Nancy-Ann DeParle, the director of the White House Office on
Health Reform, insisted on Thursday that new language in Harry
Reid’s Senate health care bill would prevent federal funds from
being used to cover abortion.
Here’s what DeParle had to say about the measure on a conference
call with reporters earlier this afternoon:
“It was carefully worked through by the leader, who cared very
much about making sure that this maintains status quo on
abortion policy and doesn’t shift federal abortion and
conscience clause policy in either a pro-life or a pro-choice
direction so it’s very much trying to keep the balance on the
scales and ensure that the bill does nothing to restrict or
expand existing abortion law. But it is very clear that federal
funds cannot be used for abortion coverage or care. So that’s
where he struck the balance. I mean, it’s pretty clear. I
don’t know that anyone is 100 percent happy with it because
some people would like it to do more to move away from where
the federal balance has been in not covering it, and others
would like for it to move in the opposite direction. So he’s
right there in the middle maintaining the status quo.”
Under the language approved by the House of Representatives,
nobody could use federal subsidies toward the purchase of a
policy that covered abortion, and abortion could not be covered
by the government-run plan. But under pressure from pro-choice
groups, Reid placed language in the Senate bill that would work
out a complicated formula aimed at segregating funds so that
women who received federal subsidies could still purchase
policies with abortion services as long as the subsidies didn’t
support the cost of the abortion coverage. The bill would also
force state insurance exchanges to offer one plan that covers
abortion and make it possible for the government-run plan to
cover abortion.
Pro-choice lawmakers have
backed the Reid language, while the National Right to Life
Committee has called it “completely
unacceptable.”
Earlier today, Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad
acknowledged that he wasn’t yet sure whether the Reid
language prevents taxpayer funding for abortions.
