Health care reform shorts: Forward movement?

Damn -- I took a day off yesterday to be outside and the House passed some kind of health care reform.

They appear to have had to sacrifice the lives of some poor adolescents to do it, but hey -- who cares about girls who let themselves get knocked up? The bill would ban private insurance companies from covering abortions sought by private customers who pay for that insurance themselves if the same companies also want to cover anyone for anything in the new insurance exchanges.

In light of the foregoing -- and recent elections in Maine and California -- I have to wonder whether cutting away the tax exemptions of churches that try to make their peculiar repressive prejudices a matter of law ought not to be a major progressive goal? (That's you -- Catholic bishops and Mormon elders). I say that as a member of a good "liberal" church that makes oh-so-correct liberal pronouncements public issues, but effectively wields no clout.

More later about sandhill cranes and trail maintenance ... my mini-vacation.