Stupak Amendment Would Expand, Not Preserve, Abortion Restrictions

When the Energy and Commerce Committee began marking up health care legislation this past summer, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich. — an economic populist who is devoutly conservative on social issues — made it clear that his support for the measure was contingent upon a ban on federal subsidies for abortion procedures.

His objective, he contended, was to codify the “Hyde amendment.” The Hyde amendment, named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., barred the annual Health and Human Services spending bill from providing federal funds for abortions.

The Stupak amendment, however — which the House adopted by a vote of 240 to 194 prior to passing the bill Saturday night — goes significantly further than the Hyde amendment in restricting abortion funding. The amendment does not bar federal funds for abortions. Rather, it prohibits private insurers from covering abortion services if they enroll individuals who receive government subsidies. That’s an important distinction.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that the amendment would not affect tax-free, employer health plans that offer abortion coverage. To be sure, plenty of those employer plans do not offer abortion services — but some do. And for all intents and purposes, the tax-exclusion for employer coverage amounts to a subsidy. Therefor, the Stupak amendment targets plans used by women seeking coverage in the exchanges — that is to say, lower-income women.

The president weighed in on this issue yesterday, telling ABC’s Jake Tapper that the language needs to be revised so that it would merely keep current law intact. Democrats will have the opportunity to modify the provision in the House/Senate conference committee, assuming the Senate doesn’t do so first.