House passes amendment prohibiting coverage of abortions in government-run healthcare plan

By ERICA WERNER

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan House coalition voted Saturday to prohibit coverage of abortions in a new government-run healthcare plan that Democrats would establish to compete with private insurers.

The 240-194 vote on an amendment by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., was a blow to liberals, who would have allowed the Obama administration and its successors to decide whether abortions would be covered by the government plan. Sixty-four Democrats joined 176 Republicans in favor of the prohibition.

Stupak’s measure would also bar anyone from getting federal subsidies to help cover premiums for private insurance polices that would include abortion coverage.

"Let us stand together on principle — no public funding for abortions, no public funding for insurance policies that pay for abortions," Stupak urged fellow lawmakers before the vote.

The amendment would bar the new government insurance plan from covering abortions except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life. The Democrats’ original legislation would have allowed the government plan to cover abortions if the health and human services secretary decided it should.

The amendment would also prohibit people who receive new federal health subsidies from buying insurance plans that include abortion coverage.

The Democrats’ original bill would have allowed people getting federal subsidies to pay for abortion coverage with their own money. Abortion opponents dismissed that as an accounting gimmick.

Abortion-rights advocates called the measure the biggest setback to women’s reproductive rights in decades.

"Like it or not, this is a legal medical procedure, and we should respect those who need to make this very personal decision," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Some Republicans considered voting "present" in hopes that that might unravel support for the underlying healthcare bill among anti-abortion Democrats, but only Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., did so.

Before the vote, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said, "If I felt that the [health overhaul] bill could be killed by not advancing the Stupak amendment then it seems it would be prudent to vote in such a way that wouldn’t advance the bill, but it doesn’t appear that that’s a possibility."

The National Right to Life Committee and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied lawmakers in both parties on the abortion measure. The bishops said they would oppose the bill if it lacked a strict prohibition on federal funding for abortions.

Stupak’s language applies to policies sold in a federally regulated insurance exchange that would be set up in 2013. The overhaul bill envisions both private companies and the government offering policies in the exchange.

Under the Stupak amendment, people who did not receive federal insurance subsidies could buy private insurance plans in the exchange that include abortion coverage. People who received federal subsidies could buy separate policies covering only abortions if they used only their own money.

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