American press has already been caught in a lie by stating that 90% of private insurance companies cover abortion.

Abortion seems to be the political topic of the past 40 years. Why does almost every political decision seem to revolve around this barbaric procedure? Lord have mercy in the USA.

- I don’t think your suggestion that insurance companies “love” abortion because it’s cheaper than birth makes a whole lot of sense. Insurance companies don’t have to make their profits by digging in their heels and refusing to pay for procedures that people want. They can also (and do) raise rates as people’s usage patterns change. So if starting tomorrow the abortion rate fell to zero, it might result in slightly higher insurance rates next year, but I don’t think we’d see insurance companies begging people to abort. (Indeed, I would challenge you to provide links to examples of insurance companies pressuring people to abort.) And indeed, in the long run, insurance companies make money because of enrollees. If they kill all the enrollees, they make no money. Population growth is in their favor. This doesn’t make them virtuous, but this “insurance companies are eeeeeeevil” routine doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

The pro-life movement is admittely far from perfect. It is not omnisicient. It does not always think through every implication of every policy. It is certainly at times influenced by the other political concerns of its members.

That does not mean it has been actively giving a pass to pro-abortion policies. Rather, it may have made some mistakes in being too lenient and trusting of both government and business in the past. That should be all the more reason for skepticism of the current government notion.

For my part I want no part of paying for anyone’s abortions, contraception, embryonic stem cell anythings, artificial conceptions, or any of that stuff. I don’t want my taxes going to it, I don’t want my pay or benefits going to it, and I don’t want anyone else being made to pay for or do those tings. I consider it a grave violation of human rights and dignity to be forced to pay for these things by the state, and I find being arm-twisted into it by a business to be equally unpalatable.

In any case, I for my part remain against this latest attempt, and while I do have pro-life arguments, and moral arguments, as part of my reasoning, quite frankly I am against it for economic, fiscal, financial, constitutional, and logistical reasons as well.

To my mind the current conscience protections are not sufficient for health care workers and health care entities. I also do not see sufficient conscience protection for others involved, so as the customers.

I also think that eventually this plan will be used as a vehicle for expanding morally objectionable policies. I strongly suspect it will be used both as justification and mechanism for things that every true Catholic would object to. Admittedly this is a slippery-slope type argument, but such predictions are sometimes correct.

In any case, I see much that can be improved about the current system of health care and health care insurance. I just happen to think that the current proposals are among the worst ways of doing it. Quite frankly I think I would be more comfortable with a straight forward government take over of health care and single payer system. At least that idea has some logical consistency, some hope of transparency, some slight accountability, and might actually work. The current proposal is illogical (it often as not works against its own goals), it is not at all transparent to the average citizen, the perfect formula for shifting blame, and it probably won’t work as advertised anyways.

* I haven’t looked at how fully-insured plans are effected by the exchange. If I were to speculate, I would guess they would be treated like their self-insured brethren. If your company employs over 300, they are almost always self-insured. If they employ under 100, they are almost always fully-insured.

Which would be nullifed by the Republican plan to allow sale of insurance policies across state lines. And the Pro-Life objection to this GOP proposal is where?

Kevin’s point underscores it — isn’t it better that we can lobby for a pro-life health care than all of us have to quit our jobs?

Let’s go for win-win.

Your target in this case really needs to be companies that offer abortion coverage. That is the employer. And if you want to be self righteous about it, ask Catholics to quit any employer that offers abortion coverage. But the nearness to evil is even further removed in the business health insurance self insured model, since the premiums go to the company to offer insurance, not pooled in some bank account with other employees to pay for abortions.

This attack against pro-lifers is really a stretch. Why is your ire and self righteousness not against Democrats for failing to pass a Stupak like amendment in the Senate? That is all they would need to do to get the USCCB and pro-lifers on board.