Hoy Polloi and Abortionomics

It’s difficult to discuss the controversial subject of abortion; it’s a complex issue and I prefer to avoid it. A conservative blogger named Matt Hoy who has a website called hoystory.com which is linked from the PolitiFact Bias blogspot, has made some interesting contentions about PolitiFact’s “logic failures” in regard to rulings they’ve made on abortion in relation to healthcare reform. So while I’m going to try to stick with looking at the “logic failure” I will most likely still say some things contentious. However, as PolitiFact says, “appeasing both sides is impossible.”

His website article displayed two PolitiFact (PF) rulings which seem to contradict each other. They are statements by the National Right to Life Committee which PolitiFact ruled on concerning healthcare reform about six months before “Obamacare” passed. PF ruled that it was TRUE that the proposed “Baucus bill” “contains provisions that would send massive subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion” , but PF ruled that it was FALSE that “under the Baucus bill, federal funds would subsidize coverage of elective abortion.” Hoy did them backwards in order to make his logic look more “logical.”

Yep, sounds contradictory on first glance. Looking at the first claim ruled True on “massive subsidies” the most important point (ignored by Hoy) is that many of the private insurers, as pointed out by PF, were already paying for abortion:

...many private plans (outside the government) currently offer abortion services. If the government starts providing health care subsidies but bans the participation of any plan that offers abortion services (as some legislators have suggested), abortion rights groups argue it would strip millions of women of benefits they currently get.

There’s a good reason why they offer them, and Hoy knows precisely what that is, but I’ll get into that later.

Keeping it simple, if you take out the last five words “that pay for elective abortion” what PF is saying is true is that with the healthcare reform, there will be massive subsidies to both private insurance plans and government chartered cooperatives.  The implication by the National Right to Life Committee is that the subsidies pay for elective abortions, when they do not.  What it really says is that some insurers are already covering abortions on their own, without subsidies.

But according to PF it’s false that federal funds would subsidize coverage of elective abortion. The key statement in PF’s ruling: “But if the government isn't paying any more to an insurance company to pay for abortion coverage, it means that insurance companies that offer such coverage are.” As I said above, some insurers are already covering abortions on their own, without subsidies.  The subsidies have nothing to do with the insurers covering abortion, although the National Right to Life Committee, and Matt Hoy, would like you to think they do.

Hoy’s answer is one word: fungibility. All funds for whatever purpose are the same when comingled. As Hoy explains:

So, the money specifically for the abortions has to come out of the insured person’s pocket, but of course it’s easier for that person to pay that little premium because the taxpayer is subsidizing the other portion of the premium.

It’s like the taxpayer pays for basic cable and Politifact.com says that the taxpayer isn’t subsidizing someone’s TV-watching because they’re paying extra for the digital channels. Of course, you can’t get the digital channels without having basic cable first.”

So let me get this straight: abortion is okay, then, if the insured person pays it all out of their pocket without subsidies like they did before? In other words, it always comes around to the same tired Republican mantra, if you have the money, you can do whatever you want. In the fifties and sixties, rich people would go to Europe to get safe abortions while the poor made the coat hanger the symbol of a back alley abortion. Apparently, Hoy would like to keep it that way. In fact, he seems to be concerned that with government subsidies, there might be more encouragement to abort for that “little premium”.

Here’s Politifact’s explanation on how the funds for abortion will be segregated by insurers:

Insurers participating in any state-based exchange that offers coverage for abortion "must segregate from any premium and cost-sharing credits an amount of each enrollee’s private premium dollars that is determined to be sufficient to cover the provision of those services." The Health and Human Services secretary would also have to estimate, on an average actuarial basis, the cost of abortion coverage (not less than $1 per month). And any money used for abortions would have to come out of that pot of money. So the dollars would be technically segregated. And lastly, every state exchange would have to provide one plan that covers abortion and one that does not.

In terms of the cable analogy Hoy presented, this would mean that the cable company must segregate its costs for digital coverage (abortion) from its costs for basic cable (basic healthcare), to report to the government only the basic cable costs, so it will be reimbursed only for that. But Hoy wants to get into the enabling aspects of it: that because a person is getting the basic cable subsidized, it will be easier to buy the digital coverage. To which I say: so what?  If I bought my teenage kid a car to get to this job and found out he was buying drugs with part of his paycheck from McDonald's, am I paying for his drugs?

And speaking of Hoy’s reference to PolitiFact needing to learn about the economic concept of opportunity cost, it appears insurance companies definitely know about it when it comes to abortion:

…Fortune 100 company Aetna, one of the nation's largest health care insurance providers, has a surprising and little known policy. "Aetna will pay for a woman to receive an abortion for any reason at any time during her pregnancy. Whether she is 6 weeks pregnant or 6 months pregnant, whether it is her first or her tenth abortion, the company imposes no restrictions whatsoever," according to Epiphany Funds a company which was invested with Aetna and is now aiming to have Aetna change its policy.

Prior to my retirement, for many years, I chose an HMO as my healthcare provider. When a friend and co-worker of mine who had the same HMO, on becoming pregnant, told me how it disturbed her that the very first thing she was asked by them was did she wish to terminate, I realized that, understanding how an HMO operates, it would be more cost effective for the HMO to encourage abortion,. The costs associated with childbirth, neonatal and pediatric care, greatly exceed its costs. While PPO’s are fee for service, HMO’s are structured on a contracted or prepaid fee-per-person which means that they must minimize costs to maximize profits. In otherwords, there is certain opportunity cost analysis in the "managed care" of the HMO.

But “private insurers [not just HMO’s] like paying for abortion too.”

Insurance companies are loathe to comment on why they pay for the controversial procedure but if you’re running the business by the numbers, it’s fairly obvious….

Health Care Blue Book confirms the price difference. An abortion performed in an physician’s office typically costs $397. A vaginal delivery costs $5,992, while a c-section is $8,558. (These are estimates based on the site’s database of in-network charges negotiated by insurers.)

Don’t mean to be coy, Hoy, but those premiums paid to private insurance companies, even without one red cent of government funding, are fungibly paying for abortions (based on the above citations). And you could call it reverse fungibility, since doing so is fungibly saving money, and may be lowering premiums. And as a capitalist in favor of the profit motive and free markets, and being aware of opportunity cost, how can you turn that down? As one of my Republican co-workers used to say, “You’d be stupid not to.” In other words, financial gain trumps hypocrisy every time.

But let’s say, for example, that the insurance companies agreed to stop covering abortions. I hope Hoy doesn’t believe life begins at conception. Because most insurance companies also cover birth control pills, which are abortifascients: they act to prevent the fertilized egg, or zygote, from attaching to the wall of the uterus. So, if the egg is fertilized, it’s life by Hoy, right?…..so that means you’re still paying for abortions unless you can find an insurance company that won’t cover birth control. Incidentally, what’s the opportunity cost of not covering birth control?

By the way, Hoy, we can take this one step further. Buying clothes, sporting goods, toys and games at Wal-China-Mart?

Newspaper and journal reports indicate that children are also working in the garment and textile industries of China….The International Child Labor Study staff also received numerous claims of the use of child labor in toy, sporting equipment, and game factories.

So don’t buy any toys, Hoy. Your fungible purchase dollars promote the exploitation of child labor.

People who are pro-labor point out that a cheap cheeseburger would cost $1.00 more if in the cost chain of producing that burger, all parties were paid a livable wage. You might call that reverse fungibility too. Every time you got that opportunity cost advantage of one dollar when buying a burger at Burger Boy, Hoy, you’re fungibly paying poverty-level wages.

So the fungibility argument is like saying “some thing” won’t work because “some things” are subject to gravitational pull. Since ALL things are subject to gravity, Hoy’s argument is rendered moot. You can set up some rules to segregate out most of anything that’s morally reprehensible to some (which is what the congress tried to do with abortion in Obamacare), but you can never completely filter it out.

The only solution for pro-lifers, if they are truly serious about it, would be to prohibit all abortion for any reason, even cases of rape and incest, as well as all forms of birth control which act as abortifascients. But then another issue raises its ugly head. Nearly 300 times as many women die from illegal abortion, generally from infection. What happens when an insured woman pays for an illegal back alley abortion with her own funds, contracts an infection and sees her doctor or checks into a clinic or emergency room? Insurance coverage would fungibly be paying for after-(illegal)-abortion care, which (by Hoy’s and pro-life reasoning) would have to be criminalized. And the only way to do that is to sever doctor/patient privacy rights.

Obviously, there’s a lot of hypocrisy on the issue of abortion, in this case, masqueraded as “logic failures” by one Matt Hoy.   Abortions, death panels, all for fun and profit, are all right; but get the government involved and now they're all wrong.