Pro-life House members take thickheaded stand on abortion
Rep. Stupak (D-MI) has successfully lobbied for a floor vote on his sweeping pro-life amendment that would substantially rewrite the federal government’s stance on abortion funding. The main objection of Stupak and other pro-life House members is the concern that tax subsidies provided through the health insurance exchange (so-called “affordability credits”) will pay for private or public plans that provide for coverage of abortion services.
Ironically, one of the things these members fail to realize is that the American taxpayer already pays for private health insurance coverage for Americans that includes abortion procedures. There is already an employer tax exemption for money spent on health insurance for employees, and many of these plans include abortion coverage.
Because any money the federal government does not collect through tax exemptions costs taxpayers, from a budgetary perspective the fact that the money is not collected rather than spent makes no difference. It is still a cost that needs to be offset somewhere else, either in the form of new revenue or cuts in spending. There can be no question that the meandering reasoning these House members put forward—that affordability credits fund abortion—is just as consistent with the one that links tax exemptions for medical benefits to abortion funding.
But the Stupak amendment doesn’t even address this issue, and the argument has never been prominently vocalized by any House members. One thing the pro-life House members pushing the Stupak amendment are unwilling to or will not admit is that the American taxpayer has already in practice held a financial stance on the funding of abortion coverage in health insurance plans. Indirect taxpayer spending on abortion coverage has been a consequence of the funding mechanism for our healthcare system for decades.
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