Source: The Examiner

By: Kevin Camp

The current squabbling over whether or not abortion would be government funded in some kind of back door fashion accentuates how conflicted we are as a nation regarding the procedure. When many private plans cover the procedure, I find most unfair to expect somehow that government coverage would not include the same provision in the spirit of strict parity. If some are holding government to some kind of moral higher standard than the sainted private sector, then I guess I can't understand why anti-choice legislators are attempting to impose their will upon a supposedly evil, fallen entity whose name is government in ways that they are unwilling to extend to business, whose radiant goodness is known to all. This discrepancy continues to show how much of a shill certain politicians have become for the rich, the powerful, and the well connected at the expense of sense and even their own stated convictions.

On that note, a memo released by the Guttmacher Institute recently stated that:

 
[Our] federally supported study, assessing levels of insurance coverage for a wide range of reproductive health services, found that 87% of typical employer-based insurance policies in 2002 covered medically necessary or appropriate abortions... Importantly, the 87% of plans that covered abortions did not include plans that offered abortion coverage only in very limited circumstances (such as rape and incest, or to protect the woman’s life). Only a very small number of respondents offered such limited coverage, and they were not included in the study’s findings. The study queried all large insurers (with at least 100,000 enrollees) and a random, nationally representative sample of small insurers.

Today's Washington Post article explains the reservations some conservative Democrats and all Republicans are having regarding the proposed amendment in the Health Care reform bill that might end up funding abortions.