Stupak reflects on health bill passage

Former congressman Bart Stupak was the lynchpin of health reform’s passage, and he paid a price for it in the end.

The pro-life, Michigan Democrat led a small but powerful bloc of Democratic lawmakers to oppose the bill because of its language on federal funding of abortions. Seemingly at the last minute, Stupak and the White House hammered out a compromise, his pro-life allies supported the bill, and it passed by a thin margin.

After that, Stupak received a death threat. Facing outside spending in his district and a vitriolic political climate, he decided not to run for reelection. Now, he’s a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.

On health care reform’s first birthday, Stupak told The Atlantic he often gets “bitch[ed] out” for by angry citizens in airports, how he and President Obama reached the deal that secured health care’s passage, and that Rahm Emanuel knows better than to get in his face.

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And I give [President Obama] credit. I’ve called him and told him, ‘Thank you.’ He’s upheld that executive order. When he signed it, he said this was an ironclad commitment–those were his words, ‘ironclad commitment,’ and I’ll give him credit. He’s done it. I say that maybe with a little bit of surprise in my voice, I always thought he would, but there was so much outrage from the Bishops and Right to Life that, ‘How could we trust this president, cause he’s the–’ I hate to use the word–but ‘the most pro-abortion president ever, and you can’t trust him.’ Well, I trusted him, and that trust was well founded.

- Bart Stupak

SOURCE

Bart Stupak, A Year After Health Care: Getting ‘Bitched Out’ in Airports, How the Deal Went Down, and More (The Atlantic)