Pelosi Woos Bart Stupak (NY Times)

Democrats Woo Abortion Foes In Push For Health Bill


House Democratic leaders late Friday were exploring the possibility of a deal with Abortion opponents that would clinch the final votes to pass major health care legislation, but they faced stiff resistance from lawmakers who support abortion rights.

It was not immediately clear if the bill could win approval without some concessions to Democrats seeking tighter abortion restrictions.

In similar late-hour wrangling in November, Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, succeeded in winning approval of tight limits on insurance coverage of abortions in the House health care bill.

Mr. Stupak has said he would oppose the current measure without similar limits. Other Democratic opponents of abortion have said they are satisfied with the language in the Senate bill that bans the use of federal money to pay for coverage of the procedure, and they have pledged support for the package, expected to come to a decisive vote in the House on Sunday.

Mr. Stupak introduced a resolution on Friday that would add tougher abortion restrictions to the bill after it is approved but before it is sent to the president — a technique typically used to make minor or technical changes with the consent of both chambers, an unlikely prospect.

“We don’t want another vote on abortion,” said Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado and a champion of abortion rights, as she left a meeting Friday evening in the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “We are not going to vote for a bill that restricts women’s right to choose beyond current law.”

The abortion issue was just one complication that Democratic leaders wrestled with on Friday. A dispute over Medicare payments rates also flared as rank-and-file lawmakers pored over the detailed legislative language released Thursday, and a handful of lawmakers said their states would be shortchanged by new provisions.

Still, Ms. Pelosi expressed confidence that the issues would be resolved. “When we bring the bill to the floor,” she said, “we will have a significant victory for the American people.”

Several previously uncommitted House Democrats announced Friday that they would support the bill. They included four who had opposed the legislation in the fall: Representatives John Boccieri of Ohio, Allen Boyd and Suzanne M. Kosmas of Florida and Scott Murphy of New York.

Republicans, meanwhile, readied for a ferocious floor fight. The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, said he would demand that lawmakers call out their votes one by one in the chamber. Other Republicans said they would unleash every procedural weapon available to stop the bill.

The disputes over abortion and Medicare rates were among several fast-moving developments as the Democrats pressed toward a vote.

President Obama, making a quick trip to northern Virginia, rallied a crowd of 8,500 supporters at George Mason University. The White House also said he would meet with the House Democratic Caucus at the Capitol on Saturday afternoon.

“We are at the point where we are going to do something historic this weekend,” Mr. Obama told the cheering throng.

He continued: “Teddy Roosevelt, Republican, was the first to advocate that everybody get health care in this country. Every decade since, we’ve had presidents, Republicans and Democrats, from Harry Truman to Richard Nixon to J.F.K. to Lyndon Johnson to —” he paused, continuing, “Every single president has said we need to fix this system.”

The argument over geographic disparities in Medicare payments has percolated throughout the yearlong health care debate.

Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon, who voted in favor of the legislation in November, warned Friday that he would oppose the current bill unless it increased Medicare payments to states like his that provide high-quality care at relatively low cost. “It does not cost three times as much to do an appendectomy in Miami as it does in Portland,” Mr. DeFazio said. “This has to be fixed.”

Ms. Pelosi acknowledged the concerns at a news conference on Friday morning, and said party leaders would work to address them. Lawmakers from Iowa, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin have been meeting with her to reach an accord.

The growing rancor in the health care debate was illustrated by an extraordinary exchange on the House floor on Friday.

Representative Jason Chaffetz, a freshman Republican from Utah, raised the possibility that some lawmakers were “trading votes for jobs.” He cited a report that Representative Bart Gordon, Democrat of Tennessee, had been promised a job as NASA administrator and that another Tennessee Democrat, Representative John Tanner, wanted an appointment as ambassador to NATO in exchange for his vote.

The two men said the assertions were false.

“That offer was never made, and I would not accept it,” said Mr. Gordon, the chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, who announced Thursday that he would support the bill.

Mr. Tanner, who has not announced his position on the bill, said it was a sad day when such charges were repeated in the House chamber.

“To take an unsubstantiated, untrue total fabrication and to repeat it on this floor is, in my judgment, an affront to this institution,” he said.

Mr. Boccieri, a politically vulnerable freshman, announced his support at a news conference on the sun-drenched East Front of the Capitol, where he spoke about a constituent, Natoma Canfield, who had written a letter to Mr. Obama about how she could no longer afford her health insurance, prompting the president to visit Ohio on Monday.

Mr. Boccieri said her case brought back memories of standing at the foot of his mother’s bed as a small boy and being told that she had breast cancer.

“Thank God she had health insurance; she is living today, she is with us,” Mr. Boccieri said. “But I think what would have happened and what could happen to those 39,000 people in my Congressional district who don’t have health insurance.”

Mr. Boccieri noted that he has been warned his vote for the bill could cost him re-election in November. “If in this job I can save one life, one family, one person, one Natoma, this job is worth it,” he said.

Also on Friday, the American Medical Association announced what it described as “qualified support” for the bill. Dr. J. James Rohack, the association’s president, said the bill would improve the lives of millions by “extending health coverage to the vast majority of the uninsured.”

Doctors said they were deeply disappointed that the bill would not repeal the formula used to calculate Medicare payments to doctors. Under that, doctors face a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments next month, with smaller cuts in the next few years.

House Democratic leaders have assured doctors that they will continue pressing for legislation to eliminate the cuts. Republicans insist that Congress find a way to cover the cost, which could exceed $200 billion over 10 years.

The health care bill would extend coverage to 32 million people at cost of $940 billion over 10 years, with the expense more than offset by revenues from new taxes and fees and reductions in government spending, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It would reduce future deficits by $138 billion, the budget office said.

AARP, the lobby for older Americans, reiterated its support for the legislation on Friday.

“We believe this legislation brings us so much closer to helping millions of older Americans get quality, affordable health care,” Bonnie M. Cramer, the chairwoman of the group’s board, said in a statement.

Aides to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said he would attend the meeting between Mr. Obama and House Democrats on Saturday, to help reassure the House members that Senate Democrats were committed to quickly taking up final revisions, perhaps next week.


Sources: Fox News, NY Times, Youtube

Bart Stupak Reveals Dems' Abortion Genocide Plan: Low Income Blacks

Stupak: "They Just Want This Over"


Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

Stupak says he also doesn’t trust the “Slaughter solution,” a legislative maneuver being bandied about on Capitol Hill as a way to pass the Senate bill in the House without actually voting on it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” he says. “I don’t have a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about what I’m hearing.”

Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”




If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”



“Throughout this debate, even when the House leaders have acknowledged us, it’s always been in a backhanded way,” he laments. “I’m telling the others to hold firm, and we’ll meet next week, but I’m disappointed in my colleagues who said they’d be with us and now they’re not. It’s almost like some right-to-life members don’t want to be bothered. They just want this over.”



And the politics of the issue are pretty rough. “This has really reached an unhealthy stage,” Stupak says. “People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they’re really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No.”

UPDATE:

Congressman Stupak called NRO to clarify his comments. In recent conversations, he says that some Democratic members, not Democratic leaders, have been citing a Congressional Budget Office report that says his amendment will cost $500 million to implement over ten years.

“I did not mean to infer that the leaders are using financial arguments to deny my amendment,” he says. “We have spoken about the CBO and my amendment’s costs, but the leadership has not said that it costs too much money. My point here was that if cost is becoming a concern about my amendment, then that should be addressed, since this is the sanctity of life we’re talking about. We can address those costs. Cost should not be a reason to deny my amendment.”





Georgia Considers Outlawing Abortions Based on Race, Gender


Are health care providers using abortion to curb the growth of the U.S. black population?

That question will be at heart of a debate among Georgia lawmakers, who are poised to take up a controversial bill that would outlaw abortions prompted by the baby's race or gender.

The issue that has inspired a billboard campaign claiming a racial conspiracy is behind the termination of pregnancies. The billboards have drawn national attention for claiming black babies are an "endangered species."

As for the bill, it barely made it out of committee this week, in a 7-6 vote and it still needs to clear the Rules Committee before heading to the full House, but proponents are emboldened by the recent committee vote.

"I'm excited," said the author of the bill, Republican state Rep. Barry Loudermilk. "I think this is one of the most difficult hurdles to face."

But the bill is far from the finish line, and opponents are beginning to line up.

"We're going to go all out to stop the legislation," said Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong, an abortion-rights group. The bill would have a "chilling effect" on "communities of color that are already suffering from a lack of health providers," she said, and would "drive up malpractice costs."

Ross said she will make her case to members of the Rules Committee and believes the bill will be sent back to Judiciary Committee because of constitutional concerns and lack of statistics illustrating the problem.

"Also, let's be clear," she said. "The entire agenda underlining this is not about saving black babies. It's hard for me to believe people not working with us to save the babies here want to save unborn babies."

Ross said supporters want to enact an abortion ban that can be enacted in other states.

"What it's going to do is tie up a lot of time and resources over a red herring struggle," she said.

Loudermilk told FoxNews.com he believes the bill has a good chance of passing both chambers.

"I think the majority of the members of the House are pro-life, as well as the state Senate," he said. "We're just going to have to educate them on what's in this bill."

If the bill passes, providers cannot solicit, perform or accept funding for abortions they know are prompted by the baby's race or gender. Providers who are found guilty each would face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $25,000. Pregnant women would not be held liable.

Loudermilk, who acknowledged that enforcement will be difficult, said the bill applies the same standards used for outlawing discrimination in workplace and in schools.

Catherine Davis, director of minority outreach for Georgia Right to Life, the group behind the billboard campaign, told FoxNews.com that she supports the legislation that she says will address an issue that has "such a disproportionate impact on the black community rather than every other community in Georgia, as well as the nation."

Davis noted that in 2008, blacks made up 30 percent of the population in Georgia but more than 57 percent of the abortions.

"Those numbers are so horrific," she said. "There has to be something else contributing to this number."

Davis said one study shows there is a direct correlation between the location of most abortion clinics in urban areas and the number of abortions by black women. In Georgia, she said, 100 percent of the clinics are in urban areas. Nationwide, it's 75 percent, she said.

"I believe it's deliberate," she said, citing Oregon as one example where most abortion clinics are located in black neighborhoods despite an overwhelming white population in the state.

But Ross dismissed that out of hand.

"I can't find facts to fit their conspiracy theory," she said, arguing that abortion clinics are located where there are clients.

"If you own a grocery store, would you put it 20 miles from where it's needed?" she said. "So that logic that it's in urban areas because it's black and not where clients are doesn't make business sense. It's an irrational argument."

Ross agrees that abortion is having a disproportionate impact on the black community.

"Because of health disparities, less access to birth control, less access to sex education," she said. "We have a higher rate of childhood sexual abuse. … And so when you have those types of disparities, you'll have unintended consequences.

"I tend to resent the manipulation of data that claims abortion is the problem when we're not doing everything we can to make sure health disparities are addressed."

Davis said she is "flabbergasted" by the intensity of the opposition to the bill.

"You can still get an abortion," she said. "Is there all this hoopla because these doctors are doing what I suspect they're doing?" she said. "Otherwise, why are they up in arms about our campaign?"

Davis, who is black, said she just wants to see an end to what she called a racially motivated practice.

"If they will stop targeting my people, I will fade softly into the background," she said.


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Sources: National Review, Fox News, Youtube, Google Maps

Democrats Set Stage For New Clean Energy, Climate Bill, Protects Farmers & Other Rural Interests

Politico----

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has overcome one of the last big obstacles standing in the path of his landmark climate-change bill, cutting a deal with Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, who sought greater protections in the bill for farmers and other rural interests.

Their agreement sets the stage for a vote Friday in the House.

Under the deal, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will oversee the offset program for farmers, and the House will seek further guidance from the Obama administration about the appropriate role for the EPA. And Waxman has agreed to ask the EPA to roll back its new requirements that farmers offset rural land developed in other countries. Both were major sticking points for rural members and the many agriculture associations opposed to the bill.

"We have an agreement, and we're moving forward on Friday," Waxman told reporters on Tuesday evening after he and Peterson met with moderate Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition. "We're going to pass this bill."

Asked if he would support the measure after a drawn-out negotiation with Waxman, Peterson said, "Yes."

Both chairmen were planning to walk their colleagues through the details of their agreement during a Tuesday night caucus meeting and both promised to reach out to fellow Democrats until they have sufficient support for the overarching bill.

"I think we will have the majority to pass the bill," Waxman said.

The Energy and Commerce chairman also believes his allies in the environmental community will remain supportive, even though some groups were fighting against the concessions he made this week.

"This is a good environmental bill," Waxman said.


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Sources: Politico, EPA, Waterways News, Google Maps