Pivotal Abortion Amendment In Senate

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Pivotal Abortion Amendment Now In Senate

Special Report - December 8, 2009
When the U.S. Senate convenes today, they resume consideration of the Nelson-Hatch Amendment that would prevent federal funding for abortion under the healthcare reform bill. Similar in scope to the Stupak amendment added to the House passed version of the bill, the Nelson amendment is considered to be a make or break provision for a number of Senators in their final vote on healthcare reform legislation.

Here's what the amendment does:

The Nelson-Hatch amendment does one very simple thing: it applies the policy of the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion except in the case of rape, incest or life of the mother, to the health care reform bill. The Hyde Amendment policy has been the law of the land on federal funding of abortion in Medicaid since 1977, and it now also applies to all other federally-funded health care programs—including CHIP, Medicare, Medicaid, Indian Health Services, Veterans Health, military health care programs and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

This language of the Nelson-Hatch Amendment is very close to the Stupak language adopted by the House of Representatives on November 7 by a vote of 240 to 194 and, therefore, was included in the House-passed language.

Here's what the amendment does not do:

First, it does not prevent any individual—including those individuals using subsidies to purchase their overall policy through the exchange—from using their own private dollars to purchase a supplemental policy covering abortion. It does not prevent any private insurer from selling such a policy. So the right to buy and sell elective abortion coverage is explicitly affirmed, but federal dollars will not pay for it.
Second, the Nelson-Hatch amendment does not prevent any individual from purchasing a comprehensive plan that covers abortion, as long as their coverage is not purchased with premium subsidies financed by taxpayer dollars.
Third, it does not prevent an insurer participating in the Exchange from selling health plans in the Exchange that include elective abortions as long as no federal subsidies are used to purchase the policy and the insurer offers an identical plan without elective abortion coverage to subsidized purchasers.

Commentary from a Pro-Life Perspective:

The Nelson-Hyde amendment simply applies the Hyde Amendment policy to the government-run plan and private policies purchased using premium subsidies. This is not a new federal abortion policy. The Hyde Amendment and its progeny prohibit direct federal funding of abortion as well as federal funding of overall health care policies that cover abortion. This policy currently applies to the 8 million Americans—including Members of Congress covered under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP)—and should apply to this bill. FEHBP covers 8 million Americans; another estimated 53 million are covered by Hyde through Medicaid alone.

Some might ask why this amendment is necessary if the Hyde Amendment is existing law. The answer is, funding in the health bill is not subject to annual appropriations and therefore not subject to the Hyde provisions contained in the annual Labor-HHS bill. The only way to provide Hyde protection for the government run plan and premium subsidies is to insert Hyde language in the Reid bill.

And allowing funding for abortion through the government-run plan represents a clear departure from longstanding policy by authorizing the federal government to pay for elective abortion for the first time in decades.