So who exactly got played on Health Care?
Well, I have a question.
Rules Committee chair Louise Slaughter decides, I’m sure with a nudge from Speaker Pelosi, how bills come to the floor, are debated and if there are amendments. At the end of the day the Democratic leadership knew that the Stupak amendment was coming to the floor. Something easily preventable because the rules committee establishes which amendments come to the floor.
Please read this account over at Dkos. It is an interesting take long and worthy. Basically when coupled with Olympia Snowne filing the papers to become a Democrat makes perfect sense. The Public option will disappear in order to remove the Stupak-Pitts amendment.
First, of course, there’s the story of the vast, lavishly-funded national network of professional abortion rights advocacy groups who somehow found themselves blindsided and rolled by a situation that was 100% predictable (not to mention 35 years in the making), and will now have to either threaten to kill the entire bill if the Senate is unable to resist the temptation to pass the same language, or release 40+ super-progressive women legislators and allies to vote for a health insurance reform bill that for all practical purposes nearly eliminates access to abortion that isn’t paid for up front and in cash. Ordinarily, that’d be ludicrous, except for the fact that those super-progressive legislators just voted for exactly that, though surely they’d explain that they just did it “to move the process forward.”
Second, there’s the story of the voices in the wilderness, the single payer advocates, who settled for the promise of a floor vote on the Weiner amendment, only to see that amendment withdrawn in a deal to avoid… the Stupak amendment, only to see that amendment not withdrawn and ultimately given a floor vote and be adopted.
The entire account make you want to scream. On Weiner’s amendment (one that Slaughter said she would support when it comes to the floor)?
The tragedy (or dark comedy, depending on how you look at it) is that Weiner allegedly withdrew his amendment again when he heard that the leadership would be disallowing all amendments across the board, so that they could block Stupak without having the political mess of picking and choosing between amendments individually. That, of course, worked out spectacularly.
So in the end it was the advocates who relied on the super-secret delayed gratification plan who went home empty-handed here. Single payer gets nowhere, and it’s got to at least be in part because of reliance on strategies that always seem to fall victim to situations like this one, in which Anthony Weiner spends the summer being lauded as a fearless hero and a champion, even as he ends up walking away from the fight twice.
What bothers me here is that the Stupak amendment saw the light of day while other amendments say Kucinich’s amendment or Weiners’ amendment did not. Nothing here was done in a vacuum either so there has to be knowledge by leadership of what was coming or what how it was going to be scripted. I’m still pissed that Democrats have forgotten the basic rules of negotiation at the start of this great debate - don’t compromise before negotiations start. Perhaps that was the plan all along.
Truth hurts. Time to get to work.
Related posts:
- Health Care vote shouldn’t be a squeaker - Stupak deal reached
- Has Rep Louise Slaughter taken a specific Health Care position?
- Your action item for today: Call Nancy Pelosi
- Floor vote for single payer: Impossible things are happening everyday
- More like this please… Rep Weiner simply rocks on Health Care.
While I don’t know or even understand all of the ramifications of the Stupak Amendment, I am totally against taxpayer/Federal funding of abortions. Get your bows and arrows aimed at me….for me as long as women have the right to make the choice, that is what’s important. It’s like having the right to buy a car. Should I get federal funding if my choice is a Bentley?
Well, support the Hyde amendment which is still in effect and prevents federal funding of abortions. I suggest you read the amendment it is pretty simple.
Basically it says that any private plan offered as part of the health insurance exchange cannot cover abortions. So mandated coverage forcing selection among the exchange plans and a women CAN’T choose a plan that covers a procedure to terminate a pregancy.
She is using her money to purchase insurance. That is a little too extreme.
So, the inner city 15 year old who is pregnant with her second child, fathered by her father, can not get an abortion because you white guys, middle class suburbia have some holier than thou attitude about killing babies? You better believe that my slings and arrows are aimed at you. I realize the Hyde amendment says that you can’t have federal funding for abortion, but that doesn’t mean that it’s right.
Take it from one who knows. An abortion is NOTHING like a Bently.
So a 15 year old can learn early on that not only is abortion legal for her it will also always be free?? Abortion is the very expensive birth control and I don’t think any tax payer should have to pay for it….not even the ones who support abortion rights.
If it is always free and easy, would anyone young woman ever really need to think about being smart and making a good decision? And if she cannot afford the abortion she shouldn’t be having the sex. It’s that simple. And if she does need an abortion, then she needs to involve the father and her family and his family. Government is way too involved in private matters and paying for things like abortion is disgusting in my opinion.
I also understand the health care issue is different from the federal funding of abortion.
Having an abortion is a painful choice that some women make given their circumstances. Regardless of your stance on federal funding, I find the Bentley metaphor to be baffling.
Actually Tom, it’s not like buying a car. If carrying a baby were like buying a car, you could pick out what you wanted beforehand. My girlfriend tells me she wants two boys. Two boys would be nice. So I would pick out two standard-built boys. No add-ons. I don’t NEED to have my son be the next Tiger Woods, LeBron James or Tom Brady, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing. So maybe I’ll get one of those custom-built sons when the time is right.
Seriously, carrying a baby is a health care issue. Buying a car is a luxury.
We are told constantly by conservatives that the government needs to stay out of our business. Then those same conservatives (mostly men) tell women whether or not they will receive reproductive rights as a result of health care reform. They can’t have it both ways.
In this case, the Stupak Amendment does two things:
(1) If you are the recipient of a subsidy to pay for your private health insurance, then you will not be allowed to get an abortion.
(2) If you are covered by the public option, you won’t be allowed to get an abortion.
Funny how that “public option” is brought up in this amendment, being that most of those who voted for the amendment voting against health care reform.
The Hyde Amendment is enough and achieves what you seek Tom. Stupak would go too far and would raise serious constitutional questions if allowed to become law.
LMAO, subsidized abortion is not analogous to reproductive rights. People, for now at least, are still free to have sex and babies any time they wish to reproduce. I find it very disturbing that so many people define the word “rights” to mean anything they want or desire and have no qualms about making other people pay for it. Your “rights” are nothing but legalized theft.
It’s NOT like Life of Brian where the Judean People’s Front (oh, I mean the PEOPLE’S Front of Judea) decides to fight for Eric Idle’s right to have babies. But we have the means to terminate the pregnancy and there are teenage girls who do not wish to become moms before their sweet sixteen. Should they have the right to choose?
On a different note (today is November 11), I SUPPORT THE TROOPS, BUT HATE THE WAR!!!
I see. Tom thinks he does not want to support taxpayer funded abortion. Well, this taxpayer does not to support taxpayer funded killing of innocent Iraqi and Afghan babies. So why the heck don’t I get the right to stop those killings? So let people who want to pay for foreign killings pay for them, and then we will talk about Tom’s thoughts.
In answer to your question, Stlo7-WE got played and until something drastically changes, ladkiddo will no longer be writing about healthcare reform, except from the perspective of breastfeeding.
Unfortunately, I think that the Stupak agreement sends womens rights groups back significantly. I think it is unfortunate that many if not most of us never saw this coming. Whether people are for abortion or against abortion it really should be up to the woman to decide. Now in order for the woman to make a “choice” she also has to have money. Additional monies to what she will already be paying for in health care.
Very sad that I voted for a president who supports the right for women to choose and democrats who support this as well or so I thought! Now it is the right for women to choose as long as they have their own money or some kind of different insurance. How long will it take for other insurance to follow suit.
I always get the sense that Democrats feel good when they can promise so much and deliver as much as they can…but don’t stop to ask themselves if it is a good thing or the right thing.
I see nothing wrong with sending the message that a woman can have an abortion, but she will have to pay for it.
$6 for a box of condoms. $600 for an abortion. Making the right decision, priceless.