Stupak amendment won't cover miscarriagesFollow

There's also the fact that Mary's government at the time was an occupying foreign power, of whose country she was not a citizen. Asking Rome for subsidized healthcare would have been a bit difficult, I imagine.

That's not the issue though. A poor person without insurance today does not get her abortions paid for by her health insurance either (cause she doesn't have any). This does not change that, so the amendment has no effect on the poor and uninsured.

The argument that this will somehow make abortion less available than it is today is only true if the Dem's claim that their health care bill will not force anyone to change their current health care is false. That's the point I was making. The statement that this would somehow make women have to get coat hanger abortions is just ridiculous rhetoric.

The claim was made a lie because of this amendment.

As the original article was noted, a D&E (dilation and evacuation) is considered an abortive procedure by the hospital regardless of whether the fetus is alive or dead. The language of the bill will make it so that insurance companies can get away with no longer covering D&Es for miscarriages because the hospital labels it an abortion.

So, while my present insurance coverage has my back if I miscarry, when the bill is enacted they have two choices: Stop offering D&E coverage except in the form of an additional rider that they charge me more for, and skip participating in the insurance exchange OR Stop offering coverage period and partcipate in the exchange.

Although, what am I worried about? The state of Georgia is going to opt out of the plan anyway. *bitter*

Or if it turns out that your insurance company takes federal money, in which case they're hit by this amendment.

Yes you fucking paranoid sycophant, the democrats were just counting on a republican push to totally sabotage the bill that was not politically wise to press in the first place. Makes perfect sense.

Think.



If there was no drive to appease a stupefyingly hypocritical and sensationalistic anti-abortion fanbase? Yeah it might be true. It doesn't really count as an intellectual victory for you when the doomsayers are fulfilling the prophecy of doom themselves does it?

The hell am I talking to you? You don't care anyway. As long as choice among doctors is somehow reduced in order to vindicate your petty and impotent little fly of a political system and prophecy, it doesn't matter whether it's from a democratic or republican initiative; you get the narcissistic little joy of being right about the big bad government while nothing in medicine actually changes.

Edited, Nov 10th 2009 8:01pm by Pensive

Lol. The exchanges are the public option Joph. Try and keep up.

Much of this is semantic differences between the phrase "insurance company" and "insurance plan". Not going to go too far into details, but there's a bit of a bait and switch going on, once again related directly to the impact of the so called "public option". Your "plan" wont be changed, but how the money gets there will, transforming it from something you and a bunch of other private citizens pay into and pull out of, into something you and the government put money into and then pull out of.

That's exactly what the Right is opposed to. Because now your money and influence as a consumer of a product is in competition with the governments money and influence. What to bet who wins? By putting the abortion amendment in there, he's highlighting this aspect of the change to health care resulting from this bill. Your coverage will be based more on legislation the government passes than on what the consumers want.

That's the whole point. It's to make people realize that their choices will be limited as a result. In this example case, it's abortion. But it could be anything down the line. Once you start involving federal monies, the federal government gets to control how its spent. Not you. Not me.



There's also the side issue about publicly funding abortion. Or did you forget the whole "you lie" outburst during the Presidents speech? It's kinda funny to see the Left trying to spin ways to oppose this without actually saying "we demand that public money be spent to pay for abortions". Hence the article in the OP. It doesn't actually say that abortion should be paid for, but that argues the issue on other medical procedures. It's kinda comical, really...



I assume therefore, that if the amendment is removed that Obama will veto the bill, right? He did promise that there wouldn't be funding for abortion in there, right? When are you going to demand that your party leaders stick to their promises Joph?

Emphasis mine.

Lol. Try and keep up.

It's semantics Joph. The whole opposition to a "public option" is that public money will be in competition with private money for the same services. Just because you were able to dig up a source labeling just one service option by the same name does not change what the right opposes. Doubly so when that source is written by guys in the opposition position.


Opposition to the "public option", despite strawman counters like the one you quoted, is not restricted to the government providing a competing service, but to the government providing an "option" for payment other than that of a private insurance mechanism (or direct payments by an individual "self insuring" if you will). The fear is that if the government gets involved with providing insurance itself (on either side of the equation), this will drive out private insurers.

One of the specific concerns is that individuals (or whole businesses) may simply drop their coverage through their existing insurance companies because the government will provide for them if they don't have it. The whole issue with fining people who don't have coverage if they can afford it exists directly to prevent this from happening, leading to yet more lunacy of course and along the way effectively mandating that everyone have insurance whether they can afford it or not. Of course, in the process of negotiating, what we've effectively got is a system where even with the fines, it will be cheaper to go with the government paid system than paying for insurance directly.


That's the "public option" which has most people concerned Joph. It's not just about the government providing an alternative service. That's problematic by itself (cause it has no profit requirement and can operate at a loss to drive out competition if it wants), but that is not and never has been the entirety of the problem of the public option.


Any mechanism which makes it easier to drop existing coverage mechanisms in favor of one funded or provided by the government qualifies as a "public option" Joph. Let's not play with the words...

And yet... if there were no government involvement in the industry, there would be no limits on choices, would there? See how that works?


The point here is to get you to understand that without government funding being involved, the only way to limit your actions is to actually pass laws making whatever you want to do illegal. When government funding is involved, all that is required is to limit what said funding may pay for.


Part of the point here is to get you idiots on the left to understand that this makes it easier to control your choices. It does not make you more free, but more enslaved. I actually think this amendment is brilliant. It makes three pretty salient points:

1. It highlights the falseness of Obama's promise about funding for abortion made just a couple months ago.

2. It highlights the falseness of the Dems claims about the lack of impact of public funding on private insurance.

3. It highlights the ideological flaws with regard to government funding and choice/freedom as a whole, showing pretty clearly the degree to which said funding always comes with strings.



As I said earlier, it's been really amusing watching the liberal pundits so very carefully pick their words in order to spin this. Not so successfully really. They can't attack it blatantly without admitting either that they do want to fund abortion with taxpayer dollars despite Obama's promise to the contrary, or that the public options in the bill will impact a lot more of the currently privately funded insurance providers than they Dems have been saying. It's like they're jumping up and down yelling about how unfair this is, but when you ask them what's unfair, they suddenly remember that they can't actually say the real reasons they don't like it, so they fall back to these very strange oblique arguments about side effects of medical terminology and broad and unsubstantiated claims about freedom and choice....


It's freaking hysterical...

Lol. First random link from google search





It's pretty hard to read this and think that the only issue here is the government being an insurance plan provider Joph. It's clearly also about the funding, the use of exchanges, and the ultimate control over the quality and quantity of health care which the government will gain as a result.


Your "side" doesn't get to define what it is the other side opposes Joph. Cause that leads to exactly the sort of bait and switch language game you are playing right now.

I suspect you are correct. But I also suspect that the language was written the way it was partially to provide negotiating room (duh), but also to generate exactly the kind of outrage reaction we saw. Liberals jumping up and down shouting "You can't do this! It's wrong to deny women the right to... Um... you know... there are issues of freedom and choice and whatnot... and um... some medical procedures, but not abortions... other things, might accidentally be denied. Yes! That's it. What about women choosing to have a miscarriage? (whew!) It's all just a mean GOP trick!".


Dunno. It was worth a laugh...

Half?

Do you know what the word "half" means?

I honestly was not aware that every other person in the United States was on welfare.