More thoughts on Stupak…
Because most participants in the insurance exchange would receive some federal subsidy (the New York Times reports that “anyone earning less than $88,000 for a family of four — four times the poverty level — would be eligible for a subsidy under the House bill”), insurers in the exchange are strongly incentivized to cut abortion coverage from their offerings. The result? A de facto ban on abortion coverage within the insurance exchange – a ban which would affect even those who don’t receive federal health subsidies.
There are many stories to be told here, but I’ll limit myself to just a few. First, even if we’re not losing the culture war, Democrats apparently think we are. Disturbingly, 20 Dems with pro-choice track records voted in favor of the Stupak Amendment; at least 11 of them are in vulnerable positions for 2010, and they presumably believe that a vote for reproductive health is more dangerous than a vote for health reform. (Nate Silver points out that voter polls indicate the contrary.) The Left collectively needs to grapple with some large questions around the future of RJ and the Democratic Party.
Our second story: Congress hasn’t simply sold out women’s health; they’ve specifically sold out the health of low-income women. As RJ activists, we should be particularly attuned to intersections of economic justice and reproductive health, and to the ways in which the Stupak Amendment furthers the economic stratification of abortion access. Ezra Klein notes that “the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by Stupak’s amendment. It’s the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free . . . Imagine if Stupak had attempted to expand his amendment to their coverage. . . . it would have failed in an instant. That group is too large, and too affluent, and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch their access to reproductive services.”
And the third story: the Stupak Amendment perpetuates the myth that abortion is not an integral part of regular health care. Ann Friedman at Feministing captures the frustration: “This has me so incredibly infuriated because it further segregates abortion as something different, off the menu of regular health care. It is a huge backward step in the battle to convey — not just politically, but to women in their everyday lives — that reproductive health care is normal and necessary, and must be there if (or, more accurately, when) you need it.”
Like you, I’ll be keeping a close eye on what happens in the Senate.
Ash Gorski