Anatomy of a Health Reform Deal
Don't the Democrats control Congress? How did Nancy Pelosi get to the point where she didn't have enough votes in her own caucus to pass health reform unless she paved the way for language that, as Jon Cohn puts it, "mak[es] it more likely that millions of American women will no longer be able to purchase insurance that covers abortion services"?
Some liberals will complain that this is what Democrats get for recruiting more socially conservative candidates to run in red districts. But not all pro-life Democrats are the same. Someone like Tim Ryan from Ohio who has worked to find common ground on abortion and will vote for health reform whether or not the Stupak amendment passes is not like Bart Stupak, who represents a district so Republican that as one of his pro-life colleagues once told me, "Bart simply couldn't win without the endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee. So he has to end up taking a much harder line than the rest of us do."
What's surprising to me is that so many of Stupak's Democratic colleagues stood alongside him in opposing the Democratic proposal unless it included an unprecedented strict standard regarding what constitutes federal funding of abortion. As I've written before, I think some pro-life groups and the Stupak faction moved the goalposts throughout the summer and fall in terms of what they would accept in terms of abortion language.
But it also seems clear that the Democratic leadership and White House dropped the ball on finding a compromise with pro-life Democrats. The deal reached late last night/early this morning in the Speaker's office is not a compromise; it is in fact more than the Catholic bishops and Stupak himself asked for as late as mid-summer. The Speaker didn't get rolled by crafty or stubborn members of her party, though. This was a predictable consequence of a high-handed approach to dealing with pro-life members of the Democratic caucus.
Despite the fact that anyone who has followed U.S. politics over the last thirty years could have told you that abortion would be a controversial aspect of health reform, no one tried to preemptively address the concerns of pro-life Democrats by sitting down with them early in the process. The White House didn't reach out to some of the more good-faith players on the pro-life side until early September. And Pelosi didn't sit down with Stupak until September 29. This despite the fact that 19 Democratic members sent her a letter in June expressing their concerns with abortion coverage in health reform.
I know many in the Democratic caucus tend to see their pro-life colleagues as a pesky but ultimately insignificant faction. But this sort of leadership strategy isn't just inexcusable, it's malpractice. It appears that Pelosi thought Stupak et al were bluffing and would come around in the end rather than oppose health reform. That assumption also depended on a scenario in which the Catholic bishops may not have supported health reform but also didn't vigorously oppose it.
It became very clear by late last week that this assumption was a mistake. Instead of staying neutral or remaining quiet about their concerns, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a grassroots campaign to oppose health reform, sending out bulletin inserts and fliers to every diocese in the country and urging priests to speak out from the pulpit last Sunday. In addition, every bishop was urged to contact the congressional members in their diocese and insist that they vote against health reform. And when the Democratic leadership whipped the bill late this week, they found they didn't have the votes to pass it. Which is how Stupak and representatives from the USCCB ended up in the Speakers' office last night and emerged with a deal that gives them everything they wanted.
It's hard to know for sure, but my best guess is that it didn't have to come to this. After having their concerns ignored through consideration of health reform in the House Energy and Commerce Committee this summer, pro-life Democrats decided that the Capps amendment--which was intended to eliminate any pro-life objections--didn't go far enough. Pro-choice leaders and the Democratic leadership, however, treated the Capps language as the ultimate concession. When pro-life Democrat Brad Ellsworth tried to break the stalemate with a relatively weak version of the Stupak amendment last week, pro-choice groups fought his effort. Looking at the Stupak amendment about to become part of health reform, they may wish they had the Ellsworth language instead.
Perhaps the best way to have headed off this debate in the first place would have been to make sure that the original health reform legislation was not introduced with language that could have allowed direct federal funding of abortion. That starting point signaled to pro-life Democrats--rightly or wrongly--that their colleagues hoped to use health reform to change the status quo regarding government funding of abortion. And the fact that their concerns went unacknowledged for months from both the White House and House leadership seemed to confirm their fears.
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1
I think you need to update. I believe the Stupak admendment went down in defeat by a voice vote. They could bring it back because I think Stupak reserved for a roll call vote, but not sure.
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Debate is now going on with the Republican Health Care Reform Plan. I am assuming it will be voted on next.
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But, if the abortion amendment that I am calling it as such does not pass, blue dogs are going to run like scared rabbits on the Pelosi bill planned for a vote by midnight.-
1.1
Unofficial word sounds like Rustydog may be right.
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I'm hearing a lot of this on Twitter:rkref Source says that even if Stupak Amend goes down (w/ GOP souring on it), there are pro-HCR, anti-choice Dems who want symbolic vote on it.
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1.2
Here's Maglalang on Twitter whipping (link):
Vote NO on Stupak. Only way to protect the unborn in govt health is to have no govt health. (via @PatrickRuffini)
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michellemalkin -
1.3
Nope, we're wrong, it passed.
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2
…so the Bishops oppose HC reform over abortion …and yet opposing HC reform allows more people to die from lack of accessible treatment, denied insurance claims, etc. Amy, aren't healing the sick and helping the poor among Jesus' main points?
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3
Thanks. Not banning abortion but not funding it in public services is a good teaching example of the principle of conditioning rights on wealth. See: http://www.familyinequality.com
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3.1
That principle leaves something to be desired:
" .. Not banning abortion but not funding it in public services is a good teaching example .."
The idea of the government of the people not funding abortion would go unnoticed if abortion is a benign issue to the "we, the people".
However, unsafe abortions kill on average 8 mothers every hour in USA.
Why would you rather find the funding for research, education, early detection and treatment of breast cancer which kills on average 4 mothers every hour? -
3.2
Correction:
"unsafe abortions kill on average 8 mothers every hour in the world."---------off topic
[Note: It is said that there are over 1 million abortions in USA - a year. Now you know why we would have an issue if you recognize life at the moment of conception ..]
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Bipartisanship in action!
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"..not all pro-life Democrats are the same."
Amy, I think you meant to write "anti-choice."
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Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Anti-Choice, all your words.
Two out of three mention choice, let us remember that in many and probably most cases it is a choice, it is elective, and many are apposed to this choice with exception of health of the mother. Yes even a life long Democrat like me. -
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For the first time since they started asking the question, given the choice between "pro-life" and "pro-choice," more than 50% of Americans told Gallup they are "pro-life" this year. Why now? http://www.familyinequality.com
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7.1
Perhaps it is people like a recent abortion clinic general manager, who had never witnessed an abortion in action who has now begun to speak out. How she saw on an ultrasound, the vacumn probe going into a woman's womb, and the live fetus struggled to get away from the destruction of the vacumn probe in order to live.
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Perhaps when this same abortion clinic manager for the first time ever witnessed how the fetus was "crushed" by the vacumn probed as it sucked the contents of the unborn child from it's mother's womb.
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Why is it that in most all abortions, the doctors refuse to use an ultrasound monitor. Do they want to keep their employees from seeing the destruction? Or, is it their own concious that cannot handle it?
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Women do have the right to choose to kill their unborn children. However, I have the right to say no to paying for it as a tax payer.
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[...] Amy Sullivan, meanwhile, says it never had to come to such a black and white conclusion: [...]
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[...] uncertain even going into the House Rules Committee last night, came after the adoption 240-194 of an amendment sponsored by Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat ensuring that no money would go to funding abortions. Pro-choice groups [...]
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O freaking wonderful. Now we can try to cope with providing lifelong health care for more unwanted children. Way to go, right!
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11
Hey Rusty,
You have insurance? You've probably helped fund hundreds of abortions. You do know how insurance works, right? -
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[...] Ezra Klein notes that the Stupak amendment was a high price to pay for passage. Amy Sullivan blames the House leadership. [...]
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It is sad that the effort to rewrite the history of what actually took place regarding women's rights in this bill will likely stand because the editors of this blog and Time will left is go uncorrected. That said, this article contains more errors than a simple comment can correct.
One point, however: the Capps amendment was intended to be and was agreed to ensure that the status quo would be continued, that health care reform would not be a battleground for advancing either side's position. The anti-women's rights groups decided that they would use something the President had stated was a major legislative priority was exactly what they needed to push more restrictive measures. They were not ignored; they were not pushed aside. They simply chose to take advantage of the situation, and won.
Women's rights and health care took a major blow. The good news is that this is now a battle out in the open and fully engaged. What passed the House is not the final chapter in this story, despite bad reporting and distortions.
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[...] Amy Sullivan weighed in over the weekend on what on Stupak and Pelosi’s handling of the health care fight, and even if her rationale towards the pro-(selective) life contingent is bankrupt, she does get a few things right. Don’t the Democrats control Congress? How did Nancy Pelosi get to the point where she didn’t have enough votes in her own caucus to pass health reform unless she paved the way for language that, as Jon Cohn puts it, “mak[es] it more likely that millions of American women will no longer be able to purchase insurance that covers abortion services”? [...]
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15
[...] to the success of the Stupak amendment. Amy Sullivan, writing in Time's Swampland blog, argues: But it also seems clear that the Democratic leadership and White House dropped the ball on finding [...]
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16
[...] Time’s Amy Sullivan examines some of the events that led to Speaker Pelosi’s acceptance of the Stupak amendment: [It] also seems clear that the Democratic leadership and White House dropped the ball on finding a compromise with pro-life Democrats. The deal reached late last night/early this morning in the Speaker’s office is not a compromise; it is in fact more than the Catholic bishops and Stupak himself asked for as late as mid-summer. The Speaker didn’t get rolled by crafty or stubborn members of her party, though. This was a predictable consequence of a high-handed approach to dealing with pro-life members of the Democratic caucus. [...]
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17
[...] of an amendment barring any tax dollars even indirectly subsidizing abortion. It’s the biggest rollback of a woman’s right to choose in decades, and one that could hit low-income women the [...]
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18
If abortion is a "choice" why shouldn't pro-lifers be able to "choose" not to contribute a dime towards baby killing? If a woman chooses to destroy her child's life, let her pay with her own money, not the taxpayers'.
Abortion in NOT healthcare! -
19
[...] country cousins by the cool crowd inside the Beltway, and as Time’s Amy Sullivan noted in her piquant post-mortem, anyone could have seen this train wreck coming. When the first health care reform bills were [...]
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