Obama’s Plan for Health Bill includes abortion funding

New York Times: “In the House, he needs 217 votes (the number is ordinarily 218, but two seats are vacant) — a number that could be difficult to muster, especially because Mr. Obama’s bill does not include the tighter restrictions on payments for abortions favored by abortion opponents among House Democrats.”

Washington Post: “The president’s plan does leave intact language relating to abortion already in the Senate bill that is less restrictive than the House measure. That would leave open the possibility that conservative Democrats in the House who oppose the use of federal money for abortion would oppose the measure.”

National Right to Life: ” Any member of Congress who votes for the final legislation proposed by President Obama will be voting for direct federal funding of elective abortion through Community Health Centers, and also an array of other pro-abortion federal subsidies and mandates.”

LifeNews: “‘If all of the President’s changes were made, the resulting legislation would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers, would institute federal subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion on demand (including some federally administered plans), and would authorize federal mandates that would require even non-subsidized private plans to cover elective abortion,’ [Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee] tells LifeNews.com today.”

Ben Smith @ Politico: “And abortion, an issue whose political salience seemed pretty much gone by 2008, is again central. The Stupak-Pitts amendment is gone, and with it an unclear number of Democrats. Abortion foes are again organizing with the demand of an ‘explicit exclusion of public funds for abortion,’ which they don’t see in the accounting mechanism Ben Nelson negotiated.”