Oct 20, 2009
Last week saw significant progress toward a final version of a healthcare reform bill which could be voted on by Congress as early as the end of October. The path toward that final bill is so tortuous, however, that even experts disagree on just how it will be accomplished. As explained to me by my colleague Dorinda Bordlee, Executive Director and Senior Counsel for Bioethics Defense Fund, and editorialized in the San Francisco Examiner, the bill was taken behind closed doors in the Senate chambers under the direction of Senate majority leader Harry Reid. From there it will eventually make its way to both chambers of Congress, but quite possibly without further input from the American public and without the opportunity for further amendment. Bordlee explained:
This scenario involves Senator Reid stripping an unrelated bill that is currently languishing in conference committee, and stuffing it with his preferred health reform language cobbled together from the Baucus proposal and the Senate Health Committee bill. Once that bill comes out of "conference committee" it would then be voted on in the House and Senate in a straight up or down vote without the opportunity for anyone to propose amendments.
Repeated attempts by pro-life legislators in the House, most notably Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), to insert prolife amendments into the House versions of the bill were consistently thwarted. Now, lacking the possibility of further amendment (with perhaps one last chance for this when the bill reaches the floor of the Senate), the eventual bill is destined to broaden the federal funding of abortion. Consequently, as explained by officials of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it is almost certain that the Bishops will have to oppose any final form of the bill passed by Congress.
As to whether the final bill will or will not shield federal dollars from funding abortion, the reigning fallacy among many in Washington is that any eventual bill will come under the sway of the Hyde Amendment. The Hyde Amendment is a provision added each year to the annual funding appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Service. It prohibits federal funding for almost all abortions and specifically prohibits states from using the matching funds they receive from the federal government for Medicaid to pay for abortions.
But as many pro-life leaders have futilely attempted to point out to the White House and leaders in Congress, any eventual healthcare reform bill is not in fact covered by the Hyde Amendment because the latter only covers appropriations for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). But the current legislative plan establishes that the federal funding for healthcare reform will come from general Treasury funds, not HHS funds. Therefore, Hyde Amendment limitations in HHS appropriations will not apply.
As explained by Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life, the legislation currently in the works: