Colorado Progressive

The Denver Post highlights House Democrats’ health care conundrums relative to endangered seats (Betsy Markey) and abortion language (Diana DeGette).

I can see the challenge facing a fractured Democratic caucus in an election year, and to be frank I’m not getting my hopes up for Betsy Markey’s vote.  DeGette is a different story, however, and contra the Post, I just don’t see this side* of the abortion issue being much of a stumbling block. Progressives and pro-choice groups will make some noise–and I suppose they should, because there’s no reason to go all progressive on health care yet force women’s rights back by several decades–but in the end, most are prepared to swallow a little bitter to achieve reform that is measurably better for millions of Americans.

Here’s the Post on DeGette’s dilemma:

As co-chair of the Pro Choice Caucus and a fierce abortion-rights advocate, DeGette is facing strong pressure from national groups not to approve a health care bill with the current language restricting insurance coverage of abortion contained in the Senate bill — but the reconciliation process allows no clear way to change it.

All of this is true, but politically it just doesn’t pack enough punch to threaten health care reform. The very next graf, in fact, gives DeGette the wiggle room she needs.

“Our bottom line is fix it,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We have tremendous champions in the House, Diana DeGette being one of them. And we expect, whether at this stage or another stage, that they get the job done.”

Emphasis mine. “Whether at this stage or another stage” is pretty damn generous in the course of holding politicos’ feet to the fire. My takeaway is that NARAL gets the basic premise that millions of women and children will be better off with the improvements in the pipeline if health care reform succeeds than if it fails, and the pro-choice movement won’t stand in the way of progress.

The Post also mentions the 40-odd representatives who won’t vote for a bill with language any tougher than the existing Senate language. This is an example of how skewed are our bicameral politics today. Basically, all of these reps already approved a bill with tougher language than the Senate bill contains; it’s called HR 3200, and it passed the House in November with Bart Stupak’s tough abortion language intact. Those reps were counting on the Senate to pass a less restrictive bill, which the Senate did. Those same representatives then assumed that the Senate language would prevail during markup, but no markup session ever took place. And with reconciliation looking like the only route to pass health care reform, markup isn’t going to happen. Instead, the House must scrounge the 217 votes it’ll take to pass the Senate bill as is with a pledge to fix the language later. That’s the real pickle, not this side note about progressives sabotaging health care reform.

*There’s another side of the abortion issue that is much more threatening to the health care reform agenda, and that’s the Stupak faction that insists the Senate adopt House language (Stupak language) before moving on reform. Brian Beutler has a great piece today on the problems Stupak & Co. bring to the mix.