Will Viagra be covered under the public option?

NPR's Julie Rovner today reports that the healthcare reform legislation is encountering difficulties from that perennial third rail of healthcare policy: abortion. The vocal anti-choicers believe that no tax dollars should go to funding elective abortions, and have vowed not to sign any legislation that includes such funding. They state that current government-funded and subsidized plans (e.g., the one that members of Congress get) pay only for an abortion to "save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape and incest".

The monkey wrench is that most private plans do not have restrictions on reproductive health coverage and include abortion. So, the legislative restriction proposed by the anti-choicers would take away coverage that exists today. They are of course worried that, given unlimited access to elective abortions, an unprecedented tsunami of abortion-seeking women will beat down the doors of hospitals and healthcare systems, waving their burning bras and demanding this highly desirable and popular procedure! Or is this just a tactic to derail any meaningful discussion of healthcare reform? Hmm, I am suspicious.

Has anyone heard whether coverage for Viagra is to be curtailed as well?

And here are the 19 House Democrats that have signed on to this wedge (courtesy of Tim Bernhard):

Dan Boran (D-Okla.), Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Colin Peterson (D-Minn..), Tim Holden (D-Pa.), Travis Childers (D-Miss.), Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Solomon Ortiz (D-TX), Mike Mclntyre (D-N.C.), Jerry Costello (D-Ill.), Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), James Oberstar (D-Minn.), Bobby Bright (D-Ala.), Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), Charlie Melancon (D-La.), John Murtha (D-Pa.), Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.), and Kathleen Dahlkemper (D-Pa.).