On Tuesday, amid congressional negotiations to extend health care subsidies that expired last year, President Donald Trump urged House Republicans to be more flexible about the Hyde Amendment, which has prohibited taxpayer funding for abortion for more than 45 years, saving over 2.6 million lives.
In response to President Trump’s comments, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, issued a statement making clear that the Hyde Amendment is non-negotiable for pro-life groups: “For decades, opposition to taxpayer funding of abortion and support for the Hyde Amendment has been an unshakeable bedrock principle and a minimum standard in the Republican Party. To suggest Republicans should be ‘flexible’ is an abandonment of this decades-long commitment.”
Two days later, seventeen Republicans joined House Democrats in passing a bill to extend the expired health care subsidies for those who get coverage through the Affordable Care Act. After the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson said the following: “I think it’s a really bad policy and I wish they [the Republicans who defected] hadn’t, but everybody had a vote.”
The bill will now go to the Senate, where it is unlikely to pass in its current form. While House supporters hope their vote will lead to a bipartisan compromise in the Senate, it is unclear how senators will approach the Hyde Amendment and whether a bipartisan compromise on health care costs is even possible.
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