Sixty-four “Democrats” — some of them admitting to needing their bishops’ approval to decide how to vote — tossed women, particularly poor women, under the bus Saturday night.

Yes, the House passed a health care reform bill. But in order to get the votes to make that happen, the House leadership caved to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Rep. Bart Stupid, making women — and again I emphasize particularly poor women — collateral damage in the war to make health care affordable.

Stupid’s amendment, approved by the bishops, makes it all but impossible for women to use public option insurance to pay for an abortion. They can, of course, pay for a rider that would include abortion, but it can’t come through any government program, like the public option or the health care exchanges.

Never mind that the public option doesn’t mean government funding. What it means is that the government will provide low cost insurance that people will pay for out of their own pockets. But that’s not good enough for Stupid and the bishops.

So, while women with some means will be able to buy coverage, I don’t see poor women, who would barely be able to afford the public option itself, if at all, having any money at all for that.

Way to go Dems. And what the fuck happened to the 190 members of the pro-choice caucus, who vowed to vote no on a bill that restricted funding for abortions?

Wimps.

I could say that this bill is better than nothing, because it is, but it is far from good enough. With Obama refusing to twist any arms, I’d look for this bill to get worse when and if it ever reaches a conference committee.

And here’s the real beauty of the vote: While 64 “Dems” voted for Bart Stupid’s amendment, 23 of those (and 16 more) voted against the bill as a whole –three more and the measure would have failed, and that’s only because a single Republican — Joe Cao, the guy who beat William Jefferson in Louisiana — vote in favor.

Assholes.

But I’m not really surprised. The denizens of Washington are completely out of touch with Americans. They don’t get it that a majority support abortion rights, support a robust public option. While we have a strong center left population in this country, it’s our government that insists on being center-right. And that’s just wrong.

But here’s the thing. Health care — all of it, including abortion, shouldn’t be a political issue, any more than the civil rights of any of the population. For all the right’s fearmongering that a Democratic health care bill would do things like create death panels and rationing of care, that’s exactly what we have now, and what the right wants to stick with.

Insurance companies, whose mission is to make money and not to pay for health care, already decide who gets the care and who does not. Their rationing is based on their bottom line, not on anything so logical as medical need.

But so far, not enough people understand that, although for the life of me I can’t understand why.

As for abortion, maybe if we focused on making that procedure less necessary, we’d all get what we want. Oh, I forgot. The right doesn’t want to do that either, at least not in any sensible way. An awful lot of them want to eliminate birth control, too — something some of them are starting to say out loud, although they’ve been saying it privately for decades.

And addressing the social issues that prevent women from saying no to sex and having that understood as a real no? Ha. That, my friends, would infringe on the rights of men to have what they want when they want it. Can’t have that, now can we?

64. That’s the number. “We got more than what we thought we’d get,” Stupid said about the compromise. Here are the jerks who agreed with him:

Altmire, Baca, Barrow, Berry, Bishop (GA), Boccieri, Boren, Bright, Cardoza, Carney, Chandler, Childers, Cooper, Costa, Costello, Cuellar, Dahlkemper, Davis (AL), Davis (TN), Donnelly (IN), Doyle, Driehaus, Ellsworth, Etheridge, Gordon (TN), Griffith, Hill, Holden, Kanjorski, Kaptur, Kildee, Langevin, Lipinski, Lynch, Marshall, Matheson, McIntyre, Melancon, Michaud, Mollohan, Murtha, Neal (MA), Oberstar, Obey, Ortiz, Perriello, Peterson, Pomeroy, Rahall, Reyes, Rodriguez, Ross, Ryan (OH), Salazar, Shuler, Skelton, Snyder, Space, Spratt, Stupak, Tanner, Taylor, Teague, Wilson (OH). And, of course, all the Republicans.

Those in bold also voted against the entire bill, along with Adler, Baird, Boucher, Boyd, Edwards, Herseth Sandin, Kissell, Kosmas, Kratovil, Kucinich, Markey, Massa, McMahon, Minnick, Murphy and Nye. They had a variety of reasons — bill was too progressive, not progressive enough, cost too much. And of course, all the Republicans except Cao, who voted against it because they like things the way they are.

There was one other interesting thing about the vote. Republicans wanted the vote because they were certain it would fail. Surprise, guys. Democrats are willing to kick women to the curb just as easily as you are.