The primary problem with HR 3962 and the Senate proposals is that all of the changes they propose are made within a for-profit system. The House Bill strips the insurance companies of the right to deny coverage based on a pre-existing condition. Yet, it de-links the public option from Medicare reimbursement rates, thereby surrendering pricing to the private sector. The Bill removes the anti-trust exemption enjoyed by private insurers. However, it simultaneously mandates that all Americans carry some form of health insurance, thereby herding millions into low-coverage high-fee private plans. Each step in a positive direction is coupled with a restructuring that will enrich private insurance companies and pharmaceutical makers.

The bills lost further reform credentials as Democrats cut last minute deals with Republicans. Immigrants were removed from eligibility for the public option, abortions were written out of the proposal and Medicare funding was cut. The Medicare cuts are particularly cruel, since they will reduce an already compromised plan to bare bones coverage. Some of the cuts will limit private insurance profiteering, but others will slash necessary items such as exercise programs for seniors. Overall, these omissions signal that the reforms are not about providing comprehensive medical coverage, but about political expediency within the establishment political class. The next round of negotiations in the Senate is sure to produce even further regressive measures as campaign-donation driven legislators cut more deals.

What people in this country need is healthcare. It is their right as human beings. The only way to secure this right is to place the healthcare system in public hands–-to remove the profit-motive from the system. Single-payer healthcare, as embodied in House Resolution 676, would be a positive step in this direction. It would provide universal access to care to all residents of the United States by abolishing private health insurance companies. In thirteen clearly written pages, HR 676 does the things the 1,990 page HR 3962 does not. Access to care is made universal, a framework is created to make bulk negotiations with hospitals and doctors and healthcare activists would be freed to set their sights on making the pharmaceutical industry public as well.

The Socialist Party USA therefore encourages its members and supporters to continue their work in the single-payer movement and to pressure elected representatives to vote “No” on the Senate proposal and, eventually, on the merged bill. All non-violent forms of protest should be employed to prevent the passage of this legislation. The protests should clearly oppose the legislation. We do not want a stronger public option, we want what is rightfully ours–-unfettered access to healthcare services.

The passage of the weak and contradictory reform bills threaten to disgrace the notion that the public sector should play a prominent role in the administering of healthcare. Resisting the Obama, House and Senate proposals for reform not only promotes the idea that healthcare is a human right, it sends the message that people will not allow private sector campaign contributions to drive politics–-the satisfaction of our needs as humans should shape legislation.

Access to healthcare is our human right. We must build a movement to secure this right.

Say no to HR 3962!
Say no to Obama Care!
Yes to single-payer!
Yes to a socialized medical system!

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The Hyde Amendment and Obama’s Health Care Bill: Two Wrongs Make a Disaster for Abortion Rights
Adopted by the Socialist Party USA Women’s Commission

A major provision of the health care bill being put forward by the Obama administration—and opportunistically maneuvered through the House of Representatives, and next the Senate, by the Democratic leadership—shows just how disregarding the US government continues to be when it comes to abortion rights.

This provision would expand the scope of the Hyde Amendment—that nasty piece of national legislation that since 1976 has prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion—to include private health insurance plans partially subsidized by the federal government. This means that additional millions of women would be denied abortion as one of their health care options. Its inclusion in the health care bill is an outrageous capitulation by the Obama administration to the Catholic Church, religious fundamentalists, and Congressional conservatives and hypocrites of both the Democratic and Republican parties. We must fight back: No national health care system that denies the right to abortion on demand! Repeal the Hyde Amendment!

Here is some background on the Hyde Amendment. Named for its sponsor, Representative Henry Hyde (R-Ill), this law began wending its way through Congress in June 1976, as an amendment to the Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Health and Human Services) budget. Designed to exclude women on Medicaid from full reproductive health services by prohibiting federal funding for abortions, it was the first direct attack on the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision of 1973. After political jockeying by Republicans and Democrats, the bill passed in September 1976, after court challenges to its constitutionality were rejected, the Hyde Amendment went into effect in August 1977. It was both a response to, and encouragement for, agitation and violence by such virulent anti-abortion groups as Operation Rescue and Army of God.

Since 1976, the Hyde Amendment has been inserted each year into the HHS budget, often without debate. That is, it has been kept on the books for over 40 years thanks to Democratic and Republican Congress-people and Presidents, alike. In the 1980’s, Congress widened its scope to include federal employees and their dependents, Native Americans, military personnel and their dependents, federal prisoners, and low-income residents of the District of Columbia.

Now Congress is at it again, this time using the motivation and arguments underlying the Hyde Amendment to deny even more women abortion access.

Clearly, immediate actions are called for—not only to block the anti-abortion provision of the Obama health care bill, but also to demand the repeal of the Hyde Amendment.

So join us to get the word out about the Hyde Amendment and the Obama health care bill. Let’s make sure that the public is aware of how Obama and the Democratic leadership are curtailing women’s rights in the guise of health care reform. Let it be widely known that the Democratic Party has given up all pretence of being pro-choice.

The radical Left needs to offer an alternative to the liberal, mainstream organizations such as NARAL and NOW, whose placating strategies make them complicit in the ongoing assaults on abortion rights. From our position outside the Democratic Party, we can and must present the much-needed voice of socialist feminism—one that places abortion access in the context of socialized health care, human rights, social and economic justice, and independent political action.

More travesties like the Hyde Amendment and the anti-abortion provision of the Obama health care bill will be perpetrated unless we continue to demand an end to restrictive state and federal laws, to the wholly inadequate number of abortion facilities and providers, and to health care discrimination levelled against young, low-income, and immigrant women, and women of color.

Only our persistent and militant grassroots efforts will bring about the repeal of the Hyde Amendment and the defeat of the Obama health care bill. Through collective action, we can achieve our fundamental objective: a comprehensive system of socialized health care within a society that guarantees the right to reproductive freedom and health care justice and equity, and that ends all forms of violence against women.

November 20, 2009