Health care reform as a barrier to abortions?

I posted about this possibility before, but now pro-abortion folks are getting nervous about health care reform. The Atlantic blog reports that the laws against taxpayer money going for abortion may well mean that if health care reform gets passed, insurance companies would have to stop covering abortions:

Some of the supporters of health care reform have rediscovered worries about crowding out.  That’s because it now looks as if the bill may not allow Federal subsidies to be used to buy insurance that covers abortions.  Suddenly, a big chunk of the left sounds like a bunch of Republicans, warning about what happens to insurance markets when the government gets involved:

Abortion opponents in both the House and the Senate are seeking to block the millions of middle- and lower-income people who might receive federal insurance subsidies to help them buy health coverage from using the money on plans that cover abortion. And the abortion opponents are getting enough support from moderate Democrats that both sides say the outcome is too close to call. Opponents of abortion cite as precedent a 30-year-old ban on the use of taxpayer money to pay for elective abortions.

Abortion-rights supporters say such a restriction would all but eliminate from the marketplace private plans that cover the procedure, pushing women who have such coverage to give it up. Nearly half of those with employer-sponsored health plans now have policies that cover abortion, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The question looms as a test of President Obama’s campaign pledge to support abortion rights but seek middle ground with those who do not. Mr. Obama has promised for months that the health care overhaul would not provide federal money to pay for elective abortions, but White House officials have declined to spell out what he means.

Wouldn’t that be a good outcome?

UPDATE: Senators are fighting strengthening the anti-abortion provisions, but, as I understand it, so far the ban against federal funding would stand. See also this.