Today In the War on Women
By The Republican effort to limit abortions to the affluent continues:
A group of congressional Republicans is pushing a bill to put key health care decisions in the hands of the states, rather than the federal government. But language buried in the legislation would do the opposite on one key issue: abortion.
Rep. Todd Rokita’s (R-Ind.) State Health Flexibility Act, also known as HR 4160, contains a provision that would force 17 states, including California, Massachusetts, and New York, to either discontinue programs that help low-income women pay for abortions, or spend a lot more money to purchase new insurance plans for those women. Thirty House Republicans have signed onto Rokita’s proposal since it was introduced in March*, and the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservatives that includes over 70 percent of the GOP caucus, made HR 4160 part of its official budget plan.
If passed, the bill “would block the only avenue left to states that wish to make safe and legal abortions accessible to low income women,” says Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University.
I can’t believe that the Republicans are betraying their staunch federalist principles! Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d think that Republicans want to decentralize health care policy not because they care about our precious Laboratories of Democracy but because they oppose the non-affluent having access to decent health care.