Lies, Damn Lies, and Selective Quotes from HR 3962

Because the current proposal doesn’t alter the Hyde Amendment, fellow OJ blogger Larry Gilbert’s overheated reading on the role of abortion in the the Public Option is probably wrong. You can read the section easily enough, but the section title is clear:

Section 222(e) Abortion Coverage Prohibited as Part of Minimum Benefits Package

Larry correctly highlighted the relevant text: “abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted.”  So what abortions would those be?  The current law of the land on this issue, the famous  1976 Hyde Amendment,  explicity bans the Department of Health and Human Services from paying for abortions.   So that would be NO abortions.

Moreover, the “public plan” doesn’t mean what you might think. Quoting Politico’s Ben Smith

Nothing in this plan is simple, and the “government option” or “public plan” is only administered by the government; the actual services will be paid with the same mix of private money and vast new subsidies that will pay for private plans, some of which now cover abortion.


About Tyler in Irvine

Twenty Year Irvine Resident. Native Texan and proud Longhorn. Pro-Choice Ron Paul supporter. "Do I contradict myself? ... then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman