Yesterday afternoon, House Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) proposed an amendment to the House health care overhaul bill to allow for federal funding of elective abortion coverage for those enrolled in the “public option,” to mandate that every regional Health Insurance Exchange contain at least one private insurance plan that offers abortion coverage, and to permit taxpayer subsidies of those private insurance plans and others that cover elective abortion.

The Capps amendment passed 30-28, with E&C Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA), Capps, and 28 other Democrats voting in favor of mandating (and allowing taxpayer funding to be used to subsidize) abortion coverage.

Taxpayer dollars do not currently pay for, or subsidize, insurance plans that cover elective abortion services. This amendment, if the health overhaul bill to which it is attached is passed and signed into law, would alter that policy, using the tax dollars of every American - pro-life or pro-choice - to subsidize abortion coverage (and, by extension, abortion services).

Late last night, Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) responded to the Capps amendment’s passage by proposing an amendment of his own. Pitts’s proposal would have prohibited the federal government from requiring any insurance plan — including the “public option” — to provide coverage for abortion (with the three chief exception of rape, incest, and life of the mother).

E&C passed the Pitts amendment by a 31-27 vote, with Waxman among the “Yea” votes. However, after the votes were in and the amendment passed, Waxman decided he wanted to change his vote, and so brought the amendment back up for “reconsideration” and a re-vote.

The second time around, Waxman voted against the amendment to prevent abortion coverage from being mandated in health insurance plans. He also convinced Blue Dog Democrat Bart Gordon (D-TN) to switch his vote from Yea to Nay, and pulled conflicted Blue Dog Zack Space (D-OH), who had managed to sit out the first round of voting, back into the debate. Space, who voted in favor of the Capps amendment earlier yesterday afternoon, succumbed to pressure from Waxman and cast his vote against the Pitts measure.

The result was a 30-29 defeat of the measure — a reversal of the initial outcome, and the Democratic preservation a health care overhaul bill that not only allows, but mandates, taxpayer-funded abortion coverage and services.

Last night, during yet another attempt to mark up the House health overhaul bill, Rep. Henry Waxman’s (D-CA) House Energy and Commerce Committee took up and voted down (33-25) an amendment by ranking member Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) to prevent the implementation of a little-known provision in the bill that would cause the highly-publicized surtax on high earners to double if the cost of the health overhaul is higher than expected.

The “surtax” (read: tax increase) “doubles in the year 2013 if there is a study by the Office of Management and Budget that determines certain savings have not occurred,” said Barton. “The effect of the Barton amendment would be that beginning 2013, only those citizens who make over $1 million would have their taxes increased by the surtax.”

The bill currently increases the taxes of those making $280,000 ($350,000 for couples) by 1 percentage point, those making $400,000 ($500,000 for couples) by 2 percentage points, and those making more than $800,000 ($1 million for couples) by three. The provision Barton’s amendment was designed to forestall was an automatic increase of these rates by two percentage points across the board if CBO determines in 2013 that the overhaul is costing more than lawmakers currently expect it to — something that is a near-absolute certainty.

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For whatever reason — perhaps it was Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick’s stubborn insistence on a fully-funded, competitive “public option” for her black constituents, whom she seems to think have no other option in life but to be on the public dole — Rep. Zack Space (D-OH) is rumored to have withdrawn his support from the ongoing negotiations over HR 3200, the Orwellianly-titled “Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009.”

One of four Blue Dog Democrats whose willingness to continue negotiating about the fine points of the thousand-page bill was the only thing keeping the possibility of a pre-recess vote on life support, a withdrawal by Space would effectively end E&C’s ability to continue marking up the health overhaul bill, at least for the present.

Even if he relented this evening and returned to the negotiating table, though, the compromise amendment stemming from the Blue Dog capitulation — which has not yet been written — would have to be completed by noon Friday if it is going to be considered by E&C during the markup period, which Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has said would end at 2:00pm.

Additionally, the four Blue Dogs whose compliance has allowed the bill to remain alive in the Energy and Commerce Committee had predicated their support on their inspection of a Congressional Budget Office scoring of the compromise bill they are helping to craft — and, reportedly, no such score has been forthcoming to date.

After Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA)’s exasperated halting of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s health overhaul bill markup — done because of problems in negotiations that Waxman insists are going “well” — Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) took to the House floor to make his one-minute address.

In a departure from the GOP theme of today’s minute speeches — “finding the jobs” — Blunt used his time to propose an amendment to the health overhaul bill that would force federal officials from the President to Congress to put their health care money where their mouths are, and to accept the Democrats’ proposed “public option” — or government-run insurance plan — as their sole source of health coverage.

Blunt said:

Mr. Speaker, if the Energy and Commerce Committee had continued to work today, I would have introduced an amendment to require all federal elected officials, including the President and Vice President, to set aside our health care benefits and enroll in their new idea of a government-run health care system. If the majority is really so confident that their plan will provide the very best health care for the people we represent, we ought to demonstrate that confidence by enrolling ourselves.

I, for one, don’t believe a government-run health care plan will be the best for the people we represent, but a government competitor will soon be all that is left.

A government competitor, Mr. Speaker, would be like an elephant in a room full of mice. The fast mice get out of the room as quick as they can, the slow mice get crushed, and only the elephant is left.

That’s a great proposal. Naturally, it won’t make it anywhere in this “One Set Of Rules For Me, Another For Thee” Congress, but the fact they keep shooting down such proposals should make clear to the American people just how little elected Democrats think of the “options” they present their constituents in such vital areas as health care.