Not Entirely Accurate

I spent some time last week looking into the issue of whether the proposed health care reform we've seen so far would, in fact, increase the amount of Federal funding going to pay for abortion and the best answer I can say is, it would but the increases are fairly minor and don't, in fact, represent much of a change from the status quo.  Matthew Yglesias statement here elides a couple of things and isn't entirely accurate, at the same time, claims that tens of millions of new abortions will be caused by this isn't really borne out by any reasonable analysis either.  There is not, in the legislation proposed so far, any major changes to Federal abortion policy (the Hyde amendment and other similar legislation are not touched).  However, the increase in funding would come in two ways: 1. a public plan would likely provide recipients with coverage, in the same way individuals with Medicaid/Medicare would have access to coverage and 2. individuals receiving subsidies could use those subsidies to purchase plans that would cover abortions as well.  There are not requirements that Catholic hospitals offer abortions on demand.  Claims to the contrary are either misinformed or lying-period.