It has now been more than a week since the U.S. House of Representatives passed sweeping health care reform legislation. Yet, with what has been written about the bill since that time, one might think it was still being debated. Though there are many faults in the legislation, one issue therein seems to be sustaining press interest; a provision in the legislation restricting abortion funding.
Known as the Stupak Amendment for its author, Democratic member of Congress Bart Stupak (D-MI), a measure was added to John Dingell’s health reform bill prior to its passage banning individuals from purchasing with government subsidy health care plans covering abortions, and further prohibits abortion coverage under the government-controlled insurance provider created elsewhere in the legislation. The measure, which passed with the broad support of U.S. House Republicans and several dozen of their Democratic colleagues, has been subjected to much derision on the political left. This particular criticism of the passed U.S. House bill reveals much more about said critics than it does the legislation itself.
Indeed, the health care measure comes in at a whopping 1,990 pages, and introduces a blizzard of new regulations and mandates, all to cover just 10% of the U.S. populace. This is what should be offending those who champion greater personal choice in private health care decisions, not the singular provision in the legislation regulating abortion coverage. Those who criticize the Stupak amendment reveal themselves not to be for personal choice, but rather for the ability of the state to interfere affirmatively in what the Roe v. Wade decision held to be private matters. In reality, there is nothing in H.R. 3962 prohibiting abortion; rather the Stupak amendment serves as a fleeting attempt to rein in yet another disturbingly statist piece of legislation passed by the lower house of Congress since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker in 2007.
Anger on the ideological left among those who truly understand what Bart Stupak’s amendment entails suggests just how out of touch they really are. Today’s liberals are so obsessed with entitlement that they scream not at encroachments upon their liberty, but rather at any effort, no matter how small, to curtail the ability of the state to fund particular nonessential measures. This troubling trend is further apparent in the broader debate about health care reform.
One point liberals continually raise in a reform debate which seems far from over is that the United States is the only country among those industrialized in the world without universal health care. Existing regulations assure the near-universal provision of health care. This has been one source of high health care costs in the United States. The emergency room care of those without insurance, whether for Americans or individuals illegally in the country is required by law. If the cost of health care were a concern, hospitals would be allowed to report to police or immigration officials illegal immigrants who received “free” medical care.
The broader argument with respect to universal health care is erroneous for other reasons as well. There may be broad coverage mandates in much of the industrialized world, but diversity exists in precisely what that entails. Some countries, such as the United Kingdom, have a highly centralized health care system, rather than just universal insurance coverage. The argument that the United States should embrace the European approach to health care is not satisfied, and will still exist regardless of whether or not the Senate passes legislation resembling House Resolution 3962. If Congress was serious about reform, then there would be far more thorough exploration into what works and what doesn’t among other countries.
Furthermore, there are many things setting the United States apart from others in what twenty years ago would have been called the first world. No other country in the industrialized world has as large of a population as the United States. Most industrialized countries now have substantially lower rates of corporate taxation than does this republic, yet even in recession, there is no real drive to change this. Education in much of the rest of the industrialized world is almost entirely decentralized, yet Democrats routinely favor increasing the role of the federal government in educating American children.
Fundamentally, the arguments for Democratic proposals thus far remain flawed with or without the uproar on the Left over abortion funding restrictions. The proposed health care exchange limits choice by introducing arbitrary new regulation limiting participation to already existing large insurers and also now bars those with employer plans from seeking other options. No good reason has been presented as to why one trillion dollars is worth spending to insure only thirty million Americans who are uninsured in a society of over three hundred million people.
With this in mind, there should be no mystery as to why Americans remain in an anti-incumbent mood not even a year after being sold on empty promises of hope and change. Reform to health care should tweak the present, largely privatized system, not build a massive new federal bureaucracy. So far, Republicans have been right to oppose Democratic excesses. Hopefully, this is one trend which will continue.
Last 5 posts by James Kane
- Politics of Process and Policy - March 17th, 2010
- Obama's Accidental Case Against Reconciliation and the Senate Bill - March 10th, 2010
- On "Real" Diversity and Thinking Critically - March 1st, 2010
- Analyzing the Blair House discourse - February 27th, 2010
- Scott Brown, Barack Obama, and the Politics of Change - January 27th, 2010
