The American Spectator

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Government Takeover is a Double-Edged Sword

By Philip Klein on 11.7.09 @ 11:47AM

Liberals are upset that Democrats gave in and supported a vote on an amendment to prohibit federal funds from being used to subsidize abortions.

"They totally caved because they couldn’t find the votes for their bill. Now they’ll try to jam it down the throats of pro-choice Dems," writes David Dayen on Fire Dog Lake, who describes the measure as a "ban abortion coverage in the private individual and small group market by passing the bill tomorrow."

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein laments that, "Because of the limits placed on the exchanges, most of the participants will have some form of premium credit or affordable subsidy. That means most will be ineligible for abortion coverage."

The New Republic's Jon Cohn, meanwhile, writes that the measure would make it "more likely that millions of American women will no longer be able to purchase insurance that covers abortion services"

But there should be a very important lesson in this. If you don't want government to be involved with dictating what kind of insurance people can purchase with their own money, then don't support a health care bill that forces individuals to purchase government-designed insurance policies from a government-run store.