“…this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill,” Obama said. “And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.”
…
Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that he was confident that the final legislation will ensure that “neither side feels that it’s being betrayed.”“I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” he said.
Obama is right on here. Abortion remains the most intractable issue in American politics, and the health reform bill is not the place to make any changes to our policy on abortion, in either direction. The Stupak amendment simply goes too far — it goes beyond saying that federal dollars will not be used to subsidize abortions and says that none of the insurance plans offered on the health-care exchange may provide any coverage for abortions.
The irony, which I am not even close to being the first to point out, is that this is exactly the sort of government intrusion into private health plans that I thought conservatives (from both parties) said they were so worried about.
The amendment according to the ABC article linked in this post "… prevents women receiving insurance subsidies from purchasing private plans that cover abortion." A federal subsidy used to pay for coverage that pays for an abortion is using federal money to pay for abortions. If the policy truly is as stated by Obama, "we're not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions." then there should be no issue with the amendment.
This is the problem inherent to all public funding. Abortion just happens to a topic which makes it more vivid. Just as there is a difference between something being illegal and legal there is a difference between it being legal and forcing others to pay for it. I think abortion should be legal but forcing those who disagree to pay for it is wrong. In the same way that as an atheist I shouldn't be forced to pay for somebodies church or religion to be taught in schools.
KH nailed it. This isn't about personal freedoms. It is about what we ask taxpayers to fund.
I'm a case in point — I'm a pro-choicer, but can certainly agree with those who feel abortion should not be something funded by each and every American.
Well, except the bill already prevented abortion being funded by federal dollars, so your point is moot.
What about those opposed to the death penalty? No executions on the government's dime?
What if you think is is morally wrong to contract away your expectation not to be raped? No Money for KBR then?
There are thousands of things that the government does or funds that fit the same formula as the abortion case. Why is abortion the only one that is special?
It isn't, it is just the biggest lightning rod. I am against the death penalty as well and am offended that I am forced to pay for it. I am against the war and bailouts and am pissed that unless I pay for those I go go to jail. In our system all of those things are funded through a combination of popularity and corruption. That is the nature of public funding.
The point is that if the policy is, for whatever reason, that no federal money is going to subsidies abortion then the amendment does nothing but continue that policy. Those that support publicly funding something should be prepared for the influence that comes with it. The influence of public opinion and political expediency. You want control over what you money goes to support write a check to them directly. Once it goes into the public pot every nut job gets an equal shot at how it is spent.
What about roads I don't drive on? What about library books I'll never check out? Why should I pay for them. What about cures for illnesses I'll never contract? What about poor people I'll never meet? Why should I pay for them.
I'm less concerned with the price tag as the consequences. Women will die as a result of the Stupak amendment if it's allowed to remain in the bill. Bottom line.
What about the bullets and bombs you buy that are used to murder people across the globe? The roads that when not paid for more directly subsidized the destruction of our environment through sprawl and big crappy trucks. The truth is you don't pay anything for a vast majority of the worlds poor. The vast majority of the worlds poor are hurt and made to starve in part by the massive farm subsidies given to U.S. food producers so that we American's can be fat and happy with enough money left over to buy hockey tickets and a flat screen television.
People die around the world because of all of the decisions what is the difference now?
Besides, my primary point is that there are two contradictory stories coming out of Obama and repeated by Jeff. That the federal government should not be subsidizing abortions, the second is that the amendment is a problem. Without the amendment the federal government would be subsidizing abortions. I can respect somebody who argues for providing universal health care that includes abortions. Just not the obvious lies used to do so.
Ukko and KH,
Each in your own way, you reinforce a belief that I consistently make in my arguments here:
“…there are thousands of things the government does or funds…”
“Once it goes into the public pot, every nut job gets an equal shot at how it is spent.”
I propose this for a bumper sticker…I’ll order three.
"Hey, government…let’s reduce YOUR footprint……"
Every time we urge or allow government to “do something”, financed with citizens’ earnings, we relinquish not only dollars but also more of our personal freedom to make our own choices about how to live our lives. If we want government, through the confiscation of wealth from everyone, to finance OUR wants-and-needs programs, then we open ourselves up to having to accept and pay for everyone's wants-and-needs programs.
What many, many people in this country are beginning to realize is that the current massive version of health care reform being forced on us by Congress is a kind
of mother-lode of still-remaining-want-and-needs programs that will give government unprecedented and unfettered control over even greater portions of our lives and
livelihoods - our choices, our freedom - in ways we don’t even yet realize.
we relinquish not only dollars but also more of our personal freedom to make our own choices about how to live our lives.
How and what?
then we open ourselves up to having to accept and pay for everyone's wants-and-needs programs.
How and what?
current massive version of health care reform being forced on us by Congress is a kind
of mother-lode of still-remaining-want-and-needs programs that will give government unprecedented and unfettered control over even greater portions of our lives and
livelihoods
How and what?
our choices, our freedom - in ways we don’t even yet realize.
This last line is so ridiculous, I couldn't resist. If we don't realize how, then it could be none.
I'm curious where the last bit was cut and pasted from.
Kathy,
I am much, much more fearful of losing freedoms to the corporate plutocratic oligharcy that you are fighting for. The ultimate end to your fight is a ruling, corporate elite and a working poor. It is the best way to maximize profits which is the religion to which you adhere. The road you travel leads to less and less freedom and choices. Thomas Jefferson always said our freedom is put at risk more by banks than any standing army. You are an ignorant tool of corporate America fighting for their interests at your own expense. The odds are pretty likely that you will be part of the working poor, tied to a dead end job, rather than the ruling elite. That is the libertarian ideal. We are closer to it than ever when the top 400 Americans control more wealth than the bottom 57 million. It is economically unsustainable, and bad for America.
thanks,
Alec
The banks are government created institutions. Developed under a system designed by the most "progressive" leaders we have had. From Hamilton to Wilson to FDR to Clinton the progressives form both parties are the architects of the fiat money, fractional reserve, Federal Reserve system we live with. No matter how much regulation is provided it will never be enough to correct the issues that concern you. The regulations will be written to benefit the people that can buy the most influence. The bigger the bank the better they like regulation since manipulating the rules is a lot less expensive than dealing with a risky market. Just look at how well Goldman-Sachs has done under the recent group of crooks put in place by Bush/Obama.
Do you realize what is going on here? This is the first germane discussion we are having on what the government formulary should be.
The argument that is always made against Single Payer is that government would be deciding what care you will and will not receive. The UK is heralded as the example of care being restricted based on the government formulary.
And it looks like abortion will not be part of the government formulary. This is how it works, people. Shouldn't be a surprise. Government pays for healthcare, government gets to decide what gets paid for.
And that is exactly why I don't like the government running the healthcare system.
Excellent point. Damnit.
Trouble with your argument DtM, is who government is. We are government. We will decide what gets covered and what doesn't. If government isn't meeting our needs, we can change it.
Actually, it seems that the clearest path to 60, through the senate, is a strong pro-choice amendment. Snowe and Collins would actually be more likely to vote for the bill with such language in it.
I would be surprised if any language more restrictive than Hyde made it through conference.
And, your point is well made, DtM, though I feel differently about your final statement.
Back to the original content, Kerosene Hat is wrong wrong wrong about the effect of the Stupak amendment. It doesn't just prohibit federal funds directly funding the procedure, it goes much further. It prohibits privately funded insurance plans — the ones the Tea Party faction was so worried about being gutted — from offering abortion services when those plans participate in the exchange. The insurance plans of millions of women will now be prohibited from covering a legal medical procedure that is in fact one of the most common surgeries performed.
More here: http://tinyurl.com/y9rh6ow
And if you think that this poorly drafted amendment only impacts elective abortions, you're most likely wrong. See this account: http://tinyurl.com/yzxgn5l
I read the Kos link. This section was absurd:
“Stupak and his allies claim his Amendment doesn’t ban abortion from the Exchange because it allows plans to offer and women to purchase extra, stand-alone insurance known as a rider to cover abortion services. Hopefully the irony of this is immediately apparent: Stupak wants women to plan for a completely unexpected event.”
That last line is my favorite. Um-m-m-m-m…isn’t this what health insurance is supposed to - and used to - be all about? The outrage of the writer shows just how far from that model we’ve drifted. Now, when we talk about health insurance, what we really mean is cheap, subsidized, first-dollar pre-paid all-inclusive health care coverage.
And, when government uses our money to “fund” things such as this whether through public options or exchange credits or whatever, we’re back to problem of incompatibility of warring wants, needs, and beliefs. “I don’t want my money going for….”
How about if we get back to a system where we all get to keep much of what we earn and we make our own choices about what we need and want and take responsibility for those choices?
And Alec…I don’t understand how believing in the common sense of average Americans to manage their own lives and make their own decisions makes me a corporate tool?
So Conservatives are angry that Healthcare Insurance reform may have the government interfering with choices made between the patient and her doctor but the first thing they want to do is make sure that the government interferes with private decisions made between a doctor and patient? Plus they want to make sure this government control goes further than any other government control of any legal action presently allowed in America… what is wrong with this picture?
Don't like abortion, then don't have one and teach your children about birth control. Don't try to control the lives and bodies of everyone else and expect us to just accept it.
There are two fundamental questions here, Amuseinc, which I believe you are blending into one:
1) What individual liberties does an American have?
2) What should taxpayers pay for, versus individuals paying for?
There are a whole slew of moderates out there who advocate a woman's right to choose, but also don't support having taxpayer-funded abortions.
And in a Representative Democracy you have to go along with the majority as established by the balanced three governmental systems. Over the years I have paid taxes that were used in ways that shamed me, yet could not do anything about it. The latest was paying for torture under the Bush/Cheney regime. Since I'm an oldster I have had a long history with disagreeing as to how my tax dollars are spent… and the only recourse is through your elected representatives, legal system or administrative system. You can pull on anybody's coat as much as you want but you do not individually get to decide how your tax dollars are spent.
It is a single issue to me…
But that is not changed by Stupak. Taxpayer funded abortions have not happened since just after Roe v. Wade. (Henry Hyde) and this language was ALREADY contained in the bill.
This was legislative shenanigans, pure and simple.
One benefit of a single-payer healthcare system is that without separate systems for rich and poor women, excluding poor women from reproductive care wouldn’t be so easy. And when did “not changing the status quo” become “the goal”? (from today's post at familyinequality.com)
I meant not a lot of freedom for their people in previous post.
The Stupak Amendment points out the divide among the conservative coalition that comprises the far-right Republican Party. The reason that private insurance companies pay for an abortion is that it is cheaper than paying for pre-natal, neo-natal and pediatric care. This is hard-nosed capitalistic common sense. It is also libertarian in the sense that individuals should have control over their bodies and reproduction. Social conservatives, on the other hand, look at abortion as murder, and would rather spend the money that insurance companies would rather save. It will be interesting to see how this dilemma plays out.
I completely disagree and am backed by history and facts. Look at when the banks exploded and became "too big to fail". It wasn't until Clinton and Phil Gramm removed the barriers from them becoming investment behemoths. The Glass-Stegal act of 1933 corrected what was one cause of the great depression. Banks were not "too big to fail" until Gramm-Leach-Bliley of 1999. This was a neo-con/libertarian/corporatist policy. Yes I know Clinton is to blame too. However, Glass-Stegal worked great to prevent the very problems we have now. You basically have about three banks to choose from. No more small town banks. Less choice and less freedom. All from corporatist libertarian agendas.
Go ahead and see if the bankers want Glass-Stegal back. Your argument makes no sense.
You can not simply take one change and with something like Glass-Stegal and actually believe it is the only factor in how something as big as our banking system has developed. Without the government developed system in which they exist the banks would not have they power that they currently do. Glass-Stegal and other such regulations might partially counter these underlying distortions but as you have so aptly shown they can be removed and modified if the right leverage is in place. Decades of artificially low interest rates provided by the fed caused the economic bubbles we are now starting to see deflate, the banks that were best represented in Washington, such as Goldman Sachs is in the Obama administration, have fared well no matter which way the market goes. They are making money off the movement.
You should also learn a little history before grouping terms like libertarian, neo-con and corpratist. The the neo-cons branched off the progressive tree and are on the opposing side from libertarian of the group you most likely label as "conservative".
Libertarian/neo-con/conservative are very different on foreign policy and social issues. That is for sure. On economic issues they are the same. The paths may be different, but the end result of their ideology is the same. An unfettered ruling elite partnered with a working poor. This type of corporate "freedom" is the antithesis of democracy. You want no choices and no freedom, let Libertarianism run its natural course. A few mega banks and mega corporations will control everything. Probably the most economically libertarian nation right now is China. Lots of freedom their for the people, but it is a capitalists paradise. Working poor and unfettered corporate elites.
And we know for a fact Glass Stegal prevented "too big to fail", and after its removal we got too big to fail
Eliminating Glass-Steagall is certainly a major cause of last year's financial collapse. Think of what Glass-Steagall did. It forced the separation of investment banking from commercial banking.
The business model for a commercial bank is principle times interest times time, whether that be on the savings or lending side of the business. This is a stable long-term plan for modest, yet solid, economic growth: mom-and-pop's savings and loans to families and small businesses mostly.
The business model for investment banking is speculative expenditures in the hopes of large capital gains in the short term. This is, in a sense, intelligent gambling, and the winners in this arena truly deserve the reward for their risks, since the alternative of ruin is ever-present and dire. This is the basis for speculators and venture capitalists.
The problem after the repeal of Glass-Steagall was that mom-and-pop's money was pooled with the speculators' money and the speculators ran the show without contraint. Now we know the results.
Neo-Conservatives are a product of progressives and only began to split with the left over the Viet Nam war. They were in fact on the left side of the Democratic party in terms of economics. Their economic policies are fundamentally the same even if some of the rhetoric has changed to allow them to compete in the Republican party. They are the grandchildren of Teddy Roosevelt and idea that the federal government is a big stick to be used. Neo-Cons simply extend that same idea beyond our borders.
The second Glass-Steagall act separated the banking types and founded the FDIC. Mainly to make it obvious which accounts were insured by the federal government and which were not as well as apparent risk of one type of institution verses the other. Separating them was supposed to keep the riskier investment portfolios from threatening an institution that was holding "low-risk" deposits.
The reason there the banking system is on the edge of complete insolvency is not because of this small regulatory change. The simplest form of banking is when a depositor puts in there money and for a bit of interest and the promise of secure keeping the bank is allowed to lend the money and charge a higher rate of interest to the borrower. The higher the percentage of deposited that were lent the higher the rate of return the bank could provide. However this higher rate of return also meant higher risk for the person who selected that bank. You could pick a very safe bank and get a low rate of return or a risky bank and get a high rate of return.
FDIC insurance and Federal Reserve system completely changed the nature of banking. They did this by allowing banks to have a source for money other than depositors and by encouraging low reserve rates under the fractional reserve system. The fractional reserve rule which allows a bank to lend 90% of its deposits means that if you put $1000 into your bank the bank can loan $10,000 out to somebody else. That person deposits the money and their bank can loan out $100,000 and so on and so on. You don't care because your $1000 deposit is covered by the FDIC. The difference between the amount deposited and amount lent was provided by the Fed.
Most depositors risk nothing no matter what bank they put their money in because it is insured by the Federal government. On top of that the banks are able to borrow money from the Fed at near zero percent and don't have to worry much about the risk involved in those loans. This is the core cause of the mortgage meltdown.
Banks like the rules because they can make high risk investments or loans with little worry and politicians like them because the provide the illusion of prosperity. Voters like it because it makes getting mortgages and car loans easy.
All of sounds great until the inevitable happens. The same inevitable thing that happens with all ponzi schemes. The fact that all of the growth is based on nothing but borrowing against the future so we can consume the production of others.
Interesting take. You have a point. Although I would suggest NeoConservatives were created upon the Roe v. Wade decision, strengthened by Reagan (whom I admire on several fronts) finding a base, and taken past the line of the mainstream during the Schaivo fiasco.
The FDIC, created by Glass-Steagall in 1933, depended for its efficacy on the separation of commercial and investment banking. It worked fine until the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagal allowed speculators access to the deposits of commercial banks. The repeal left the FDIC in place, which put the government on the hook for the irrational exuberance of the speculators, their derivatives, sub-prime mortgages and other opaque financial instruments.
Separating the storefront operations of banks through Glass-Stegall does not keep the financial instruments you speak of from operating. All of the risky behavior you list was typically transacted between ad not within individual institutions. Something G-S does not really address. The core reason banks can behave badly are those I listed above. The FDIC put the government on the hook for risky behavior of all types, most of which Glass-Stegall never covered and can not be effectively regulated. This risky behavior is supported and encouraged through artificially low interest rates and a central bank that can simply dole out unlimited funds.
The reason there were so many bad loans made that could be then rolled into badly (and fraudulently in many cases) rated securities is becasue the banks don't have to worry about who they loan money to if they only need to have 10% or less of those funds deposited to make the loan and the remainder is given to them by the fed for basically nothing.
Fractional reserve banking has been the operating method of banks since the early 1800s, long before Glass-Steagall. The 10% reserve limit in the U.S. is about the middle of the pack compared to other countries in the world. Some have no reserve requirement at all.
It deserves to be restated: the FDIC is intended to protect mom-and-pop depositors in commercial banks. Investment banks - the risk takers - were regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC and FDIC are two agencies regulating two differenct industries.
Again, this worked fine until the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 allowed the integration of mom-and-pop's money with speculators money. Gramm-Leach-Bliley also specifically prohibited regulation of derivatives. The rest is history, and unfortunately, current events for the forseeable future.
Fractional reserve banking works along with the natural restraints of a commodity based currency and the fact that depositors had some interest in the level of risk involved with their deposits. Without those things there is no hard limit to the amount of money available for investment. A virtually unlimited supply of currency available at virtually no cost is what increases the overall amount of risk. No amount of regulation will stop what happens under those conditions. This crisis was not caused by the derivatives. They were simply the point at which the crack became visible.
Interest rates below the real inflation level will cause bubbles like that which occurred in housing. If the real inflation rate is 5% and a bank can borrow money at 1% they will borrow as much as they possibly can since the amount they have to repay will be worth less than that which they borrowed. On the flip side investors looking for safe places to keep their money knew they needed 5% to break even. They can't get that from government bonds becasue to keep interest rates low the bonds are paying 1%. So instead they look to the next best thing, real estate. Real estate at least provides actual collateral and historically increases in value with wages which rise a bit more quickly than inflation. So now all of the "safe" investments are demanding bonds backed by mortgages. The increase demand for these bonds drives sub-prime loans because even sub-prime loans are backed up by real estate which is increasing in price.
The problem is that it was all a price bubble. A bubble caused by bad monetary policy. A policy driven by a desire to "stimulate the economy". A desire held by every politician which is the reason we shouldn't allow central banks to control the interest rates or money supply. This cause and effect has been predicted since the inception of these systems. It was never a matter of if things would implode, just when.