by Nicholas Beaudrot Let's walk through the apparent decision to drop the family planning provision from the stimulus bill. At present, if a state wants to fund family planning service through Medicaid, they have to apply for a "Section 1115 Waiver". If the House provision passes, states will not need to apply for a waiver, but will still need to take affirmative steps to fund family planning through Medicaid. In one sense, there is no "money" to be "dropped" from the spending bill, contra this AP headline. Presumably the likely impact of eliminating the waiver is that more states would use federal money to fund these services, which would lead to increased outlays. Without it, we're stuck with the status quo; states will have to apply for a waiver, and even with a pro-choice administration that will result in delays. Public opinion on this issue makes Barack Obama's decision look like a mistake. You can try to twist the numbers and make a case that while public opinion shows the country is mostly pro-choice, among people for whom choice is a top voting issue things are less clear cut. But you cannot make that case with birth control. To take one example, 67% of Americans support giving birth control to teenagers, something that you might think would be controversial. Almost everyone who can afford it uses birth control; it's popular, effective, and people think others should have access to it. The short-term politics in Congress are less clear; if there are votes to be gained by dropping this provision, it would be worth doing if you can kill the waiver requirement in a separate bill. I count sixty pro-contraception votes in the Senate even without Arlen Specter's shaky not-exactly-pro-choice but not-exactly-pro-life record; only Ben Nelson is truly anti-choice among Democrats, and Snowe and Collins are solid pro-choice Republicans. So to recap, if there is in fact a pot of votes under the bus at the end of this rainbow, and if Democrats are willing to fight for a standalone bill in the Senate, then it makes some sense. But otherwise we're still living under rule by Republican hissy fit.
