Nancy-Ann DeParle, the White House health policy adviser, said on a conference call today that Harry Reid did a good job with the abortion services coverage language in the Senate health care bill. She said that it was “carefully worked through” to maintain a balance similar to the “status quo” of the Hyde Amendment, doing “nothing to restrict or expand current abortion law.”

This mirrors what House leadership and other choice advocates are saying about Reid’s language. Diana DeGette’s statement says that the Senate “maintained current law” with their language, ensuring “that no federal funds will be spent on abortion coverage while not further restricting a woman’s right to choose.”

While the legislation would provide a role for the Health and Human Services Secretary in making determinations on abortion services coverage, particularly with respect to the public option, talking points distributed on Capitol Hill are generally positive. Insurance companies could choose to cover or not cover abortion services, and consistent with the Hyde Amendment, for those plans in the exchange private and public funds would have to be segregated. Participants in the exchange would have access to at least one plan that provided abortion coverage and one that did not. States could even require coverage of abortion services in the public option if the HHS Secretary did not allow it, though the states would then have to assume costs. That’s similar to state proposals in Medicaid, and 18 states provide abortion coverage in those plans. There would also be provider conscience provisions.

UPDATE: Ben Nelson, the Democrat most likely to withhold his vote based on this issue, doesn’t seem thrilled with the Senate language. Note specifically how he says that the public option is the problem:

“We have looked at the language,” Nelson told The Hill. “That language is not language that I would prefer.”

“I think you need to have it eminently clear that no dollars that are federal tax dollars, directly or indirectly, are used to pay for abortions and it needs to be totally clear. [It’s] not clear enough, I don’t think,” Nelson said.

Nelson, who also opposes the creation of a government-run public option insurance plan, pointedly remarked that program is a significant reason for his rejection of Reid’s abortion provisions. “If there’s no public option, perhaps some of the problem goes away,” Nelson said.

I would follow up on this, but Ben Nelson doesn’t talk to bloggers.