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Healthcare reform bill passes House [UPDATED- Stupak Amendment]
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Nancy Pelosi successfully gathered just enough votes for the measure to pass through the house
For previous recaps on the health reform bill: constitutionality, fact-or-fiction (prior to "Stupak Amendment.")
The US House of Representatives passed the over 2,000 page healthcare reform bill, called the "Affordable Health Care for America Act."
The vote came about as a result of including the so-called "Stupak Amendment", which prohibited tax payer money for being used for abortions (previously, they were a protected service where such procedures were legal). The amendment was crucial for 40 pro-life Democrats (including the amendment's name-sake, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan), who threatened to vote down the entire bill if such an amendment was not passed. The amendment was called by some of the more liberal members of the congress an affront to "women's right to choose." Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) remarked, " If enacted this [amendment] will be the greatest restriction on a woman's right to choose in our careers."
Ironically, the amendment makes no attempt to alter the legal status of abortion, nor to prevent women from having or insurers from providing coverage for abortion. What the amendment does is simply block such coverage from being funded by taxpayer money. This is not a restriction on choice or freedom; the bill as a whole, however, is and as such is both unprecedented and unconstitutional.
Pelosi also remarked that such a plan would "add not one dime to the deficit", a stance echoed by the White House. However, more conservative analysis from nonpartisan sources pegs the additional strain on the deficit as around $239 billion from the period of 2010-2019, with still an estimated 17 million Americans uninsured.
To see the full text of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, click here.
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