Reporting on the Democrats final push to pass the Senate version of President Barack Obama’s health care plan, Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook write in the March 16th Los Angeles Times:

A group of socially conservative Democrats, led by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan, also continues to threaten to vote against any legislation that would allow women who receive federal insurance subsidies to buy polices that cover abortions, even if they write a separate check to cover the procedure. Stupak and others want to prevent women receiving subsidies from buying any policy that covers abortion.

The last sentence in the paragraph is 100% false. Stupak in no way wants to prevent anyone from being able to purchase insurance that covers abortions. He only wants to make sure that the status quo is maintained so that no tax dollars go towards health insurance policies that do cover abortion. Woman that do receive subsidies to buy a health insurance plan would still be 100% free to purchase a separate abortion insurance plan using their own money.

This is exactly the status quo in the federally funded Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (the health care plan available to Members of Congress and federal employees), military health insurance provided by TRICARE, and the Indian Health Service.

In everyone of the above programs, no federal funds go towards paying for health insurance plans that pay for abortions. And in every single case, women who use these plans are perfectly free to use their own money to buy abortion coverage.

This is the status quo Stupak is trying to protect and that the Senate health care bill would destroy.