Does Obama's Healthcare Plan Fund Abortion? Take 5

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Rep. Lois Capps's office calls to point out that the Capps amendment to the House healthcare bill isn't silent on how abortion would be funded in the public health insurance option, as I wrote yesterday, but that it prohibits federal money from funding such abortions because the public option must abide by the same rules as the private plans offered through the proposed health insurance exchange. So the debate over whether the government funds abortion through the healthcare bill is over whether the Capps amendment really uses premiums paid by individuals—as opposed to federal funds—to pay for abortion.

Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, calls the Capps amendment's segregation-of-funds clause a "bookkeeping sham" because money from the government, individuals, and employers effectively goes into the same pot to finance health insurance benefits. But Democrats note that the amendment stipulates that government "affordability credits are not used for purposes of paying for [abortion] services" that are prohibited under the Hyde Amendment, which bars Medicaid from using federal funds for abortion except in limited circumstances.

Should congressional Democrats decline to reauthorize Hyde amendment—which must be voted on each year with the appropriations bill for the Health and Human Services Department—the Capps amendment stipulates that federal funds could finance abortion. But President Obama's 2010 budget left the Hyde Amendment in place. And Democrats say a fight over the Hyde Amendment, and abortion, should be separate from the debate over a healthcare bill.

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