Senator warns of ‘abortion rider’ in House Medicare fix

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is raising concerns about an abortion provision in the emerging deal to end automatic cuts to doctors under Medicare.

{mosads}Wyden, a major proponent of ending Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR), said in a statement that he is not signing on to the draft legislation that was released Thursday by bipartisan committee leaders. 

“There has also been talk of including an abortion policy rider — a complete nonstarter that has no place in a bill about access to care for America’s seniors and children,” Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, said in a statement. 

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have been negotiating over a larger package that includes ending the SGR and is expected to be released in the coming days. 

Pelosi’s office pushed back on Wyden’s statement and said he is referring to language in the bill that applies the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funds from abortions, to community health centers.

A spokesman for Pelosi’s office said the language is just continuing the status quo, and that an executive order and Health Department regulations already require Hyde language to be applied to health center funding.

The Hyde Amendment has become a sore point in the Senate, where Democrats are blocking a bill for victims of sex trafficking that includes it.

“In contrast to the effort by Republicans on the Senate trafficking bill, this is not a codification of Hyde because the language expires when the funds do,” said Drew Hammill, a Pelosi spokesman.

“If this funding does not move in this vehicle, it is very likely that funding for community health centers will significantly decline,” he added. 

A Wyden spokesman declined to comment on the statement from Pelosi’s office.

Wyden also raised concerns about sections of the emerging package that would make wealthier seniors pay a higher share of premiums to help pay for the legislation. He is also concerned that the package would extend children’s health insurance for two years instead of the four proposed by Democrats. 

Some Democrats in the House have also raised those concerns, but say they are inclined to support the larger package to eliminate the cuts anyway. 

Wyden has tried in the past to move legislation ending the Medicare formula. Last year, he pushed for Congress to offset the cost of ending the cuts with money from the Pentagon’s “war fund.”

When that legislation stalled, Congress once again passed a temporary “doc fix” to prevent the cuts from taking effect.