Inslee: Senate must act on abortion-insurance bill
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Speaking before a crowd of about 250 abortion-rights supporters at the Capitol on Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee called for an up-or-down vote in the state Senate on a measure to require most insurers in the state to pay for abortions.
"Washington state doesn't deserve just a hearing on the Reproductive Parity Act," said Inslee, referring to the bill by the name its supporters use. "It deserves a vote in the state Senate on the Reproductive Parity Act. We are going to insist that we are not going to let anybody close the door to democracy in this state."
Looking on as Inslee made his remarks was Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina. A supporter of abortion rights, Tom leads a caucus dominated by abortion foes and a Senate whose committee structure does not give the measure a clear path to the floor for a vote.
Speaking prior to Inslee, Tom told the crowd that he is on their side.
"I'm down here making sure that my 17-year-old daughter has the kind of protections that we need in Washington state and that all of our kids have those same kinds of protections," Tom said.
Bill supporters say it would ensure continued coverage for abortions once federal health care reforms taking effect next year trigger bureaucratic hurdles for insurers paying for the procedure.
Opponents say that abortion insurance coverage is already widespread and that the bill is unnecessary. They also contend the measure puts federal dollars at risk and threatens the religious freedoms of those who oppose abortion rights.
Proponents answer those concerns by pointing to language in the bill that would render moot any sections inconsistent with federal law and provisions granting protections to insurance carriers that object to covering abortion on religious grounds.
The measure is expected to pass out of the Democratic-controlled House but faces an uncertain future in the Republican-dominated Senate.
Sen. Randi Becker, R-Eatonville and chair of the Health Care Committee, said she plans to hear the measure in her committee once it passes out of the House. She said she's not inclined to support it but is open to learning more. She isn't certain whether it will pass out of her committee. If it does, the bill would go to the Senate Rules Committee, which acts as a gatekeeper for measures to reach the floor. With 13 of 22 members belonging to Tom's majority caucus, the bill faces an uphill battle there.
Tom said he does not plan on going around that committee to bring the measure to the floor - an action that would anger most in his caucus but delight abortion-rights advocates, who insist they have the votes to pass it in the full Senate.
"We'll see what coalesces and what doesn't coalesce," Tom said. "I don't think we're going to need to circumvent any committees."
"Washington state doesn't deserve just a hearing on the Reproductive Parity Act," said Inslee, referring to the bill by the name its supporters use. "It deserves a vote in the state Senate on the Reproductive Parity Act. We are going to insist that we are not going to let anybody close the door to democracy in this state."
Looking on as Inslee made his remarks was Senate Majority Leader Rodney Tom, D-Medina. A supporter of abortion rights, Tom leads a caucus dominated by abortion foes and a Senate whose committee structure does not give the measure a clear path to the floor for a vote.
Speaking prior to Inslee, Tom told the crowd that he is on their side.
"I'm down here making sure that my 17-year-old daughter has the kind of protections that we need in Washington state and that all of our kids have those same kinds of protections," Tom said.
Bill supporters say it would ensure continued coverage for abortions once federal health care reforms taking effect next year trigger bureaucratic hurdles for insurers paying for the procedure.
Opponents say that abortion insurance coverage is already widespread and that the bill is unnecessary. They also contend the measure puts federal dollars at risk and threatens the religious freedoms of those who oppose abortion rights.
Proponents answer those concerns by pointing to language in the bill that would render moot any sections inconsistent with federal law and provisions granting protections to insurance carriers that object to covering abortion on religious grounds.
The measure is expected to pass out of the Democratic-controlled House but faces an uncertain future in the Republican-dominated Senate.
Sen. Randi Becker, R-Eatonville and chair of the Health Care Committee, said she plans to hear the measure in her committee once it passes out of the House. She said she's not inclined to support it but is open to learning more. She isn't certain whether it will pass out of her committee. If it does, the bill would go to the Senate Rules Committee, which acts as a gatekeeper for measures to reach the floor. With 13 of 22 members belonging to Tom's majority caucus, the bill faces an uphill battle there.
Tom said he does not plan on going around that committee to bring the measure to the floor - an action that would anger most in his caucus but delight abortion-rights advocates, who insist they have the votes to pass it in the full Senate.
"We'll see what coalesces and what doesn't coalesce," Tom said. "I don't think we're going to need to circumvent any committees."
Insurance companies to those who want the coverage: We're not forced to pay for it, so you get to pay an extreme amount of money (near the cost of the actual abortion) OR you can have no coverage.
Why do we have Insurance companies again? Why is this NOT a government entity? Oh right, because everything in America is about profit, and if the government runs it there is no profit to be made in that market anymore.
Abortion insurance: Let's see: If you do the deed, and you breed, then ONLY YOU have the choice and/or need to destroy the seed. Why should any insurance company, politician, or the rest of us, mandate payment for your actions. It's called accountability.
The exceptions would be cases of rape or incest.Â
Abortion is 0% anyone else's business, but it is 100% everyone else's responsibility to pay for it! Yeah, that makes sense!
And people wonder why health insurance is so expensive. Legislators giving away what is not theirs to give is a primary reason.
I think the insurance companies should counter with a clause that they will pay for an abortion if the claimant eat the fetus.
ith it juth me or doeth jay inthlee have a lithp?
If life ends when the heart stops beating, is it not reasonable to conclude that life begins when it starts beating? That said, would it not be considered homicide to intentionally end the life of someone whose heart is beating?
Very well stated. Thank you.
@noreaster You got that wrong, life ended last November.
After reading these posts, the REAL issue doesn't appear to have anything to do with insurance companies paying out or not. After all they have been RIPPING the public off for decades(so who really cares about insurance?) get real! Â
The real issue seems to be "Should we allow abortions or not?"Â This is an argument that will never end.Â
My sainted mother said an aspirin was the most effective birth control.
The woman holds it between her knees.
If you don't do the dance, you don't need to pay the piper.
@Glassman Good one, for those without an aspirin, a healthy dose of self control is called for.
"...and that all of our kids have those same kinds of protections," Tom said.
Are you including the kids in the womb, Tom?
@James127...it is such irony that they pretend to care about children when they are in such love of butchering them!
@James127 Protections from what? Having to deal with your own problems?Â
More abortions equals less people on welfare. Â Look it up.
@UtterReality I posted a big rant about eliminating welfare recipeints in a less than civil manner. Comparing cost savings to killing babies, etc etc, I'm guessing Big Brother didn't like it and hence, it didn't get posted. I think it's pretty crude to count the money you'd be saving this way. This country has turned to shhhhhhhh, they're listening
@UtterReality Sterilizing liberals sounds better.
More abortions equals less future taxpayers. Ponder that. As I understand, we already have way more takers than producers. Sounds to me like we could use more producers.
@James127 More abortions means a lower population and THAT offers innumerable benefits.
@Furd...you need to take a demographics class and then take an economics one on the side!
@James127 That's what they'll say, the reality is they blew the SS money on hookers and blow. And having to pay for abortions for the hookers cuz who needs a rubber when you have abortions!
I wonder if you'll be thinking along the same lines when the government says that they need to reduce your SS payments because there are not enough workers to keep the fund solvent.
".... threatens the religious freedoms of those who oppose abortion rights ...."
And why is it that those opposed based on THEIR "religious rights" feel that they somehow have a God-given right (pun intended) to impose THEIR religion on some body else?Â
The First Amendment espouses Freedom of Religion - but it ALSO means Freedom FROM Religion. In other words, nobody has the right to fgorce their religion on others.
So, let FREEDOM reign - kreep your Bible out of other's lives if they do not ask for it.
Â
@LocalLady The first amendment espouses freedom of speech - but it also means freedom from stupid liberals' ideals. Oh wait it doesnt, the 2nd amendment, no I guess not, they're taking that one away, hmmm CHANGE! FORWARD! Sieg heil Obama!
@LocalLady In our country everyone has a right to be represented by government, even those whose opinion differs from yours. Even those whose opinion is based on their religious values.
@Steve98028Â
Agreed, and I never said they did not.
BUT, the "right" to practice your religion does NOT give you a right to force it on others who may not hold the same beliefs.
The argument keeps being put forth that this is a religious issue - but it is not. True, some religions say abortion is a sin - but not everyone follows the same religious beliefs. Since that is the case, using the "bat" of religion in this instance to beat others into submission to their views is completely abhorant.Â
You as a person are entitled to your beliefs and practices, but you are NOT entitled to force those same beliefs and practices on others.
@LocalLady @Steve98028Uh yea they are babies & your statement of "my right to free of them" really isn't that, it's your "right to be free of God" is what you are really saying.
@Yadayada (continued from above)
You stated "having sex for lust and love is voluntary". So then why should people have to pay for Viagra & Cialis? Having sex is not medically necessary at all. Yet, insurance DOES pay for those drugs.
The ONLY way to have 100% control over what *you* pay for with insurance is to not buy insurance, to simply pay all your expenses out of pocket. Otherwise, once the premium goes to the insurance company, you no longer have any say in it as it is no longer *your* money.
There will never be a perdect world in which every child born is wanted & loved. Just like there will never be a perfect world wheere every child born is perfect & healthy. Is it "better" to bring a child into this world who is unwanted & will not be loved, who never has a chance? Is it "better" to bring a child into this world who will spend their whole life in pain, who has no chance whatsoever of a "real" life, who will be spending their entire life receiving round the clkock medical care for an untreatable & uncurable medical condition?
@Yadayada
But what you and others seem unable to see in this is that you are ALREADY PAYING FOR ABORTIONS. Yep, that's right. If you have insurance of any sort, unless it specifically excludes abortion, you ARE PAYING.
I agree with you - it IS a personal choice, and every situation is different. It can be "misused" by some who have multiple ones instead oof using birth control. But for everyone like that, there are heartbreaking stories as well.
There was a Navy wife up in Everett a number of yuears ago. Because "federal funds" cannot be used for abortion, even when medically necessary, she was forced to have to considere carrying to "term": a fetus that was dead inside her. She was luckily able to raise enough money privately to have an abortion done.
@sometimesrightÂ
You are entirely too bent out of shape here, and are being very dramatic.Â
First of all, it is NOT "butchering a child".Â
Second, if ANY woman made this choice and had an aborytion, I would NOT "pat her on the back". I would ofer her my support - it is NOT an easy choice, and it is something you live with the rest of your life. You wonder "what if", or think "my child would be that age now, I wonder what they would be like".Â
No woman makes this decision on a lark. For you to treat it so irrationally is horrible. Comparing it to Auschweitz? Really? For you to get so very worked up about this just shows you are not capable of logical and rational discussion on the topic.
@sometimesrightÂ
In a medical dictionary or in the coding & billing schematics, there is no disticntion made for "why" an abortion is being done. They are ALL considered the same - a medical procedure. The word "abortion" is not even used.
You are the one who seems to be so very upset & ranting and raving, getting so emotional and bent out of shape about this issue. Why?
@Robert FloydÂ
That is simply your opinion.
The majority of abortions are performed well before 24 weeks, so iusing that as an example is not a good comparison. Also, you leave out the fact that MANY of those preemies have life-long medical problems due to being so premature.
@LocalLady...so if an unborn baby is not really a baby, then I guess an unborn eaglett is not really an eaglett yet? Amazing that in this topsy turvy country one can go to prison for years and get a hefty fine for killing nothing but a hardshelled rock (an eagle egg), but gets a big old pat on the back from LocalLady if they butcher thier own child? What a screwed up mess!
@LocalLady...great, then you pay for your own baby killing! We will opt to not carry that kind of coverage or pay for your love of killing your offspring! How is that...to each their own!
@LocalLady...Killing a baby is a "medical procedure"...I guess gassing Jews was also considered a "medical procedure". Is tatooing a "medical procedure"? How about ear peircings? What a crock of crap. Elective abortion (which is what 95% of them are) is no more a medical procedure than tatooing and NOBODY but the person who decides to get one should be forced to pay for it!
@LocalLady The key word in the medical definition is"viable", which simply means able to survive outside a mother's womb. It doesn't negate the presence of a living being with a heart beat and billions of cells that start as one, multiply and grow for nine months in the natural order of a human pregnancy, THEN becomes viable at the normal gestation called birth.
It's sort of like pain; you can't see it, you can't touch it, but the one having it can sure feel it and knows it's there.
Personally, I'm all for the procedure of abortion, as I'm old enough to remember when it was still illegal and women were being mutilated by back street hackers. However, I also believe I, nor anyone else was put on this earth to be the judge of anyone else's decision to have an abortion. And that especially includes politicians.
Where I stand on mandatory insurance coverage for abortions is a profound NO! NO WAY! Having sex for lust or love is voluntary, having an abortion is voluntary in most cases, and making everyone pay for others' actions, takes all accountability away from sexual behaviors. The exception to this would be cases of rape and insist.
Â
@LocalLady @Steve98028 We have all seen, heard or read articles pertaining babies born prematurely, some at less than 24 weeks. Take that baby home and kill it, you would be charged with murder. In utero at this stage an abortion is legal.  Killing is killing whether it be in a clinical setting at the hands of a physician, or be it on the streets by a fellow citizen.
@Steve98028Â (continued...)
They are NOT babies, they are NOT children - they are a fetus, a glob of cells unable to live independently outside the womb.
They are most certainly allowed to have their own opinions, but they CANNOT use them as force of law to make other conform to their beliefs.
I am beating nobody into submission - I am simply saying that their "right" to their own religion, beliefs and such ENDS where my right to free of them begins
@Steve98028
No, I am not. I am saying that they have NO say in anybody else's life & choices simply because they say God told them it's murder & isn't right.
What has been happening in this particular arena for MANY years is that rather than it being about the WOMAN who is pregnant, her partner and her health care provider - the ONLY ones who should be involved in the decision of whether or not to have an abortion - those who are "bible thumpers" have brought the bible & god into their argument, pushing in where they were not asked or invited, trying to inject themselves into a medical procedure.
But they refuse to acknowledge it IS a MEDICAL PROCEDURE. They talk of killing babies, of murdering children, trying to make it as emotional as possible.
Here is the full MEDICAL definition of the word abortion:
abortion /abor·tion/ (ah-bor´shun)
expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception before the fetus is viable.2. premature stoppage of a natural or a pathological process
@LocalLady @Steve98028 How are they forcing you to do anything? How are they beating you into submission with a bat?
You, in fact, are doing everything you are accusing them of doing. You are doing everything in your power to beat them into submission to your opinion, and telling them their opinion is disallowed because it is based on religion.
This comment has been deleted
@the unvarnished truthÂ
Unless said *Christians* are personally writing a check to pay for a woman's abortion themselves, they are NOT, I repeat NOT, being "forced" to pay for someone's abortion.
Please at least understand the basic principals of insurance & premiums and how claims are paid before trying to ram religion down everyone's throat as a means to enforce YOUR personal beliefs on everybody else.
@LocalLady...you have a RIGHT to bear arms...doesn't mean everyone else has to pay for it! You have a "Right" to a bunch of stuff that is not forced on others to pay for it. What a joke. Coverage for abortions? You people really know how to stretch the English language to cover up your love of baby killing!
@sometimesrightÂ
You keep throwing around the Catholic Church, and "devoutely Catholic". You do realize that over 90% of supposedly "devout Catholics" use birth control - in direct contradiction & opposition to the Pope, right? They get tubal ligations & vasectomies, again against the Church & Rome. Why do you assume that just because someone has the lable "Catholic" that they are exactly the same as you, believe as you do?Â
Remember the bru-ha-ha last fall over contraception coverage was brought by a Catholic University, and they were in favor of contraception being part of the health benefits - not opposed to it.
What this bill does is make sure that the RIGHT granted in Roe v. Wade is not an empty right due to there being no insurance coverage for abortions. They are tyoing it to maternity benefits - if a plan covers maternity, then it also must cover abortion for those who choose one..
@sometimesright
".... pushing your wanton abortion loving ways ...."
Wanton? Really? Sounds like you have been reading gothic novels in your spare time.
I doubt that ANYONE will ditch their insurance in the future when this is passed simply because it says that abortion must be covered.Â
NOBODY is being FORCED to have an abortion. They will not be rounding up pregnant women at gunpoint & herding them through the Operating Rooms.
Just because something is a "covered benefit" does not mean that everyone will be having that particular service done.
@the unvarnished truth @LocalLady 1). they dont, they get medicare. 2). Because one day their devoutly catholic daughter might get pregnant, even if she is going to catholic school (it happens all the time, and people take their kids to the clinic, get the abortion, and never tell anybody about it) 3). Because one of the children they have already had, or might adopt might need an abortion, or if the vasectomy or tubal ligation happens to reverse itself.... 4). He has lots of accidents and tickets on his driving record.
@LocalLady. So if the employer is the Catholic Church or some other business where the owners do not wish to cover your baby killing elective procedures then they should be allowed not to cover it! Glad you agree!
@LocalLady...that is because until NOW insurance companies are not forced to carry it. This ridiculous bill forcing everything onto insurance plans is nothing more than a politically driven bunch of hogwash. It has NOTHING to do with saving money or helping people, but everything to do with pushing your wanton abortion loving ways onto everyone, regardless if they want it or not!
@the unvarnished truth
Nobody is being "forced" to purchase anything at this point.
As I noted previously, the MAJORITY of people have insurance through their employers. THE EMPLOYER decides what is and is not covered on the group plan.
Funny thing, though, in my experience - people who are "devout Catholics" have never turned down insurance plans from their employer that included abortion. People past child bearing age have never turned down employer sponsored insurance because it covered contraception & abortion. People who had tubals and/or vasectomies never turned down employer sponsored insurance because it covered maternity, contraception or abortion. Why would that be if they are all being "forced" to have these benefits included in their employer sponsored plans?
If you are serious about being so adamantly against maternity care, contraception coverage & abortion benefits, wanting to "have to pay for" that on the employer sponsored health insurance plan/benefits, then you would need to opt out of the employer plan & purchase individual coverage for only the benefits you approve of. Since the EMPLOYER is choosing the plan & paying for it, it is THEIR decision (NOT yours) what is to be covered & included.
By all means, feel free to get your own individual plan with only what you want as benefits. Good luck - it will not be cheap.
@the unvarnished truth @LocalLady Or why should sodomites have to purchase insurance for abortion?
@the unvarnished truth @LocalLady Jehovah Witnesses aren't allowed blood transfusions, but don't try to keep everyone else from having one.
@IslandAtheist...nor should we force them to pay for someone else's blood transfusion!