It could all come down to abortion. Health-care reform hangs in the balance. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, is desperately trying to round up the last few votes. If the House passes a bill the Senate passed in December, it can then be tweaked through the “reconciliation” process and sent to President Barack Obama for signature. But every single House Republican is likely to vote no, so Ms Pelosi needs 216 Democratic votes (out of 253) for a majority. This is proving surprisingly hard. Among the holdouts are a dozen or so pro-life Democrats, several of them Midwestern Catholics, who object to the abortion provisions in the Senate bill.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, abortion has been legally protected since 1973 and neither Congress nor any state has the power to ban it. But a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion, except in cases of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother. The question now is whether Obamacare will use taxpayers’ money to subsidise abortion more widely. Mr Obama insists that it will not. Under his plan, many individuals and small businesses will buy subsidised health insurance through state-sponsored exchanges. Under the Senate bill, they would only be able to obtain abortion coverage through these exchanges if they paid for it with a separate, unsubsidised, cheque. Thus, federal dollars would be kept out of abortion clinics, say the bill’s supporters. But many pro-lifers are not convinced. So the version of the health bill that was passed by the House would have required those who wanted abortion coverage to buy a completely separate insurance policy. The Democrat who wrote the House abortion provision, Bart Stupak, says he won’t back the Senate bill. Several other pro-life Democrats may also balk.