Photo: WDCpix

While abortion politics dominated conservative opposition to the health care reform package that barely passed the U.S. House on Saturday evening, several measures in the bill that are beneficial to LGBT Americans largely went unnoticed — especially by conservatives.

The Human Rights Campaign reports it successfully lobbied to get five provisions important to the LGBT community included in the final bill.

Currently, the government doesn’t track health disparities based on sexual orientation and gender identity like it does for race, economic status, marital status, age and a number of other characteristics. The bill that passed the House would add those categories to the government’s data collection practices and would for the first time be able to determine health disparities. That would enable the government to direct funding for research and public health efforts to address those disparities. A similar bill has been offered in Congress, the Ending Health Disparities for LGBT Americans Act.

The House bill also contains language from the Tax Equity for Health Plan Beneficiaries Act. Employer-paid health benefits for a domestic partner are taxed by the federal government as income but benefits for spouses are not. That means same-sex couples that utilize their employers’ health plan pay income taxes that married couples do not. The bill that passed the House on Saturday would fix that inequity.

An important disparity in the treatment of HIV is remedied in the bill. In order for people living with HIV to qualify for Medicaid programs they must have a diagnosis of AIDS — which often comes after years of living with the disease. The new legislation would enable states to qualify individuals who are newly diagnosed with HIV disease for Medicaid programs. That policy is included in the bill as the Early Treatment for HIV Act.

Strong protections to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in health insurance and in the health care system also made it into the House bill.

Finally, the bill provides funding for comprehensive sex education programs that include relevant information for LGBT students.

Many of these policies have drawn fire from the religious right in the past, but recently such groups have been exerting most of their opposition to opposing abortion rights in the health reform bill. And the Stupak Amendment, which aims to ban any federal funding to cover abortion services, dominated the debate over the bill.

For instance, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth, who railed against the tax equity bill in July, hasn’t mentioned its inclusion in the health bill.

The American Family Association opposed fixing health disparities for LGBT people as early as February, but abandoned that cause to fight against the inclusion of abortion rights in the health reform bill.

And the Family Research Council seems to have completely missed any notice of the LGBT provisions in the bill. The group spent a considerable amount of time and money on opposing abortion in the health reform bill, and FRC president Tony Perkins was even a featured speaker at Rep. Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” event opposing health care reform. He spoke about abortion.

Update: Now Minnesota Family Council is noticing LGBT measures in healthcare bill

In a special edition of their newsletter (DOC), the group goes after President Obama, saying his facts are incorrect.

“Despite public statements by Pres. Barack Obama that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’ all of the major bills under consideration would put the federal government into the business of subsidizing elective abortion on a massive scale,” wrote MCCL, then going on to quote Factcheck.org. “‘Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans,’ reported the independent FactCheck.org.”

But what FactCheck.org actually said was that it’s a grey area in between. “The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new ‘public’ insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them.”

The rest of the groups claims have also been debunked by Factcheck.org.

Health Rationing

MCCL says that all of the health reform proposals would dole out care based on age and disability. “In addition to the expansion of abortion, all major bills under consideration — as currently written — would likely lead to the rationing of care,” the group writes. “The bills addressing health care ‘reform’ all require the rationing of health care.”

Paul Stark, Student Outreach Coordinator, wrote, “The health care legislation pending in Congress would likely lead to the rationing of care for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable persons.”

When RNC chair Michael Steele used a similar line in an ad attacking health care reform, Factcheck.org corrected him. “It’s … false for Steele to imply that Democratic health care legislation proposes to ‘ration health care based on age.’”

While none of the bills specifically spells out a rationing of health care, Politifact took time to explore the issue. “Everyone hates the word rationing,” Katherine Baicker, a health economics professor at Harvard University, told the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site. “From an economics perspective, there’s no way around rationing. Some care is being rationed now. Everyone isn’t getting everything.”

But MCCL does not acknowledge — let alone condemn — the fact that health care is currently rationed.

Medicare cuts

Stark wrote, “[A] substantial part of the cost under the proposals would be paid for by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ − reducing Medicare funding for older people in order to cover the uninsured.”

MCCL president Leo Lalonde wrote about seniors’ reactions when MCCL told them at a fall meeting that Medicare would be deeply cut. “This information and much more was shared with Fall Tour attendees, who reacted with anger, fear and disbelief. Some people already understood this threat. But many more did not, and were deeply disturbed to learn that Medicare — the only source of medical care for many senior citizens— could be severely restricted under Obama’s plan.”

Factcheck.org found that claim to be false:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill would result in “savings” [to Medicare] of $219 billion after all increases and decreases are netted out. The House bill would trim projected increases in payments for hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, including home health care providers and suppliers of motor-driven wheelchairs. But it also proposes what CBO estimates is a $245 billion increase in spending for doctors, by canceling a scheduled 21 percent cut in physician payments. None of the “savings” or “cuts” (whichever you prefer) come from reducing current or future benefit levels for seniors.

Bachmann’s information seems to have been gleaned from right-wing media outlets that earlier this year Politifact ruled as lies.

“We see no language in the three main versions of the bill that would allow school-based clinics, which have a long history of providing basic health services to underprivileged students, to provide abortions,” the site wrote. “Nor would the clinics even be new — they have been around for three decades. So we rate the claim Pants on Fire!”

Further, as The Hill notes, any clinics established by the bill would have to follow state and local laws regarding parental consent.

Video and transcript below

But parents are going to excluded from Planned Parenthood as they write these clinics because the bill orders that these clinics protect patient privacy and student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. And as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what’s going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care — is that abortion? Does that mean that someone’s 13 year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

On The Daily Show yesterday, Stewart shows how conservative rhetoric on Fox has flipped. As Gawker puts it:

Stewart and his staff dug deep into the archives to find some great footage of various Fox News personalities vehemently condemning the very behaviors that they’re now so enthusiastically championing, like criticizing the president during a time of war and taking to the streets in protests. These are the types of things that liberals do! So Fox News = the new liberals!

Then comes Rep. Bachmann, whose logic about health care would seem to also apply to reproductive health. She told Sean Hannity on his Tuesday radio show that “people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress and let them know, under no certain circumstances will I give the government control over my body and my health care decisions.”

As Matthew DeLong puts it at our sister site in Washington, “Somebody call Planned Parenthood. Looks like they’ve got a surprising new spokesperson.”

While it is surprising, it’s not the first time Bachmann’s used this kind of logic. During a July 22 floor speech, she tested out an appeal to pro-choicers, citing how complicated she feels reformed health care would be:

On this issue of women making a decision about whether or not to have an abortion, one of the main arguments that was proffered was: No government should get between a woman and her doctor. The government should not get between the woman and her doctor when she comes to making that decision.

Yet it’s so curious. When you look at these 33 new bureaucracies that are created, when it comes to that decision about an abortion, you’ve got 33 new bureaucracies now that are created… The government is going to be between them and their doctor in a whole new way, a big way, a 33-bureaucracy way.

Photo: Minnesota Independent

With more than a year to go until the general election, abortion is already becoming an issue in the 6th Congressional District race. An analysis of anti-abortion campaign donations finds that Rep. Michele Bachmann is one of the country’s top earners — and she’s delivered for her contributors on that issue. At the same time, local anti-abortion forces are already tarring DFL candidate Sen. Tarryl Clark just a day after she announced her candidacy.

Bachmann is ranked third of 435 U.S. House members in total campaign contributions from anti-abortion interests, according to a new analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Bachmann received $63,658 since she announced her run for Congress in 2005 — 3.5 times the amount given by abortion opponents to all other Minnesota House members combined. Only Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., who was first elected to Congress in 2002, and Chris Smith, R-N.J., who’s been in Congress since 1980, have raised more from the anti-abortion lobby, taking in $89,081 and $142,854 respectively.

Among Minnesota’s other House members, Reps. John Kline ($9,050), Collin Peterson ($6,307), and James Oberstar ($3,289) have received money from the anti-abortion lobby. Three other members — Reps. Betty McCollum ($11,900), Tim Walz ($19,400) and Keith Ellison ( $4,600) — have accepted gifts from abortion-rights groups.

Bachmann’s disproportionate share of contributions has paid off for her anti-abortion benefactors. She’s sponsored or cosponsored an impressive 13 bills restricting abortion rights so far this year. Among the bills, one includes funneling entitlement money to “abortion alternatives” programs and another that would ban race and sex discrimination against fetuses. Yet another would give 14th Amendment protections to an embryo or fetus.

Her efforts have earned her the support of Minnesota’s largest anti-abortion group, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, which all but endorsed Bachmann in a scathing attack on Rep. Tarryl Clark only a day after she launched her campaign to replace Bachmann.

“The voters in the 6th Congressional District need to know that Tarryl Clark is a radical anti-life candidate,” said MCCL executive director Scott Fischbach said in a statement on Tuesday. “Senator Clark has voted to use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions — even cruel saline abortions!”

“From now until the election in 2010, MCCL will work tirelessly to make sure the voters know that it is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann who is willing to stand up and fight for the innocent unborn and their mothers, while Tarryl Clark supports even the most gruesome taxpayer funded abortions,” he said.

So far this year, MCCL has ignored the two other candidates in the race to unseat Bachmann. El Tinklenberg, who ran an unsuccessful campaign against Bachmann in 2006, describes himself as pro-life.

“It’s been my perspective since the early days of my life as a minister,” Tinklenberg during the 2008 campaign. “It’s not my mission in life to eliminate Roe [vs. Wade],” he said. “As a pro-life person, my mission is to reduce the number of abortions.”

Dr. Maureen Reed, who is also seeking to defeat Bachmann, hasn’t taken a strong stance on the issue, either in the current campaign or as candidate for lieutenant governor in 2006.

Photo: The UpTake

Anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life called on Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to reverse their Senate Judiciary Committee votes to approve Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday. In a letter to the senators, MCCL said that a legal board that Sotomayor once sat on advocated abortion rights.

“While Judge Sotomayor served on the governing board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), the PRLDEF was actively involved in litigation that attempted to advance the abortion agenda,” wrote Scott Fischbach, executive director of MCCL. “In fact, briefs that were filed by PRLDEF at the time urged the Court to regard abortion as a ‘fundamental right.’”

Despite the association outlined by Fischbach, Sotomayor has not yet ruled on an abortion or reproductive rights case.

“Women and unborn children in Minnesota have suffered long enough from the devastating results of Roe v. Wade and deserve a United States Supreme Court that will protect them from an aggressive abortion industry,” Fischbach wrote in the letter to Franken and Klobuchar.

MCCL’s letter is unlikely to change any positions. Both Franken and Klobuchar have indicated their support for reproductive rights as well as reducing the need for abortion through family planning.

Democrats Peterson and Oberstar, who is chairman of the House Pro-life Caucus, have made known their opposition to any inclusion of funding for abortion services in the health care package rolled out by the House this month. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi they wrote that they’d vote against health reform that included such funding.

“As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked,” they wrote. “Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly is unacceptable.”

Sixth District Republican Bachmann also spoke out against reproductive health funding in the health reform bill at a gathering of anti-abortion Republican women last week.

“The Obama adminstration is radical on the issue of abortion. President Obama has said the reproductive care is essential health care,” said Bachmann. “Will this now mean that we mandate that new abortion clinics would have to be built all across America?”

But Congress and Obama are looking for compromise on the issue. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, along with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., is putting forward the “Preventing Unintended Pregnancies, Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act,” which would increase funding for teen pregnancy prevention, create an adoption tax credit, bolster after-school programs and increase medical, nutritional and financial support for low-income pregnant women.

The bill contains many of the policies championed by Obama for helping reduce the need for abortion.

“[W]e are increasingly concerned about potential roadblocks around the issue of abortion,” Ryan wrote in a letter to Pelosi. “With 45 million uninsured Americans, we want to make sure that disagreements over this often-contentious issue don’t threaten the success of the final health care reform package.”

But the anti-abortion crowd remains unswayed.

For his efforts at compromise, Ryan was “booted” from Democrats for Life of America (DFLA), an anti-abortion advocacy group for Democrats. (Oberstar is on the group’s federal advisory board, and both Oberstar and Peterson are on the board of the Minnesota chapter.)

Kristen Day of the DFLA wrote that the organization “gave Congressman Ryan ample opportunities to prove he’s committed to protecting life but he has turned his back on the community at every turn… For now, pro-life Democrats have lost a promising, rising star to the pro-choice movement.”

Ryan got into hot water with the group in 2006 for introducing a similar bill. Oberstar, one of many moderates that the bill was designed to win over, said at the time he would not support Ryan’s bill.

And the religious right aren’t giving the bill consideration.

“This misbegotten measure contains no funding for abstinence programs nor anything to encourage teens and young adults to refrain from risky sexual behavior,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. “Nothing in the bill would strengthen parental involvement in the decision of minors to have abortion, which is a bipartisan way to reduce abortion among teens. No pro-life groups support this legislation, which seems designed to give some Democrats in politically challenging congressional districts the cover they need against charges they support abortion-on-demand.”

That woman was Norma McCorvey of Texas, otherwise known as “Jane Roe,” the central figure of the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. McCorvey found Jesus in 1995 after befriending members of Operation Rescue and renounced her support for abortion rights. She converted to Catholicism in 1998 and renounced her homosexuality which she had revealed years earlier in her book I am Roe.

She has told the press that she lied about the rape that lead to Roe v. Wade.

McCorvey was arrested for her outburst and charged with “unlawful conduct for disrupting Congress.”

As part of the “public option” in the health reform package currently being debated in Washington, a Health Benefits Advisory Committee would make decisions about what health care procedures can be covered under a government-run system. The anti-abortion Democrats want specific legislation that prevents that board from allowing coverage of abortion services.

Full text of the letter:

Dear Honorable Pelosi:

As the debate on health care reform continues and legislation is produced, it is imperative that the issue of abortion not be overlooked. Plans to mandate coverage for abortions, either directly or indirectly is unacceptable.

We believe in a culture that supports and respects the right to life and is dedicated to the protection and preservation of families. Therefore, we cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan. We believe that a government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan, should not be used to fund abortion.

Furthermore, we want to ensure that the Health Benefits Advisory Committee cannot recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion could be included in a government subsidized health care plan under general health care. The health care reform package produced by Congress will be landmark, and with legislation as important as this, abortion must be addressed clearly in the bill text.
Furthermore, funding restrictions save lives by reducing the number of abortions. The Guttmacher Policy Review, a leading pro-choice research organization noted “that about one third of women who would have had an abortion if support were available carried their pregnancies to term when the abortion fund was unavailable.”

Thank you for taking the time to consider our request. By ensuring that abortions are not funded through any health care reform package, we will take this controversial issue off the table so that Congress can focus on crafting a broadly-supported health care reform bill.

Sincerely,

Dan Boren (Okla.), Bobby Bright (Ala.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Jerry Costello (Ill.), Kathy Dahlkemper (Penn.), Lincoln Davis (Tenn.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Tim Holden (Penn.), Paul Kanjorski (Penn.), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio), Mike McIntyre (N.C.), Charlie Melancon (La.), John Murtha (Penn.), Jim Oberstar (Minn.), Solomon Ortiz (Texas), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Bart Stupak (Mich.), and Gene Taylor (Miss).

According to a report (PDF) released this week by the Minnesota Department of Health, 12,948 abortions were performed in 2008 – down from 13,843 in 2007 and the lowest number since 1975.

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota said the decrease could be attributed to affordable access to birth control.

“The best way to sustain reductions in the need for abortion is to provide accessible, affordable birth control and accurate, fact based sexuality education to all Minnesotans,” said Kathi Di Nicola, PPMNS communications director. “Planned Parenthood continues to work with the legislature and in our clinics across the state to do just that.”

Di Nicola noted that 95 percent of the care PPMNS provides comes in the form of prevention. The organization provided more than 300,000 units of contraception, nearly 58,000 tests for sexually transmitted diseases, more than 20,000 breast cancer screenings and more than 17,000 cervical cancer screenings.

“The overall decline in abortion in nearly every category is positive news and a goal that PPMNS works toward every day in our clinics across the region,” she said.

Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group, said the decline was due to the Positive Alternatives program, a faith-based, state-funded program that urges women considering abortion to forgo the procedure.

“This report demonstrates that Positive Alternatives is working for women and their unborn babies,” said Scott Fischbach, executive director for MCCL.

While MCCL is openly hostile to PPMNS, Di Nicola offered an olive branch in working to reduce abortions in Minnesota through education and contraception.

“We again call on groups like the MCCL join to with us in taking tangible, common-sense steps to prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion in Minnesota,” she said.