The Hyde amendment is meaningless now with the ACA and the Medicaid expansion.

[Demsrule86]

This is especially true if there is a public option. Insurance wraps will cover abortion. Why risk Pennsylvania which is very conservative in terms of abortion? This will also allow pro-life indies and pubs to vote for us...I was lectured about Hugh Mello by Sanders supporters. He had sponsored anti-choice legislation...yet was supported by progressives.

[still_one]

1. This was self-inflicted. All Joe needs to do is come out and say if Congress repeals the Hyde

Amendment, he will gladly sign it

[Demsrule86]

2. It is fine either way with me. It doesn't matter if healthcare is done properly.

[still_one]

3. I am just suggesting a possible way to defuse this, and focus on issues like doing healthcare

properly as you suggested

[Demsrule86]

4. I don't disagree...you have to win a primary to get to the general.

[emmaverybo]

26. I wish he wouldn't commit. I think he has the best chance to win with moderate Catholic Dems

in PA. if he says “we’ll see.” Trump says it all the time.

[Celerity]

5. 'This will also allow pro-life indies and pubs to vote for us..'

Seriously? The voter haemorrhage (however foolish that may be) from our side will dwarf any of that. True pro-lifers (forced birthers) will never vote for a POTUS who will nominate only pro-choice judges, especially for SCOTUS.

[Demsrule86]

17. If our side does that then they get far right Trump who will see to it that ROE goes.

I hope they are not that stupid.

[Celerity]

18. I do too

[emmaverybo]

27. Some are. But they would find a way anyway. nt

[Eric J in MN]

6. Medicaid doesn't cover abortion.

That’s the main point of the Hyde amendment.

[Demsrule86]

16. Medicaid expansion does...insurance companies. My daughter was on it

and got great birth control coverage.. no one will ever repeal it so what...it is obsolete if health care is done correctly.

[Indygram]

35. Not all states have Medicaid expansion

eom

[Demsrule86]

46. All states will once we have a public option...and not expanding Medicaid literally kills

People.

[emmaverybo]

28. It does with State Medicaid money in 15 states. nt

[Progressive dog]

7. Under ACA, non-Hyde abortion coverage

requires a separate charge of at least $1 per month. Trump and his crime family will require the charge to be billed separately.
https://www.healthinsurance.org/faqs/do-health-insurance-plans-in-acas-exchanges-cover-abortion/

[Demsrule86]

14. We win we can fix this..Trump wins, kiss ROE goodbye.

[treestar]

20. That is what is at stake

Worrying about the Hyde Amendment in this atmosphere is taking a dangerous all or nothing gamble. On the brink if kissing ROE goodbye, here are people worrying about the funding if it remains legal.

[emmaverybo]

29. Put in a nutshell and perfectly. nt

[George II]

8. The Hyde Amendment was enacted in 1976, 43 years and 11 Presidential elections ago. It has never...

....been a defining issue for any of the dozens of candidates over that period of time.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

10. How many Dem candidates have supported it?

[Demsrule86]

12. All...including Obama.

[Celerity]

24. NO he did not, not as a candidate

[Go Vols]

21. All but Bill

Although President Bill Clinton campaigned against it in 1992, he continued to sign a slightly modified version of the Hyde Amendment into law each year that allowed for taxpayer funding to be used for abortions through Medicaid funding in cases of rape and incest, an extremely small number of abortions.

https://aclj.org/pro-life/four-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-hyde-amendment-federally-funded-abortion

[Demsrule86]

13. More Biden attacks...they are playing purity politics instead of winning politics.

[Celerity]

25. to call this purity politics is disingenuous at best

It is funny how 'purity politics' when it is centre right is never labelled as such. You want a centre purity test, in other words anything that you disagree with is 'purity' whilst the rest of us have to accept anything shoved down our throats.

[emmaverybo]

31. Excellent point. nt

[Cuthbert Allgood]

9. Let's just keep moving to the center!

There doesn't seem to be any problem with that? Right?

[Demsrule86]

11. Not if we win...we move left and lose, we take a hard eight turn. Biden

Is beating Trump by double digits.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

23. So just become Republican light and it's all OK?

Fuck that. We can win on our positions without having to race to the right.

[Go Vols]

22. moving hard to the center since '84

to the point that our last Democratic President said:"The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican," he told Noticias Univision 23 in a White House interview.

[BannonsLiver]

33. You mean the guy who won two elections by large margins?

THAT guy?

[George II]

39. It boggles my mind that a Democrat has a problem with Barack Obama.

[emmaverybo]

32. I don't have a problem with left to center, so you need to speak your "we" for progressives

only.

[George II]

34. How is this moving to the center, and even if it is, what is wrong with "the center"?

"The center" is the majority of Democrats and perhaps even republicans.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

37. Sorry, didn't realize I was on Moderate Underground.

I thought this would be a place that would want Dems to, I don't know, support the Dem platform instead of making it more and more like the Republican platform.

[George II]

38. This is DEMOCRATIC Underground, which is comprised of moderates (some like to say "centrists")....

....and some to the left or even right of the center.

No one has said, or even suggested, that ANY of our candidates not support the Democratic platform or make it more and more like the republican platform.

That you say anyone here (probably me specifically) is doing that is insulting.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

40. You do know the 2016 platform called for the repeal of Hyde, right?

So, Biden saying he supported Hyde would, in actual fact, make him against the Dem platform.

But you were saying...?

[George II]

41. So you double down. So, which of our 23 or 24 candidates support each and every plank....

....of the 2016 Democratic Platform? My guess is that none of them do, but would like your take on that.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

42. Nice goal post move. Not going to bite.

Biden's (former) position on Hyde was well to the right of our platform. You said, in case you forgot,

No one has said, or even suggested, that ANY of our candidates not support the Democratic platform or make it more and more like the republican platform.

Calling for the repeal of Hyde is in the platform. That is the issue at hand. How many other candidates had had to "evolve" their position quickly to get in line with that plank?

[George II]

43. "Nice goal post move." Your standard is that a candidate comply with the Democratic platform....

....in it's entirety, but you seem to not be willing to hold ALL candidates to that standard.

You realize that the 2016 Democratic Platform is 50 pages - that's a lot to hold our candidates (or at least one) to.

Carry on.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

44. Good to see you aren't going to admit you were wrong about Biden and the platform, though.

That's big of you. Good to know that your response to being wrong is that "nobody supports it all." Though that wasn't the point. And I don't know who does and doesn't. But, sure, point well made.

[George II]

45. If I was, I would, but I wasn't, so I won't.

If you want to pull out one paragraph from a 50-page document (yes, I've read it!) and hold EVERY candidate to that paragraph and not every other paragraph of that 50-page document, so be it. Seems quite selective to me.

[Cha]

15. Thanks for this, Dems..

It's Heath Mello, though.

Bernie Sanders's ‘Colossal Mistake’: Backing Heath Mello

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-heath-mello-mistake-607898

[treestar]

19. +1

This is no time for purism.

[Kurt V.]

30. lack of empathy for the less fortunate is the American way. usa! usa!

[shanny]

36. Apparently it was important enough

for your candidate to reverse his position.