Congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) is trying to radically change abortion law in this country today.

A central promise of health care reform is that if you like the health care coverage you have, you can keep it. Today in America, millions of women who buy health care on their own or who get it through the small business employer have abortion care coverage. Congressman Stupak’s amendment would strip them of that coverage, breaking that central promise.

Stupak wants to outlaw abortion coverage in the new health insurance Exchange, where individuals and small businesses will purchase their coverage. Instead, women would only be able to purchase abortion coverage in a "abortion rider" plan – a single-service plan that covers abortion only. Such an "abortion rider" is discriminatory and illogical. Women do not plan to have unintended pregnancies (or pregnancies in which a complication will arise that will require ending the pregnancy). In fact, about half of all pregnancies are unintended. Abortion is simply not something that women plan to insure against.

Put simply, the Stupak amendment is a dramatic departure from current law which would restrict a women’s right to choose. What’s more, it would put an unprecedented restriction on people who pay for their own health insurance.

There is already a compromise in the House health care bill that reflects current law on the subject. The current bill prohibits federal funds from being used for abortion but still allows women to use their own money to buy the coverage they need.

This isn’t good enough from Stupak, or, apparently, for the Members of Congress considering voting for this amendment. Below is a list of Representatives that need to hear from you today about this issue. If you live in their district, pick up the phone now and give them a call. This amendment will be voted on today, so time is of the essence.

Click here to call, or use the phone numbers below:

Watching the media hysteria in the days after the November 3rd election, I wonder if enough of us have visited carnival sideshows and heard the barkers there. That is the closest experience I know to listening to the bray of pundits and partisans, frantically sounding out their opinions about the outcomes here, there and everywhere.

The purpose of the barker, just in case you don’t know it, is that of advertising agent, to convince you of the product’s desirability so you will come into the tent. The big tent, no – their individual, tiny tent. Bearded ladies, fattest man in the world, genuine aliens in a jar, the car that Jayne Mansfield was riding in when she was decapitated, Balloon man – you aren’t going to be cool if you haven’t seen this 2010th wonder of the world.

The skills needed to sell the Republican party – that party that is still insisting its ideology will cure the ills that it has created – will rival those of the best barker. They are on display now. Listening to winger Chairman Michael Steele at his presser Wednesday express concern that the Democrats, with 60 members of the Senate, couldn’t pass a health care reform bill did bring to mind the backroom scene that had to have preceded it. That back room had to have filled with intaken breath where, gasping with astonished laughter, the assembled 2010 campaign planning committee barked with wonder at the calm grasp of spectacle their Chairman gave to this piece of phantasmagoria. I wonder what question prompted the Chair could plan to actually pass blame for his party’s obstruction tactics on to the Democrats.

With the House set to vote on the health care bill tomorrow, it will be helpful to know exactly who our representatives will be representing. Here’s how much money some of the key players in the debate have received from health industries in the current election cycle.

(Includes donations from health professionals, insurance companies, HMO’s, hospitals, nursing homes, and pharmaceuticals. Click here for a complete listing of all members of Congress.)

House:                                                                                                         Senate:

Steny Hoyer – $259,810 (3rd highest in body)                        Harry Reid – $611,075 (most in body)

Nancy Pelosi – $223,700 (5th)                                                       Blanche Lincoln – $427,950 (2nd)

Charlie Rangel – $ 201,800 (6th)                                                  Chuck Shumer – $366,650 (3rd)

Eric Cantor – $191,150 (7th)                                                           Chuck Grassley – $248,560 (8th)

Henry Waxman – $190,250 (8th)                                                Kent Conrad – $117,850

Roy Blunt – $170,700 (12th)                                                          Ben Nelson – $113,100

John Boehner – $137,725 (20th)                                                 Max Baucus – $70,500

Joe Wilson – $77,900                                                                        Tom Carper – $58,490

Alan Grayson – $38,800                                                                  Olympia Snowe – $12,000

Dennis Kucinich – $2,000                                                               Jay Rockefeller – $2,000

What ’s on your mind tonight?