It's Friday Night and Stupak is STILL wrong.

[Clio the Leo]

This is a bit of a repeat from what I posted this morning...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x208338

But from the way I see it, the Stupak confusion is the ONLY thing that has the potential to kill this bill at this point. So I think it's important to get the word out that what Bart is saying is downright INCORRECT.

Why Stupak Is Wrong
The Senate bill doesn't fund abortions. Here's why he thinks it does.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, March 4, 2010, at 5:35 PM ET

A central puzzle of the health reform debate is why Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., keeps saying that the Senate-passed bill allows taxpayer dollars to be spent on abortions. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says it, too. This dispute concerns (or at least pretends to concern) matters of fact, not belief. The question of whether the government funds a given medical procedure is not like the question of whether human life begins at conception. It's empirical, not ideological. And Stupak happens to be wrong.

<snip>

"If you go to Page 2069 through Page 2078 ," Stupak told George Stephanopoulos on March 4 on Good Morning America, "you will find in there the federal government would directly subsidize abortions, plus every enrollee in the Office of Personnel Management-enrolled plan, every enrollee has to pay a minimum of one dollar per month toward reproductive rights, which includes abortions." Stupak is here referring to the exchanges created under health reform and to a nonprofit plan managed by the Office of Personnel Management that would be sold through the exchanges. The latter was a consolation prize to supporters of a public-option government health insurance program that didn't make it into the bill.

Let's go to Page 2069 through Page 2078 of the Senate-passed bill. It says, "If a qualified plan provides coverage … the issuer of the plan shall not use any amount attributable to for purposes of paying for such services." (This is on Page 2072.) That seems pretty straightforward. No government funding for abortions. (Except in the case of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother's life—the same exceptions granted under current law.) If a health insurer selling through the exchanges wishes to offer abortion coverage—the federal government may not require it to do so, and the state where the exchange is located may (the bill states) pass a law forbidding it to do so—then the insurer must collect from each enrollee (regardless of sex or age) a separate payment to cover abortion. The insurer must keep this pool of money separate to ensure it won't be commingled with so much as a nickel of government subsidy. (This is on Pages 2072-2074.)

Stupak is right that anyone who enrolls through the exchange in a health plan that covers abortions must pay a nominal sum (defined on Page 125 of the bill as not less than "$1 per enrollee, per month") into the specially segregated abortion fund. But Stupak is wrong to say this applies to "every enrollee." If an enrollee objects morally to spending one un-government-subsidized dollar to cover abortion, then he or she can simply choose a different health plan offered through the exchange, one that doesn't cover abortions. (Under the Senate bill, every insurance exchange must offer at least one abortion-free health plan.)

<snip>

What really rankles Stupak (and the bishops) isn't that the Senate bill commits taxpayer dollars to funding abortion. Rather, it's that the Senate bill commits taxpayer dollars to people who buy private insurance policies that happen to cover abortion at nominal cost to the purchaser (even the poorest of the poor can spare $1 a month) and no cost at all to the insurer. Stupak and the bishops don't have a beef with government spending. They have a beef with market economics.

more more....
http://www.newsweek.com//frameset.aspx/?url=http://www.slate.com/id/2246905/

[gateley]

1. If I were back there (and in Congress, or the President), I'd take him into a room,

one on one, and go over this point by point.

If that didn't work, I'd play Rachel's exposes of him the past two nights and threaten that it would be made into an even bigger story if he didn't see the light.

Problemo-solved.

[Clio the Leo]

3. Listening to him talk, I really think he doesn't understand it....

... no one can lie THAT well.

[Hansel]

4. Rachel needs to continue to beat up on Stupid

And then start warning the other 11 that they are up next. Clearly they don't want to come public with their "principled stand". I think the threat of public exposure and shining some light on their motives might get them to see that killing 45,000 living beings a year, some of whom are children, is not a very good way of making their "stand on principle".

It's all in the framing. Stupid and his ilk and the Catholic Church are willing to kill 45,000 people a year to prevent women from buying affordable insurance with their own money just because it includes safe and comprehensive medical options for women in order to cram their religious views down everyone else throats.

As a person who nearly died carrying a dead baby because of moronic clowns like this, I just want to slap his disgusting insipid face till it looks pregnant. And then physically throw his ass down the capital steps. Of course, being a non-violent person I will never enjoy the rewards of doing so.

[pansypoo53219]

2. i don't want

to be catholic.