Dana,

It maybe worse then you think. I was listening to NPR this morning, and granted, I was brushing my teeth and dressing, but they were discussing this subject and somehow I came away with the impression that they were trying to extend it into private insurance, I assume by making any private insurance plan only eligible to accept a government subsidy check for people that qualify if the plan does not cover abortion.

Yes, that is a threat, though not necessarily a very realistic one. You can read a full report on the implications for private insurance in my piece today: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=playing_the_abortion_card

Ugh, that is bad. What about contraceptive coverage? It would seem to me that contraceptive coverage would affect many more women on a daily basis. Tell women, "the public plan won't cover the pill, or your patch, or your diaphragm", or whatever, and watch what happens. Or am I wrong about that? There's a lot of talk about abortion coverage, and that's great, but there should be more about contraception!

Whoops, sorry Dana, I scanned your article real quick to see if you addressed private insurance before posting and I missed the part that discusses it.

A number of Ms. Goldstein's assertions are erroneous or tendentious, both in this blog post and in the underlying full-length piece. Here, I will touch briefly on just three points.

Both the Kennedy bill and the House Democratic leadership bill contain provisions that predictably would require virtually all private health plans to cover elective abortions, as a requirement for federal approval and participation in the new insurance exchanges. This abortion mandate emanates from the broad mandatory categories of coverage in the bill, not from a passing reference to "family planning." Pro-abortion advocacy groups have acknowledged that this is the case, and they are lobbying openly to keep these abortion mandates.

A federal abortion coverage mandate would be a drastic change -- AHIP, which represents nearly 1300 insurers, said this month that "only one third to one half of the 160 million employees in employer-sponsored coverage work for firms that choose to pay for that [abortion] coverage." Kathleen Sebelius, in written testimony during her confirmation proceedings (April 2, 2009), said, "Most private plans do not cover abortions services except in limited instances, but do cover family planning. . ." The Alan Guttmacher Institute published results of a selective survey that asserted 87% of plans covered abortion (likely the basis for Goldstein's claim that "a full 90 percent of current private health plans cover abortions services"), but on examination this figure turns out to include even plans that cover only abortion to save the life of the mother, whereas the policy argument is really about mandating coverage of elective abortions.

The next question is whether the federal subsidies for abortion coverage would be prevented by the Hyde Amendment. The answer is, no. The Hyde Amendment is merely a year-to-year "patch" on the annual Health and Human Services appropriations bill, not a permanent or government-wide law. Moreover, the pending health care bills would themselves appropriate massive amounts of money that would not flow through the HHS appropriations bill at all, and thus, would not be governed by the Hyde Amendment, even in the short run.

Finally, if one really wants to measure public opinion about abortion, then one asks about abortion, not "reproductive health, including contraception." Zogby International did so not long ago, and found that 69 percent of the public supported the Hyde Amendment policy, and 71 percent opposed federally mandated health insurance coverage of elective abortions.

Douglas Johnson
Legislative Director
National Right to Life Committee
Washington, D.C.
Legfederal@aol.com
http://www.nrlc.org

Quick comment

Douglas Johnson wrote:
Finally, if one really wants to measure public opinion about abortion, then one asks about abortion, not "reproductive health, including contraception."
______________________________

Clearly one did ask about abortion since the sentence right underneath what you quoted reads:
"Sixty-six percent support coverage for abortion in a public plan."

Let me also quote directly from the poll:
"Even in the face of opposition arguments, majorities support requiring coverage of abortions under reform. After hearing strong arguments both for and against covering abortion under reform, two-thirds (66%) support coverage, agreeing that health care, not politics, should drive coverage decisions. A majority of voters (72%) reported that they would feel angry if Congress mandated by law that abortion would not be covered under a national health care plan."

Karen,

You are not quoting "directly from the poll." You are quoting from a press release on the website of the sponsoring advocacy organization, no doubt written by the Mellman polling/advocacy firm that designed and conducted the poll. Ms. Goldstein's post also links that press release. The release does not offer a link to the actual poll questions. It is folly to argue about a poll unless the pollster is willing to release the verbatim poll questions. If you find them, be sure you post a link so everybody can read them. If you can't find them -- well, that should tell you something.

A day after my posting above, I see that nobody has yet come forward with the actual questions asked by Mellman. Now I find that a journalist who specifically requested the poll questions was rebuffed. See:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/07/time_mag_cites_junk_poll_on_ab.asp

The circumstantial evidence is strong that the pollster obtained the results desired by the client by conflating abortion with contraception. To those who want to believe otherwise: Let's see the questions.