Stupak: 15-20 House Dems Dissatisfied with Obama Health Bill

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) called President Obama's new health care proposal "unacceptable" for allowing public funding of abortion.

WASHINGTON, DC (LifeSiteNews.com) - As Congressional Democrats slowly warm to triggering the legislative "nuclear option" in order to ram health care reform through the Senate with a simple majority vote, the leading pro-life Democrat in the House has warned that the abortion-expanding bill may nonetheless be doomed to failure in the lower chamber.

In a statement Monday, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) called President Obama's new health care proposal "unacceptable" for allowing public funding of abortion, and said that he believes that there may be enough "no" votes from Democrats in the House to scuttle the bill.
 
"Unfortunately, the President's proposal encompasses the Senate language allowing public funding of abortion. The Senate language is a significant departure from current law and is unacceptable," he said.

Stupak had co-authored the House bill's Stupak-Pitts amendment last year, which introduced Hyde-amendment language banning government funding of most abortions.

The compromise measure President Obama unveiled Monday was modeled largely off the previous Senate version, which lacks the Stupak amendment, and has widely been decried as a disaster for the pro-life movement in various respects. The National Right to Life Committee confirmed Monday that Obama's new bill would expand abortion even more than the original Senate bill.

As the White House ponders options to bring the bill into law, some centrist Democrats are reportedly growing more accepting of the idea of using a controversial process known as budget reconciliation to pass the health measure in the Senate with only 51 votes.  Thus reconciliation - which would require the health care overhaul to be labeled a "budget" measure - could circumvent the need for a 60-vote majority to overcome a Republican filibuster. Politico reports that Democrats in the House are showing signs of uniting behind the measure. 

Yet some consider that it is the bill's dim prospects in the House that could spell its demise: in an interview with FOX News Wednesday morning, Rep. Stupak claimed the bill would not make it through the chamber.

"Despite the abortion language, no, there's other problems with this bill," said the Michigan Democrat, when asked if the bill would pass.  Despite the president's attempt to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill, said Stupak, "at least to the House members I've talked to, probably about 15 or 20 of them in the last 24 hours, they've said there are other problems with this bill." 

Democrats aiming to pass the bill in the House could afford to lose only a small handful of votes; with no support from the GOP, 15 "no" votes from House Democrats stop the bill in its tracks.

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The lawmaker cited as one example concerns over a provision to tax so-called Cadillac health insurance plans, something the House firmly rejected in its own bill last year.  "We have some real legislative and procedural concerns with what the leadership is trying to do with this legislation," said Stupak.

In addition, in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com this month, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), co-chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, affirmed that pro-life House Democrats "have hardened their position" in opposing a health bill that lacks the Stupak-Pitts amendment.

"I think they´ve seen how noble their position is," said Smith. "They are not going to go for a phony compromise. They are not going to go for weakening language no matter how cleverly it is presented."

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