Obama isn't at all committed to ensuring that abortion is available in the upcoming Universal Health Care program. In an interview on July 21, 2009, he told Katie Couric:

I'm pro-choice, but I think we also have the tradition in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded healthcare. My main focus is making sure that people have options of high-quality care at the lowest possible price.

The "tradition" he's talking about is the Hyde Amendment.  This 1976 bill made it illegal to use federal Medicaid funds (medical services for the poor) for abortions.  Several states followed suit.

If your insurance already covers these things you may be thinking, what's the big deal?  But in many states, it's actually against the law for insurance providers to pay for an abortion.  Guttmacher institute says:

5 states restrict insurance coverage of abortion in private insurance plans; 4 limit coverage to cases when the woman’s life is endangered; 1 limits coverage to life endangerment, rape and incest. Additional abortion coverage is permitted only through purchase of an additional rider and payment of an additional premium.

12 states restrict abortion coverage in insurance plans for public employees:

• 3 of the states provide abortion coverage only when the woman’s life is endangered.
• 7 of the states, in addition to offering coverage to save the woman’ life, provide coverage to protect the woman’s health or in cases of rape, incest or fetal abnormality.
• 2 of the states flatly prohibit any insurance coverage of abortion for public employees.

There may be hope in an amendment to the bill successfully passed by Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-MD,  This amendment is popularly known as the Women's Health Amendment, and would require insuring agencies, public or private, to treat existing community providers, such as Planned Parenthood, as in-network providers for health care for Americans earning less than 400% of the poverty level. 

The main intent of the bill is to allow low-income women to continue going to PP since that's very often their primary health care contact.  PP provides all kinds of services, not just abortion and birth control.  They do cancer screening, prenatal care and general health screening.

The crux of the matter is, they are required to cover as in-network, "any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate."  Would the services deemed medically necessary or appropriate include abortion and birth control?  I hope so.

But it is quite exasperating that Obama is bowing to the womb-controllers.  Expedient, maybe, but exasperating.

Hat tip to Jodi Jacobsen at RH Reality Check for some of this information.  Jodi says the amendment doesn't mandate federal funding for abortion, but I think it's quite possible it would.  Whatever way it's interpreted, it could end up in the Supreme Court.

Hat tip also to Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon for the discussion that turned in this direction.