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11-2-09
 

Health-Care Reform Vote May Come This Week

 

The House plans to take up the health-care bill this week, while Senate Democrats await an estimate on their bill from the Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have called for a vote on the health-care reform bill, H.R. 3962, this week. 

Nearly 2,000 pages long, the latest version sets up 111 new federal bureaucracies, boards, commissions and programs.

The bill also includes taxpayer funding for abortion. 

Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and 40 other Democrats have promised to hold up the process by not voting for a procedural measure unless leadership promises to allow a vote on an amendment prohibiting government funding of abortions.

Those Democrats, along with Republicans, could table further discussion on the bill.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president and chairman of the board of the Susan B. Anthony List and part of Stop the Abortion Mandate (STAM), said the amendment is absolutely necessary.

"Without a specific exclusion of abortion in any health-care reform bill," she said, "abortion will be included."

STAM will hold a Web-cast tonight to discuss government-funded abortions in the plan.

Meanwhile, the Senate sent its version of health-care reform to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for a cost estimate.

Republicans asked Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to release the text of the bill, but Democrats have refused.

Ashley Horne, federal policy analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Democrats argue that everything sent to the CBO may not end up in the final version.

"Even so," she said, "taxpayers and members of Congress should be allowed to review the various packages to learn how the government is proposing to spend taxpayer money."

TAKE ACTION
Ask your representative and senators to oppose any health-care plan that allows federal funding of abortion.

Listen to the STAM webcast.

(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family Action is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)


 

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