Bart Stupak’s (D-MI) group of “pro-life” House members–and their demands about abortion language–has once again emerged as the major focus of the health care debate. This should not surprise anyone. Stupak originally made his concerns known back in July. The Stupak amendment became the big fight back in November, when the House first passed their [...]

Watch CBS News Videos OnlineToday on CBS’s “Washington Unplugged,” Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) threw some very cold water on the current plan of having the House pass the Senate bill unchanged, followed by the passing of some “fixes” through reconciliation. Stupak said, “I don’t think they have ten votes for the [...]

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor has released a memo (PDF) laying out the case that the Democrats simply don’t have the votes in the House to pass the Senate health care bill with a reconciliation sidecar strategy. Clearly, it is to the Republican Party’s benefit to strongly make the case that Democrats don’t have the [...]

The New York Times is reporting that the White House is preparing to use reconciliation to advance health care reform. Reconciliation will be used to make changes to the Senate bill to make it an acceptable compromise between the House and the Senate. As always, the elephant in the room is abortion. Democrats said it [...]

Ben Nelson has rejected Harry Reid’s latest compromise on the abortion language: Nelson told KLIN radio in Lincoln, Nebraska, Thursday that an attempt at compromise doesn’t get to the fundamental issue of barring federal funding for abortions. Nelson says without further changes the compromise isn’t sufficient. It sounds like Nelson is trying to go for [...]

Ben Nelson is currently threatening to filibuster reform if it does not contain a version of the anti-choice Stupak amendment: The Senate health care bill does not provide federal money for abortion, maintaining the status quo. But like Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a sizable bloc of conservative House Democrats, Nelson says that’s not good [...]

JOHANNS: If a woman wants her health insurance plan to provide elective abortion services, she does have the choice to purchase a health insurance plan that provides that on the exchange — she just has to pay for it with her own money. Am I correct in that interpretation, or have I misunderstood?

HATCH: That’s correct.

The language on abortion in the original version of House health care reform bill, before it was amended on the floor, and the Senate language on abortion are very similar. Both say that: No federal funds will be used to pay for abortions, but as provided by the Hyde amendment, exceptions are made for rape, [...]

The Capps compromise in the House was supposed to be the compromise which would have kept health care reform “neutral” on the issue of abortion. Capps Compromise–The Capps proposal would have made sure that abortion was not part of the minimum benefit requirement package for health insurance plans. It would have guaranteed that in each [...]

The Stupak Amendment could radically reduce the availability of abortion coverage in this country. The amendment effectively stops the sale of insurance plans that also cover abortion on the new exchange. Even though the exchange will start small, the goal is for it to expand over time and be used by many mid-sized employers. Thanks to [...]