Obama Healthcare - Part III
"Paid Abortions in HR3200, Medically Necessary, Birth Control, or Eugenics? You decide."
-An article by Azure Eyes
Ever since Roe vs Wade, the nation has been torn in two on this subject. The arguments are familiar, the causes dog eared in their rhetoric, so we aren’t going down this path for the purposes of forming a go or no go opinion about HR3200. Abortions on demand in the US are generally the law of the land, that aspect is settled law. Women seeking to terminate a fetus have the legal right to seek a willing doctor to perform the procedure and undertake it at her expense. In limited cases health plans may pay for such procedure when MEDICALLY NECESSARY. Medical Necessity does not include “unwanted” as a sufficient reason to invoke an insurance plan as third party payer to pay for the procedure. Thus, the majority of abortions are paid for by the individual as they receive these services as birth control.
Of late, a growing issue of concern is that doctors who object to the termination of a fetus on matters of conscience based in professional, moral, or theological grounds are falling under intense pressure from the Federal Government to perform this procedure irrespective of their personal position. I’m reminded of the Hippocratic Oath taken by all physicians before becoming medical doctors that in part likley contained this simple concept “I will do no harm.” Many surgeons believe for any number of reasons that an abortion for convenience is in fact doing harm.
So what is going on in HR3200 that could concern anyone with respect to abortions? The liberal lobby for many years has sought to have abortions paid for under Medicaid provisions for poor women. Generally, in private group policies provided by employers, this has not been a widely adopted procedure under the provided plans. However, in most States the inclusion of birth control pills in accepted formularies are included by state law. If for no other reason birth control pills are far less expensive for employers than an annual child birth. Further, in fairness between the sexes it is a rarity where a private insurance group covers drugs for male reproduction issues. Employers have elected to maintain cost control aspects in their plan designs that serve to slow down birth rates and the attendant costs incurred from absences from work.
Along comes HR3200, which is specific to this issue. Abortions on demand would be a covered benefit under any plan obtained from the Heath Insurance Exchange or the Proposed Public Option. The impact of this is that women will ostensibly be able to demand abortions many times a year as their chosen method of Birth control. The cost would be born by all the insured’s.
§ The overwhelming majority of all abortions, (95%), are done as a means of birth control.
§ Only 1% are performed because of rape or incest;
§ 1% because of fetal abnormalities;
§ 3% due to the mother's health problems.
An abortion resulting from Rape & Incest (1.0%), Fetal Abnormalities (1.0%) and Mother’s health issues (3%). These reasons all have strong moral grounds to ask the nations insured’s to share in the costs for such procedures. Why, such issues are not under the control of the mother, and the pregnancy is detrimental to the health of the mother, detrimental to the family well being and to society as a whole.
HR3200 doesn’t stop there, but asks the nation to pay for an expensive medical procedure on demand with what appears to be no limits. The CDC has reported in 2000, 78% of the women seeking abortions were unmarried and abortion was birth control for these women. Unwanted children constitute 95% of all aborted pregnancies. While each case women have personally valid reason for the abortion, that is not the issue here, but rather who should pay. One could argue that the world does not need one more unwanted child and an abortion is less expensive than a child to be raised by society. That said, as an elective procedure in birth control to eliminate a possible burden on society proper for inclusion in a medical insurance plan? On demand termination of fetuses on a wide scale begins to take on the proportion of eugenics or the slowing down of the birth rate of a nation or races within that nation, the end result to eliminate that race or a culture.
There is an indication that existing abortion centers are located closest to poor minority neighborhoods and that in 2000 (CDC) near 35% of abortions in the US are performed on black women and that rate has been climbing, while the rate performed on white women at 55% has been dropping steadily. Black women in total constitute a lower percentage of the female population than white women. The impact upon the black races is dramatically disproportionate. This discussion is not to develop the how nor why, but rather to examine that it is what it is.
To include abortions on demand as a free medical procedure would seem to only increase the slowing of births within the black minority community, thinning of their numbers over the passing of time. I do not suggest that the purpose of the inclusion of abortions as medial benefit is a racist act by the government. However, the lack of intent would not relieve the government of promoting a de facto racist program at the end of the day. This aspect of HR3200 has a very concerning disparate impact whether intended or not on the minority communities. Short of an intervention with the minority community in the form of education, birth control planning, and the use of birth control regimes such abortion benefit could injure the black and Hispanic races.
As per the CDC in the year 2000, the abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births). Additionally, the abortion ratio for women of other races (329 per 1,000 live births) was 2.0 times the ratio for white women. The abortion rate for black women (30 per 1,000 women) was 3.1 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women), whereas the abortion rate for women of other races (22 per 1,000 women) was 2.2 times the rate for white women. The women seeking an abortion is far more likely to of a minority race, unmarried and under the age of 30 according to data published by the CDC
It is clear abortion is a program disproportionately utilized by minority races in America. And in considering the inclusion of Abortion in HR3200, is abortion good public policy no matter how innocent and well intended the purpose? Does it encourage the eugenic effect by government on reducing the birth rates for racial minorities, or any group of citizens?
In addition to these matters, HR3200 seeks to impose requirements on medical doctors to perform abortions irrespective of their legitimate convictions reading the unnecessary termination of a normal fetus where there is no extenuating circumstance other than a child being undesirable. This bill will require doctors to perform these procedures on demand. Should a physician be required to perform a procedure to which they believe is against their professional oath, their moral code, or theological beliefs? Should and American a health insurance system make such requirements of any citizen to perform work they find morally objectionable?
And finally, in a case to reduce healthcare costs in America, legally obtained abortions are now paid largely by the individual receiving them from private funds. This bill shifts these costs from individuals to insurance plans and the insured’s. In the year 2000 there were 858,000 abortions performed in 47 reporting states. At an estimated cost of $1,200 per procedure this burden shifted to the public would be estimated at $1.03 Billion dollars! And this estimate does not include costs from the increased utilization rates when covered as any medical issue.
Don’t go there with there are cost offsets from not birthing children.
HR3200 including abortion on demand would appear to this writer to add runaway costs on to an already costly system. The inclusion will all too likley have untended racial impact that would not make good public policy and fails to meet test for a legitimate role of government which is to “provide for the general welfare”. It is this writer’s conclusion that abortion as an on demand paid benefit under any reformed healthcare program or plan should not be a covered benefit unless as an additional added plan with full cost recovery from the insured’s selecting such coverage.
My friends what are your thoughts. If HR3200 were to pass, should it include Abortion on demand as birth control? Post your comments here.
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