After House leadership
failed to find a majority even among its hypocritical membership on the symbolic 20-week ban on abortions, they replaced it with a less symbolic, far more potentially damaging bill, HR 7. They've revived their long-standing effort to
codify a ban on federal funding of abortion that even extends to private insurance, and plans sold in Obamacare insurance exchanges. But it's also a tax-hike on small businesses who provide employees with health insurance that covers abortion.
Under the SHOP exchange, a part of the Affordable Care Act, small businesses receive a tax credit if they include abortion care in their plans. Roughly 87 percent of private plans include abortion services as part of comprehensive coverage, meaning the bulk of small businesses would be hit with a tax hike if the bill, called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, were to become law.
As Leader Pelosi
points out, House Republicans have shifted their attack from the thousands of women with the 20-week abortion ban to
millions of women who would have this legal medical procedure stripped from their private insurance, which they are paying for.
We've been here before, regularly. They have been trying to extend the definition of "tax-payer funded" to "all tax deductions, credits or other benefits for the cost of health insurance, when that insurance includes under its plan coverage for abortion," as David Waldman made clear four years ago, when Republicans pushed this bill.
The White House issued a veto threat, saying the legislation "would intrude on women's reproductive freedom and access to health care; increase the financial burden on many Americans; unnecessarily restrict the private insurance choices that consumers have today; and restrict the District of Columbia's use of local funds, which undermines home rule."
10:26 AM PT (Laura Clawson): The House passed this bill 242 to 179.
