The War on Women Continues
H.R.3 is up for vote today. It is a radical bill that goes farther than the Hyde Amendment which already prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion. Of course the GOP is lying on the House floor now, arguing that absent the passage of this bill, federal funds could be used to fund abortion. That’s a lie, but then again, the GOP is the party of lies. Lie number one? “We are going to focus our efforts on jobs, jobs, jobs.”
Wrong.
Since the Great Teabilly Takeover, 916 anti-abortion bills have been proposed at the state-level. That’s 916 bills in the first quarter, bills that are more radical than those proposed in the past at the state level. Four months. 916 anti-abortion bills. At the national level, the GOP House majority has not proposed any jobs agenda. No jobs agenda. Almost 1000 anti-abortion bills. No jobs agenda.
Where are the jobs? Apparently, the Teabilly-fueled GOP doesn’t care. They are more concerned about regulating our uteri and ensuring that women will die or go bankrupt because they do not have access to affordable healthcare, including abortion.
Here are some facts about this abomination of a bill, starting with, perhaps, the most “Holy Shit” portion of the bill:
H.R. 3 Could Force Rape Victims to Prove Rape to IRS Agents
H.R. 3 provides an exception to the restrictions on tax benefits for abortions in cases of rape. This exception allows women who were raped to include the costs of the abortion if they claim the deduction for high medical expenses, or to pay for the abortion with funds from a tax-preferred account. In practice, for this exception to be enforced, a woman could have to demonstrate to the IRS that she was raped and had an abortion during an audit. In discussing how the rape exception in H.R. 3 would operate, the Joint Committee on Taxation testified that the burden of proof would be on the taxpayer. An audit could therefore force a rape victim to produce documents such as a police report or a detailed doctor’s bill to an IRS agent.
H.R. 3 Would Raise Taxes on Potentially Millions of Individuals and Small Businesses that Keep the Insurance Plans They Currently Have.
Right now, most insurance plans include coverage of abortion. H.R. 3 makes any small business or individual that has a health care plan that includes coverage of abortion ineligible for the small business health tax credit and the premium assistance tax credit, thereby raising taxes on potentially millions of otherwise eligible small business owners and individuals. If this bill were enacted, millions of individuals and small businesses will face significant increased costs just for keeping the comprehensive insurance coverage they currently have. Below are hypothetical examples of the harm that millions of individuals and businesses would face if they keep their abortion coverage:
The Small Business Health Tax Credit is worth up to 35 percent of an eligible small business’s premium costs in 2010 and will be worth up to 50 percent in 2014. Right now, a restaurant with forty half-time employees, wages totaling $500,000, and $240,000 per year in health care costs will be eligible for the credit. If the restaurant’s health insurance plan includes coverage of abortion, H.R. 3 would increase the restaurant’s taxes by $28,000.
A single mother with two young children struggled to find insurance coverage in the individual market. Because the family earned just $24,000 per year and was not offered health insurance through her employer, the family would be eligible in 2014 to buy health insurance through an Exchange and would be eligible for a premium assistance tax credit to help defray its cost. If the family’s health insurance plan includes coverage of abortion, H.R. 3 would cost a single mother earning $24,000 per year $3,173 in premium assistance.H.R. 3 Would Impose Other Tax Increases on Women Who Need Abortion Care
H.R. 3 would also impose tax increases on women who use their tax preferred savings accounts to pay for abortion services. Under current law, individuals or employers can contribute to these accounts, which are exempt from taxation, so that such funds will be available for medical needs. Under H.R. 3, the amount paid, or any reimbursement for, an abortion would have to be included in the individual’s gross income, meaning that the individual would lose this tax benefit.
H.R. 3 would raise taxes on a woman who spends a large percentage of her income on health needs if part of her health care includes abortion. Currently, medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of a taxpayer’s gross income are deductible. Under H.R. 3, a woman with serious medical complications who requires an abortion that costs tens of thousands of dollars would not be able to deduct the cost of her abortion. She would have to pay higher income taxes than a person with a similarly serious and expensive medical problem because her treatment required that her pregnancy be terminated.
H.R. 3 Could Limit or Even Shut Down the Private Market for Insurance Coverage that Includes Abortion.
By raising taxes on certain individuals and employers, H.R. 3 could force individuals and employers to drop abortion from their health insurance plans, leaving millions without abortion coverage and taking away a critical benefit that many people currently have. H.R. 3 distorts the private market by driving customers away from plans that include abortion coverage, which would likely result in plans dropping such coverage. Some have also argued that H.R. 3 could result in the elimination of abortion coverage from the private insurance market altogether, making such coverage unavailable to anyone.
H.R. 3 Would Make Dangerous Restrictions on Abortion Coverage Permanent.
H.R. 3 makes permanent the restrictions on abortion coverage for the tens of millions of women who depend on the government for their health care. This includes women currently covered under Medicaid, women who will become newly eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, women serving in the U.S. military, federal employees, residents of the District of Columbia, women in federal prisons and women covered by the Indian Health Service. These harmful restrictions endanger women’s health and place particular burdens on low-income women and women in vulnerable places in the service of their country, such as women in the military and the Peace Corps, for whom coverage restrictions present insurmountable barriers to obtaining abortion services.
H.R. 3 Contains No Exceptions for Circumstances Where a Woman Faces Even Serious Health Consequences
H.R. 3 does not make any exceptions for abortions that are necessary to save a woman’s health, such as in cases where continuing the pregnancy could result in permanent damage to a woman’s heart, lungs, or kidneys. Pregnancy can worsen some serious health conditions, as well as prevent treatment of certain conditions, such as cancer. Under H.R. 3, women would be left without insurance coverage for pregnancy termination necessitated by medical complications, which can cost thousands of dollars.
H.R. 3 is expected to pass, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give ’em hell. Call your representative and tell them to stay the hell out of you and your lady-friends and relatives’s uteri.
CALL NOW! 888-907-9762
[via National Women’s Law Center]
Follow @nwlc for live-tweets about the HR3 vote happening now.
[cross-posted at ABLC]
WereBear
To paraphrase an old joke: they don’t have to worry about health care, because they are such perfect assholes.
joeyess
HR 3 = Get an abortion with your money or have a plan that includes abortion coverage, get a tax hike from the GOP.
Wow. That takes either an enormous set of balls or a really stunted brain or both.
PurpleGirl
What absolutely blows my mind are those 916 state-level bills to restrict and degrade women’s lives. How many more will these tyrants dream up in another 4 months or a year? There are times I wish I believed in magic and that I could curse all who vote for such monstrous acts.
Maude
Obama won’t sign it. The Rs are trying to get their base riled up. They are also losing women as well as all the others they have offended in the past couple of years.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
They are exactly who we thought they were.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we do not hang together in the face of the GOP’s feedom assault, we shall surely hang separately.
PS
This is very scary, in that it’s a very high-stakes game, but surely this is a case of bullet-meet-foot. Isn’t it? I mean, if their base is 27%, and they manage to annoy everyone else, who cares if the base is riled up? Pretty please, tell me Nancy will be Speaker again after the next round of elections.
Chris
I haven’t been following this at all, but please tell me it has no chance of passing in the Senate?
Roger Moore
Nice choice of poster for the illustration. Barbara Kruger rocks.
Martin
Um, don’t we want it to pass? It’ll never make it out of the Senate or across Obama’s desk. If the House passes this, it’s one more thing that Dems can hang around the necks of Republicans next year, like the Ryan budget.
Ruckus
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
They are exactly who we thought they were.
Yes they are. Conservatives are Assholes. Every last one of them. If I’m wrong show me proof.
Bokonon
People have to notice (and vote) for this to matter.
And public opinion polls show that why the general US public is starting to notice, they don’t seem to care as much about this sort of thing as rising gas prices.
So … clearly, the GOP thinks that they can brazen this out with enough hard core partisans and abortion opponents in their corner, combined with lots of advertising and PR for the muddled people in the middle.
-Bokonon
aimai
@Bokonon:
I’m absolutely sure that the public, as a whole, is not noticing this shit. Unless something is named the “Your teenage daughter was raped and is being forced to carry the baby to term” bill the public simply doesn’t begin to grasp what is going on. Its up to the Dems to make these bills radioactive by hammering on every side of these bills.
On the tax issue: the IRS is coming to investigate your wife/daughter/mother for being a victim of a crime.
On the “no statutory rape” exemption issue “The government is forcing your baby girl to suffer for some older man’s lust.”
Simple. Ugly. But it has to be done.
aimai
gwangung
And unfortunately, I very much doubt gas prices are going to be going back down. “Cheap” gas is wishful thinking.
RalfW
I guess women – sisters, wives, cousins, co-workers – will have to bleed to death in alleys before the men who pass these fucking laws get a clue as to the damage they are doing to real, living, on-this-earth human beings.
Church Lady
Do I want H.R. 3 to pass? No. Do I wish more realistic examples of how passage could impact individuals were used? Yes.
The very first example, with restaurant employees, is laughable. First, using part-time employees is not the best example, as most employers don’t offer any coverage to part-timers. Then, given a total payroll of $500K for 40 part-timers (average of $12,500 per employee) a total health care cost of $240K is used, which would average out to $6,000 per employee. Seriously, name me a single employer in the universe that would expend a benefit costing $6,000 for a part-time employee earning $12,500 a year. The mind boggles.
Some of the other examples were just as ridiculous.
Dennis SGMM
Those Representatives, including the fucking DINOs, who are voting for this turkey expect either the Senate or an Obama veto to save them from the consequences of their vote. Hopefully that will come to pass. As for the Democrats hammering them on this one, I’d expect that one more time opportunity will knock and the Dems will be asleep on the couch.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Church Lady: Fred Meyer and Safeway do that. I worked for Freddie’s part time, and the health care plan I had through them cost them at least $6k. Safeway has the same union, and by all accounts offers a very similar plan. Wowie, my mind is fucking boggling!
It’s ok. I know that as a Church Lady, actual facts regarding the real world don’t matter a bit to you. I’m just saying you might want to stick with declarations that aren’t so easily debunked. And, you know, not claim that it’s ridiculous to think that something might happen when it fucking happens every single day.
Also, I apologize for sullying your beautiful mind by making you think of retail workers as human. I know that must be painful for you.
yet another jeff
I forget…was there once a time when conservatives said things like “we don’t need a new law, this is already covered”?
TheMightyTrowel
Goodness this makes me so f’cking sick and angry.
Thanks for beating the drum on this, ABL.
Church Lady
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Given that the example is for a small business and the effect to the small business tax credit, I don’t think your touting Safeway, or any other large employer, is really comparing apples to apples. Also, for non-union employees, Safeway self-insures, therefore is not paying a premium to a health insurance provider. While they do provide coverage, the cost per employee is depends upon the employee’s actual health care costs. For an employee that doesn’t get sick, the cost to Safeway is zero.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Church Lady: So sorry, I should have read your mind to determine what you meant, rather than going by what you actually wrote.
You said it was ridiculous that an employer would spend more than $6k on healthcare for a part time employee. I pointed out that that actually happens. Be big enough to admit when you’re dead wrong.
EDIT: Also, your point about healthy employees costing Safeway nothing is absurd. A better measure would be the average cost for all employees. Do you have those numbers, or are you once again pulling data out of your ass? Even beside that, does this health plan not cover preventative care? Any health plan that doesn’t pay for regular checkups is not really a health care plan. And those cost money too, you know.
Sir Nose'D
I always keep asking myself “ABL…why are you always so A?” Then I read your posts.
I think it is high time that a recent quote from Dan Savage (America’s only advice columnist) goes viral, so please repeat after Dan:
Trakker
I would love to see us respond to the war on abortion by declaring a war on guns.
Sure, conservatives can’t outlaw abortions so they just make almost impossible to get one. We can’t outlaw gun ownership but we can make it damn hard for to get one.
Abortions remove a fetus, gun violence ends the lives of real people.
Jethro Troll
Shari’ah law strictly forbids abortion. Why are these people trying to impose Shari’ah law on Americans?
bjacques
You know who *else* was anti-abortion…?
Nicolae Caeusescu. If you don’t want four children, have five!
JCT
Well this is disgusting but not surprising — endless red meat for their base and they can easily hide behind a veto if need be, so risk-free.
One thing, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is not exactly a shrinking violet and I just have to think that she will come up with a way to hang this around their necks — should match the Medicare “new beginning” just right.
I know this is always raised, but I just don’t know how women can vote for these assholes.
El Cid
I don’t see what’s so alarming about women having to fill out form 1087-VAG along with the rest of their taxes.
It’s not like something which is worth screaming and freaking out about, like when the ATF asks gun shops to fill in a form when one dude is buying 60 assault rifles in 3 months.
Now that is oppression.
Getting together your rape receipts and sending in the originals to the IRS is nothing by comparison.
Church Lady
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
You didn’t have to read my mind, just read what I wrote. I specifically pointed to the example used in ABL’s link, which referred specifically to small businesses, using a restaurant and their half time employees as the representative group. Safeway is not a small business, nor would they qualify for the tax credit used in the example. As to whether or not Safeway’s self-insurance plan for non-union employees covers preventative care, I have absolutely no idea, and neither do you. Perhaps someone here, that has actual knowledge about that particular benefit plan, can enlighten us.
Arclite
Here’s to hoping cheap, effective contraception can help reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and remove the focus from this issue by the right. I was heartened about this article about a reversible nearly 100% effective male birth control method.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Church Lady: Duuuuuuur, ok. Thanks so much for wasting everyone’s time with your ignorant babblings.
I spent about 30 seconds with Google and found this page regarding Safeway’s health care plan for non-union employees. It contains this quote:
Wow, you mean to tell me that you can learn facts on the internet? Holy shit!
Look, I know you think that being an upper-middle class white Christian automatically makes you more enlightened than mud people like me. You’ve demonstrated this for years on this very site. But, it wouldn’t kill you to make some minimal attempt to understand what the fuck you’re talking about before you press that submit button.
There are a lot of businesses, big and small, that offer health benefits to part-time employees. Just because you and your yuppie scumbag friends haven’t heard about it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
PurpleGirl
@Arclite: As nice as that might be, the focus of the rwnj is on women having sex and no amount of birth control will change that. They not only want to outlaw abortion but they they also want to make contraception illegal as it was before Griswald v. CT.
And the bill passed the House this afternoon with all Republicans voting for it, along with 16 Democrats. President Obama has said he won’t sign such a bill, but we have to see what the Senate does now.
ksmiami
Once again, Repukes prove they hate freedom
PurpleGirl
Late in the thread but important. I just read that the bill has an amendment that will permit hospitals, especially ERs, to refuse to do life saving surgery or treatment on a woman if she’s pregnant. For example, a woman can be turned away if she has an ectopic pregnancy. These kill women, no ands ifs or buts. Those representatives can just go rot, right now.
Ruckus
@PurpleGirl:
I’m going to amend my post @10
All conservatives are FUCKING Assholes.