Pro-Choice Caucus meeting with lawyers and insurers on Senate healthcare bill

Abortion-rights supporters in the House are conferring with attorneys and insurance companies this week on the Senate's healthcare reform bill as they decide how to proceed with it.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the co-chairwoman of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus, said that her caucus was still digesting language in the Senate's healthcare measure restricting federal subsidies from going to support health insurance plans covering abortion.

"We're still trying to figure out what this language means," DeGette said during an appearance on MSNBC. "It seems at the very best incredibly cumbersome for women, and at worst unconstitutional."

In a joint statement with Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the other co-chairwoman of the caucus, DeGette said the caucus had "serious reservations" about the compromise, which would seek to segregate federal funds from abortion coverage by requiring consumers who wish to purchase such coverage to write a separate check for it.

Groups both in support of and opposed to abortion rights have criticized the bill, but the Pro-Choice Caucus has yet to make an official pronouncement on it, the result of which could sway the razor-thin vote tally in the House.

"The new amendment — it's of great concern to us because we think it might make the insurance companies just simply stop offering a legal medical procedure," DeGette said. "So that's why we have to talk to our lawyers and some of the insurance companies to figure out what the effect would be.

"We really do want to have a healthcare bill; we don't want to kill the healthcare bill over abortion," she added. "But we have said we will not agree to restrictions beyond current law."

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