Natalie Nichols of SGN explains:
... That’s right, abortion mandates are written in plain text in the SFC bill. In a nutshell, any insurance exchange is mandated to have at least one plan that does not cover abortions and one plan that does.
Where it is written “subsection A”, note that this is referring to “abortions for which public funding is NOT allowed.” And where it says “subsection B”, it is referring to “abortions for which public funding IS allowed. This begins on page 140 of the 1502 page newly submitted Senate Finance Committee bill.
‘‘(3) ASSURED AVAILABILITY OF VARIED COVERAGE THROUGH EXCHANGES.—
14 ‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary [Kathleen Sebelius] shall ensure that with respect to qualified health benefits plans offered in any exchange established pursuant to this title—
18 ‘‘(i) there is at least one such plan that provides coverage of services described in subparagraphs (A) [does not provide abortion coverage] and (B) [does provide abortion coverage] of paragraph (2); [line 20, pg 140]
The current bill mandates an abortion coverage option be available through any qualified health benefits plan in the exchange:
(A) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall assure that with respect to qualified health benefits plans offered in any exchange established pursuant to this title—
(i) there is at least one such plan that provides coverage of services described in subparagraphs (A) and (B) of paragraph (2); and
(ii) there is at least one such plan that does not provide coverage of services described in paragraph (2)(A); [line 14, pg 141]......
.... ‘‘(c) NO DISCRIMINATION ON THE BASIS OF PROVISION OF ABORTION.—A qualified health benefits plan may not discriminate against any individual health care provider or health care facility because of its willingness or unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.’’ [line 6 pg 144]
This basically means that no plan, even one that was highly against abortion, could not discriminate (i.e. not cover services at facilities that provide abortions–like planned parenthood) against any doctor or health care provider because of their WILLINGNESS to provide or refer for abortions. This feels eerily like something we call a “loophole.” The plan itself may not cover abortions, but the plan cannot refuse to pay for services at…say…an abortion clinic.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy. Douglas Kmiec. Are you paying attention? Is this the best your guy can do? Is this why you've pitted yourselves against the Church? IS OBAMA WORTH IT?
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