRLC support, and we just don’t see the behind-the-scenes NRLC efforts to find such a Senator.
Some groups just are more partisan than others, for whatever reason (personnel, strategy, etc.). The ACLU has attacked Obama pretty vigorously over several issues so far in his term, but I haven’t seen much from NRDC even though there have been some things to complain about. The NRA hasn’t given Obama any praise for the various pro-gun bills he’s signed and rules he’s allowed to take effect. What is the difference between these three orgs.? I don’t think the tactics of all three can be equally rational. I think it has something to do with the sub-cultures in which they operate and the kind of people who work there.
Which Senator? Presumably the House bill would be the most restrictive anti-abortion language one could put in this bill, so which GOP Senator is so rabidly anti-abortion, but neutral enough on government health care to switch his vote?
I am a child of the Religious Right. Let me tell you a secret.
There are “leaders” of the “Family Values”/“Pro-Life” movement that get out there & tell you to vote GOP because the Dems are baby-killers. Ralph Reed was one, James Dobson is another. They don’t really want to stop abortion. At all.
They want to keep people voting GOP, or some other sort of “conservative” which seems to amount to what Paul Krugman calls “Bourbon Democrats.” Mostly they want low taxes & a cheap-labor market & the freedom for moneylenders & other “businessmen” to fleece & scam without oversight. The Christian Coalition existed for one purpose: to keep the GOP viable through religious propaganda.
There are plenty of progressive Dems who are for fetal rights. There are plenty of elitist conservatives who don’t give a fig for the abortion issue. The so-called “Family Values”/“Pro-Life” lobbies mainly stump for the latter. It’s a big giant scam, & one that’s angered me since I was a young true believer.
There is no way in Hell or on God’s Green Earth that Concerned Women for America or Focus on the Family will ever support this bill, because their real reason for existing is to keep business “conservative” in the sense of unregulated, free, & easy, no matter how abusive.
foolsguinea: I’ve been a progressive for a while now, and I had never seriously considered your interpretation, before this year.
Well articulated. I guess what the NRLC (ostensibly) needs is a compliant Supreme Court. Everything else is phony: their supporters are being manipulated voluntarily or otherwise.
Fair question. a) But even if there were no candidates, that would not explain the public position of the lobbyists. With sufficient noise, a shift would be in some Senator’s interest.
b) (Googling) [maxwell smart]Would you believe Mike Johanns (R-NE)? [/maxwell smart] “…very simply, there aren’t enough pro-life Senators to break this provision and get the Stupak amendment passed on the Senate floor if we propose it as an amendment–and I am sure it will be–there just aren’t enough. …The most important pro-life vote that a pro-life Senator will cast, I believe, in the entire time they are here is on this motion to proceed.”
I added emphasis. Well golly gee Senator Johanns, if it’s that important you, just vote for cloture on a Senate HCR bill with the Stupak language. And don’t say you haven’t thought about it: last November when the Dems had 60 votes Senator Johanns said, “We don’t need 40 Democrats to stand up for what’s right. We need just one. if just one pro-life Democrat would say i will not vote to move this bill until it’s fixed, until it’s truly pro-life, that would happen. So those who say they are pro-life but refuse to take that stand, I worry are not standing up for life.”
Well, I disagree: the Senate language is fine. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, Senator Johanns, how about voting for cloture, you hypocritical gasbag?
More controversially, I wonder about the positioning of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Why are they focusing on the abortion language in the Senate bill and where have they been on the abortion subsidy via the employer deduction for health care? Frankly, I think the link to abortion in both cases is tenuous, but the $250 billion a year subsidy for employer-based coverage has to be more significant. Why is the Catholic Church’s main representative in American public life so gung-ho on advancing Republican electoral prospects? What about the death penalty and the theory of the just war as it applies to Iraq? Rome needs to crack down on these deviationists.
Following jtgain, I understand that 6 ostensibly anti-abortion Republican Catholic Senators are Martinez (FL), Brownback (KS), Bunning (KY), Vitter (LA), and the two newly elected senators Johanns (NE) and Risch (ID). Two Catholic Republican Senators who often support international family planning organizations are Murkowski (AK) and Collins (ME). Cite, from a conservative blog.
FTR though, the Catholic Bishops claim that their position on HCR follows:
Sam Brownback (R-KS) is kind of an odd case. He was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as an adult but keeps attending a “Bible Church” as well. Some speculate that his putative religious identity is a matter of appealing to a given voter base as much as anything else.
Yeah, my guess is that it’s purely political. He’s retiring from the Senate to run for governor of KS, and “Bible Church” plays better in the more…rural parts of the state.
Representative Stupak (D) is optimistic that a deal can be reached. I’m optimistic too. Abortion opponents have no basis to complain if the bill isn’t to their liking, for they would need only persuade one Republican Senator to vote to end debate on the Senate bill and they could get whatever they want, subject to Roe v Wade.
Crickets…
Incidentally, I’ve tried to find a reference to the tax exclusion on employer-provided health care on the nrlc.org website without luck. They don’t even mention the issue AFAIK. Separately, the libertarian outfit Cato has a chapter on the topic in the Cato Handbook for Policymakers, 7th Edition (2009). It doesn’t mention abortion though, notwithstanding Cato’s opposition to the procedure. But perhaps that was an oversight.
By now, it is clear that abortion opponents who attack the Senate bill while turning a blind eye to the $250 billion a year subsidy for employer-based coverage lack personal integrity and should therefore either have their arguments subjected to intensive scrutiny or be dismissed outright to save time. Such it is for the NRLC.
But some abortion opponents possess a conscience. The Catholic Health Association lobbied hard for a health care package that would reflect their views:
I don’t share Ms Keehan’s concerns about abortion. But surely it is dismaying to see abortion opponents continue their phony attack on the Senate bill without acknowledging any of the above.
Nuns representing 59,000 Catholic sisters come out in favor of health care reform. They join the Catholic Health Association and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Here are excerpts from their letter:
Emphasis added.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but methinks Catholic nuns have retained greater moral credibility over the last 20 years than the US Council of Catholic Bishops. Just saying.
Jesus was known as a healer and was worshiped as such by the early Christians. Legend has it that the gospel according to Luke was written by a physician. So it is entirely in keeping with Christian tradition for the nuns to pray for those lacking health care and the 45,000 who lose their lives each year due to lack of the same. “For us, this health care reform is a faith mandate for life and dignity of all of our people.”
We can add another phony abortion opposition group to the list, the Susan B. Anthony list, an operation that funds female anti-abortion candidates.
In health care reform’s last minutes, they are telling their members to call democratic congress reps. They don’t even mention the possibility of prevailing on a single Republican Senator to insert the abortion language of their choice. Nor can I find any coverage on their website of current $250 billion abortion subsidies via the tax system.