Today's News & Views
November 23, 2009

The Day After the Day After the Senate Health Care Restructuring Vote
Part One of Three

By Dave Andrusko

Part Two looks at a man who was misdiagnosed for 23 years as being in a PVS. Part Three walks you through another rationing and euthanasia threat in the proposed Senate health care restructuring bill. Please send your comments on any part to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you'd like, follow me on http://twitter.com/daveha.

Let me begin Monday's TN&V with three illuminating quotes. The first two are from today's Rasmussen Reports.

"Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That's the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June."

"The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 28% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-one percent (41%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -13. For the first time in the Obama Administration, the Approval Index has been in negative double digits for nine straight days." [The Presidential Approval Index measures the difference between the percentage which strongly approve and those strongly disapprove of the President.]

"[President] Obama and [Senate Majority Leader] Reid wanted debate – so now they'll get debate, on their cloaked provisions that would cover abortion on demand in proposed new government-run and government-subsidized insurance plans."
-- From National Right to Life's Statement, following the Saturday vote. The statement is reproduced in its entirety at the end of this blog.

So, what do we know that we didn't know last Friday? Maybe I should phrase it differently, or at least begin by discussing what was confirmed when Harry Reid secured just enough votes to clear a procedural hurdle.

Pro-Abortion President Barack Obama

First, as the NRLC statement makes crystal clear, Obama and Reid and the rest of the pro-abortion Democratic leadership went to the mat to preserve what matters most to their pro-abortion allies: payment for any and all abortions through a huge new federal health insurance program, the "public option," and also to subsidize purchase of private plans that cover abortion on demand.

Second, as is par for the course for the entire 2,074-page bill, the public is supposed to willfully suspend disbelief and accept what is patently not true: that the bill is somehow "neutral" on abortion. The Stupak-Pitts language, adopted by the House, genuinely extends the principles of the Hyde Amendment that governs all of the current federal health programs. When Reid refused to include this language in his bill, it unmistakably signaling his real intent.

So why are all the smoke and mirrors necessary? Because Obama and Reid know (as the NRLC statement points out) that the "substance of these abortion-promoting policies is deeply unpopular, so they seek to conceal the reality with layers of contorted definitions and money-laundering schemes."

So, what else do we know? We heard some Democrats say they merely voted to go ahead with a debate over the bill--that their affirmative vote doesn't necessarily mean they will go along with the final measure.

What we do know for sure that there is a band of pro-life Democrats in the House who have minced no words: if the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is gutted or removed, they will oppose final approval of health care legislation.

Please read NRLC' s statement below and make sure that you use your social networks to forward this edition of TN&V to all your pro-life friends.

We know that Reid has said the debate on the substance of his bill begins next week. To keep up to date on how you can help NRLC stop inclusion of the Reid pro-abortion language, please go to http://nrlactioncenter.com.

National Right to Life to Obama and Reid: You wanted debate? Now you'll get debate – on government-funded abortion.

As National Right to Life has previously noted, Senator Reid's bill [on page 118] would authorize the federal government to pay for any and all abortions through a huge new federal health insurance program, the "public option," and also to subsidize purchase of private plans that cover abortion on demand. President Obama and Reid know that the substance of these abortion-promoting policies is deeply unpopular, so they seek to conceal the reality with layers of contorted definitions and money-laundering schemes.

Obama and Reid wanted debate – so now they'll get debate, on their cloaked provisions that would cover abortion on demand in proposed new government-run and government-subsidized insurance plans.

Obama and Reid are seeking to block enactment of the bipartisan Stupak-Pitts compromise, adopted by the U.S. House of Representatives on November 7 by a vote of 240-194. This amendment would prevent government funding of elective abortion through the proposed "public option," and would also prevent federal subsidies from paying for private insurance plans that cover elective abortion.

During the weeks ahead, National Right to Life will continue to fight the efforts of President Obama and congressional Democratic leaders to cover abortion on demand in two huge new federal health programs. The Senate bill faces additional 60-vote hurdles in the future. Moreover, a courageous group of pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives will oppose final approval of health care legislation if the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is gutted or removed.

http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov09/nv112309.html