HR 3 means Women Die

A wide sweeping bill aimed straight at women’s health was debated in Congress today. HR3 goes way beyond the Hyde Amendment.  All Republicans and 16 Democratic Representatives voted for the bill which basically says that women should die rather than terminate a dangerous pregnancy.

There are other issues here too as pointed out by The Hill.   Once again, Republicans have been shown to violate their basic principles of supposedly being pro-business and anti-big government when it comes to inflicting their personal religious views on woman.

After decades of escalading group health insurance premiums and demands for Congressional action for relief, a little over one year ago many of our small businesses finally were given the opportunity for federal health insurance tax credits.

Now H.R. 3, up for a vote this week, threatens to erase this benefit for small businesses because it would eliminate the health insurance tax credits under the Affordable Care Act for any existing or new plans that provide coverage for abortion.

The problems H.R. 3 would cause for small businesses that are trying to do the right thing and offer health insurance have nothing to do with the ideological intent of this bill. Even if a small business owner agrees with the intent, the cost of passage of H.R. 3 in terms of time, money and continuity of policy is very significant.

TPM has more information on the details of this bill that has passed the house but will probably not make it to the senate floor.  This is yet another example of  Republicans clearly wasting time on bills that do nothing to deal with the pending debt ceiling issue and the jobs crisis.  This is obviously a political ploy to appease religionist radicals in the country to get them to turn out for the next election.

It’s not likely the bill will move along much further past the House. Democrats control the Senate and the Obama administration has promised to veto the bill if it ever land on the president’s desk.

Proponents say the bill will simply make permanent existing bans on using federal money to pay for abortions. But critics say the bill goes much further than existing law, and say it reopens the abortion fight that’s been in detente for years thanks to the Hyde Amendment.

The bill would end tax credits for businesses that provide health insurance benefits if the insurance covers abortions, which Democrats say is both a new encroachment on the rights of private citizens to spend their own money and a huge tax increase.

Earlier on Wednesday, the bill’s author, anti-abortion icon Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), told reporters even he understands there’s a tough road ahead for his legislation, though he said that Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) will be working to get a vote for the legislation in the Senate.

Even if the bill doesn’t make it to a Senate vote, it may have already succeeded in doing its job politically. By making a sweeping abortion restriction the third bill on the House agenda, Republicans were able to dissuade social conservatives worried that the tea party-powered 112th Congress might put their issues on the back burner.

More details on the Bill from Ms. Magazine.

The bill goes beyond the Hyde Amendment, which has banned federally-funded abortions for the past 30 years except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the woman’s life. Furthermore, H.R.3 denies tax credits to small businesses that purchase a health insurance policy that includes abortions–currently 87 percent of private insurance plans do–and enacts strict requirements for private insurance companies that cover abortions.

Additionally, the bill eliminates privately funded insurance coverage for abortion in the health-care exchanges (marketplaces for insurance purchasers) established by the Affordable Care Act. NARAL Pro-Choice America estimates that 13.5 million women who receive health coverage through Medicaid and other government-sponsored programs will permanently lose access to abortion coverage if the bill is made law.

If all that wasn’t bad enough, the bill effectively turns IRS agents into “abortion cops.” The law forbids women from using tax benefits (such as credits or deductions) to pay for abortions. Therefore, to ensure that taxpayer money does not go towards the procedure, IRS agents would have to ask questions like, “Were you raped? Was it incest?”

Finally, the bill includes a provision that prevents women in the military from having abortions on federal property, such as military bases. So if a woman in the Army gets pregnant while stationed in Afghanistan, she would have to find a doctor locally to perform the procedure or return to the U.S.

This is disgusting.  Women’s lives and health are once again collateral damage for craven politics.

The Republican idea of Family Planning