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The Wedge Dividing Obama's Health Coalition
But there are alarming signs for pro-choice groups. Just 13 Democratic senators are female, but one of them, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, signaled on MSNBC on Monday that she would consider voting for a bill that included a ban on abortion coverage in the exchanges. “Frankly, once again, this is another example of having to govern with moderates,” McCaskill said. “We can’t just turn our back on the fact that the reason we are in majority is because states like Indiana, and Arkansas, and Louisiana, and Missouri, and North Carolina, and Virginia sent Democrats to the Senate.” (She later noted on Twitter that she opposes the Stupak amendment.)
On Monday morning, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, announced she had collected 40 signatures of Democrats who have vowed to vote against any final reform bill that retains the Stupak amendment. The list of the letter’s signatories remains closely guarded, though, and even some outspoken champions of abortion rights are refusing to say whether they’ve signed—perhaps reflecting a last-ditch willingness to accept the Stupak amendment, as a means to pushing through the president’s top domestic policy priority.
“I’m not going to prejudge an outcome,” said DeLauro, who would not say whether she signed the DeGette letter. “I just want to work very hard in terms of affecting an outcome. Health reform is critical to our economy, for families, for women. Forty-five thousand people die every year because they don’t have health coverage. This is an outstanding piece of legislation, it really is.”
Speaking to ABC’s Jake Tapper on Monday, President Obama said he hoped the Stupak abortion ban would be scrubbed from the final health bill. “I want to make sure…that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” the president said.
But some liberal activists are saying the Democratic Party and its pro-choice organizational allies did too little, too late to beat back the attack on abortion rights. Throughout the months-long health-care negotiations, the White House signaled that abortion access was on the table for discussion. In a July interview with Katie Couric and on the floor of Congress in September, President Obama promised there would be no public financing of abortion in health reform, meaning the procedure would not be available to women who opt in to any potential new public insurance plan. That pushed the goalposts closer to the pro-life position.
Others are pointing at the pro-choice groups themselves. Jane Hamsher, who runs the Netroots blog Firedoglake, says the organizations have gotten too cozy with the Democratic Party establishment, which often seeks to avoid public discussion of abortion. In the health-reform fight, NARAL and Planned Parenthood were less effective in advocating for their agenda than were proponents of the public insurance option, Hamsher said. “We went out and got commitments from members of the House to vote against any bill that doesn’t have a public option,” Hamsher told The Daily Beast. “They weren’t doing the same thing.”
Richards, of Planned Parenthood, said she wasn’t aware of any efforts, before Saturday’s vote, to extract promises from legislators to vote against a health bill that restricts abortion access. “Frankly, this issue came out Friday night,” she said. Yet Stupak has been on the warpath since July, when he released a letter signed by 19 Democrats demanding a ban on abortion coverage in the exchanges.
“Maybe we should have” created a more threatening pro-choice coalition earlier on, said Smeal. She continued, “Here we are playing nice guy again, we didn’t want to make a fuss, we agreed to a compromise that was already over-generous. And then, bango! These guys go in there like gangbusters. Pelosi was held up, like by bandits. Now the women are saying, ‘That’s it, it’s enough.’”
Dana Goldstein is an associate editor and writer at The Daily Beast. Her work on politics, women’s issues, and education has appeared in The American Prospect, Slate, BusinessWeek, The New Republic, and The Nation.
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This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
"I have to stop posting and prepare my petition for the court."
Promises, promises.
It's the sad fact of life with hands-free adapters. Before they came out, you tell the crazy people a block away. Now it's much harder.
When it comes to OK, if the post is more than 500 words, I'm flagging them.
Unless something has changed in Washington since my birth, the Senate is going to essentially create their own Bill. Whatever issues in this Bill that are passed thru from the House will be talking points and fodder for Senate debate. I think that the Democrats were just trying to get a Bill thru. It's never been done before.
I'm certainly no expert on on the workings of Congress, but I have a long memory. I wonder how many realize that when they read "This Bill is Dead!" or "This Issue is a Deal Breaker!" that the real lawmaking process in Washington is very complex. It involves committees, procedures, etc. just to get to a final vote!
tbones: Getting a Senate bill passed will be a real mess, with filibustering a possibility at several points, and no assurance that Reid can get the 60 votes necessary to break a filibuster. If breaking a filibuster fails, Reid could use reconciliation to avoid a filibuster and pass a bill with only 50 votes, but there are limits as to what kind of bill can use reconciliation.
Once the Senate passes its bill, the House and Senate bills got to conference to resolve any differences - and there will be lots. Getting the right people in the conference is rather important.
The final bill from conference goes back to the House and Senate for final votes. At this point, nobody can make any changes to the bill, so it should go pretty fast. If both chambers pass the bill (can the Senate filibuster at this point? I don't know), it goes to Obama for his signature (he will almost certainly sign it) and health care reform is finished!
Thank you for an informative article Ms. Goldstein. This subject is a complex one and I appreciate that you were able to write about it in a way that was void of a political agenda or wrought with emotion. Maybe your fellow blogger, Ms. Siskind, who is trying to use this amendment to incite discontent and rage against a President she has clearly despised since the Democratic Primaries last year, could learn a thing or two about quality writing from you.
To TDB- more Goldsteins and less Siskinds will up the quality of your website.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
It is a good article. I used to be a pro-choice Democrat. I supported Obama with my money and my feet. I have supported pro-choce women Democrats through Emily's List for years. Having been around before abortion was legal, I know the heartbreak that my friends and family have suffered.
I'm through with the Democratic party. I can't be a Republican, of course, so I'm independent. No more money for betrayers.
No abortions at taxpayer expense, or maybe I should be blunt. NO ABORTIONS PERIOD.
I am sick and tired of feminists. I hope they take the right to vote away from you.
You abortionists are disgusting.
You are murderers.
Unfortunately for women, there will Never be a time when there are no abortions; all you are stopping is SAFE abortions. Just as there will never be a time when there are no rapes, no abuse. Perhaps if men could see women as equals....
Maybe they can provide free condoms as an alternative?
According to Obama, he said he was going to put patient safety first, and he would not let some government bureaucrat or some insurance bureaucrat get between you and the care that you need. The women at the top like McCaskill, and the women who voted for this, are making themselves to look like they are working for the anti- emale democratic party, rather than working to bring benefits for all, not just some.
In any reform there will be inadequacies, but good lord, does it always have to been about women's bodies, and their rights?
When that happens it is more prone to fail.
UglyRed: Controlling women and abortion has always been a priority with Republicans (and conservative Democrats), so it is not completely surprising that this issue showed up.
Personally, I think the Stupak amendment is unlikely to make it into the Senate bill or survive the conference which resolves differences between the House and Senate bills.
This is the women's own fault. they had a chance to put a woman in the white house and blew it. That's right. You females had the power at one time and you got sucked in. I'll bet Hillary is getting a kick outta this LOL.
Everyone knows this abortion grandstanding is a largely republican deal so everyone should know who to blame if this"poisen pill," survives to mike it on to the final draft. Republicans have took this ridiculous position before so I say fine let them have it when people are put in jail for personal matters you know who to blame.
Thanks for your article, but your statistic on the cost of abortion is quite low is only the range for abortions done in the first trimester. According to the Guttmacher Institute, "In 2005, the cost of a nonhospital abortion with local anesthesia at 10 weeks' gestation ranged from $90 to $1,800; the average amount paid was $413." Abortions done in the second trimester, though rarer, can reach up to $10,000 in cost. Low-income women are more likely to have later term abortions due to the time needed to gather money for the procedure, as well as to possibly fund a trip to a provider. As 87% of counties don't have an abortion provider, many women have to travel long distances to find a provider. In addition, in states with a mandatory waiting period, an extra night's hotel cost has to be added on. Plus the cost of child care, as most women that have an abortion already have other children.
This adds up to a huge cost for women! Health reform is supposed to help women obtain the health care they need. Allowing the government to prohibit funding for abortion is horrible! Abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country that one in three women will have in their lifetime. Abortion should be a covered procedure in health care. End of story.
With the Republican Party doing everything they can to wreck Obama, wreck the country (again), and wreck any chance of national, affordable healthcare, I'm beginning to think that even those Democrats who have fought long and hard to produce a bill, will wind up with something that is so compromised as to not be worth signing.
My feeling is that the American people should call on the richest altruists we have in America to help set up a private healthcare insurance company that is NOT FOR PROFIT.
This company would accept everyone, not deny claims for pre-existing conditions, and set rates that would be far lower than the piratical, profiteering private companies we have today.
This could be done, and it wouldn't require the vote of any Republican or Blue Dog Dem, and the people could eventually reduce the private insurance industry to financial bankruptcy, which would match their moral bankruptcy.
Thank you.
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