I spent a very busy day in Washington DC, speaking–and learning. I found out the scoop about abortion funding under Obamacare. The POTUS and the Democrats have not told us the truth: Federal money would pay for abortions as things now stand.
First, the Capps Amendment to the House bill explicitly authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to decide whether the public option funds abortion. At least in this administration, we know that the decision will be yes.
Second, premiums paid into the public fund, if it covered abortion, would include a surcharge added to every policy premium to pay for the cost of abortion coverage payouts under the public plan.
Third–and this is totally disingenuous on the part of the Administration–the Hyde Amendment would not prohibit the use of federal money for use in abortion. Why? The Hyde Amendment, which administrative defenders claim would prohibit federal funding, would do no such thing.
Here’s why: Hyde is renewed yearly, only applies to HHS appropriations bills, which is why Medicaid does not fund abortion. But money to pay physicians, hospitals, etc. for services redered to people insured by the public fund would be obtained outside HHS appropriations bills. Hence, Hyde is irrelevant in this regard. Thus, the claim of abortion supporters the federal funding would be prevented by Hyde–which Obama opposes in any event–is nothing but a game of hide the ball.
Fourth, payments from the public plan to doctors and hospitals would be public funds obtained from premiums paid by those covered. Once those premiums were paid, they would become public money. It would not be private money as some have said to wiggle out of the fact that these funds would pay for abortion if the HHS Secretary covered the procedure. Remember premiums paid to the government for Medicare become public funds once paid. The same would be true under the public option. Indeed, the checks paid for the abortions would be government checks.
Hence, it is a lie to claim that federal money won’t pay for abortion. That is why deniers say they taxpayer money won’t pay–because the money paying for abortion would come from a different pot, e.g., the premiums paid by the public insurance plan members, which is not tax money or money appropriated in the HHS bill.
Such disrespect for democracy by the administration and the Democratic leadership! Here’s the statement by Fact Check.org:
The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new “public” insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that “reproductive services” would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the “public plan” would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions “fabrications.”
President Obama says he wants fewer abortions. Obamacare would lead to more because they would be federally funded. Rather than have the bill do the dirty work, he would have the Secretary in the regulatory process pull the abortion coverage trigger. Different approach, same result.
September 11th, 2009 | 1:04 am
[...] Obamacare: Federal Money Would Fund Abortion » Secondhand Smoke … [...]
September 11th, 2009 | 1:24 am
Here’s a valuable resource, full of excerpts from H.R. 3200, that will hopefully put to rest Obama’s claims that the right is “lying” about the bill:
http://corporate.lexisnexis.com/news/corporate-counsel,compliance/cat200001_doc1029241403.html
September 11th, 2009 | 2:19 am
found the text of the Capps Amendment if it is necessary to show … Text emphasized for readability.
(3) Coverage under the public health insurance option – The public health insurance option shall provide coverage for services described in paragraph (4)(B). Nothing in this Act shall be construed as preventing the public heath insurance option from providing for or prohibiting coverage of services described in paragraph (4)(A).
(4) Abortion services -
(A) Abortions for which public funding is prohibited – The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is not permitted, based on the law as in effect as of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved.
(B) Abortions for which public funding is allowed – The services described in this subparagraph are abortions for which the expenditure of Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services is permitted, based on the law as in effect as of the date that is 6 months before the beginning of the plan year involved.
September 11th, 2009 | 5:38 am
[...] Go here to read the rest: Obamacare: Federal Money Would Fund Abortion » Secondhand Smoke … [...]
September 11th, 2009 | 9:34 am
And as has been pointed out many times before without response, most private insurers cover abortions as well. What’s your point?
September 11th, 2009 | 10:28 am
The point is, there’s NO point. The majority of Americans support abortion at least under SOME circumstances, so there’s no reason to differentiate between abortion and any other legal medical procedure. Haven’t you learned by now that under the guise of “ethics” Wesley is simply a shill for the extreme right wing?
September 11th, 2009 | 11:19 am
The point is that Obama and company are lying about the bill. If abortion is to be funded, be honest about it, not try to hide it. To do otherwise is to disrespect democracy.
September 11th, 2009 | 12:12 pm
God bless you, Wesley. I have a post at my website sounding the alarm on this too…many people (some functionaries at the USCCB among them) seem to be deceived by Obama’s phraseology into thinking that abortion will not be covered by the public plan being discussed.
I’m glad someone with some clout has taken up the cause.
September 11th, 2009 | 1:14 pm
Just out of curiosity, HistoryWriter: how much is the DNC paying you to carry its water?
September 11th, 2009 | 2:08 pm
“The point is that Obama and company are lying about the bill. ”
Oh bull, Wes, you’re an anti-abortion activist. The point is whether abortions are funded or not, and you would prefer not. (And I don’t see you picketing the health insurance companies that finance abortions for the privileged class. )
And my point is that abortions, death panels, rationing, bureaucracy, and all the other ills you claim will be caused by the revised health care system are ALREADY HERE in the current system, along with outright denial of coverage to 46 million American citizens. Yet you resist any change in our existing system. Well, any change from Obama, anyway.
September 11th, 2009 | 2:18 pm
I think the debate is getting mired in the wrong terminology. Obama is right that no federal funds will be used for abortion in the public option (and it does our side no good to insist that they will when the bill expressly says they won’t). BUT the bill WILL require those private parties paying for the public plan insurance to pay for coverage for abortion. The bill forces individuals and employers to buy that coverage, and that’s wrong — both because of the compulsion against conscience and the increase in abortions that such expanded coverage will cause. If Obama is going to impose a mandate that everyone buy health insurance, he shouldn’t force people to buy abortion insurance. That’s the way we should be making our pro-life case.
September 11th, 2009 | 8:18 pm
Obama has been lying about abortion since the campaign. He lied about his record. Now he is lying about what’s in the bill. Even the AP couldn’t tolerate it and reversed their own story saying abortion wasn’t in the bill.
Padraig, there has been plenty of response that most insurance providers do not cover abortions. You aren’t looking in the right place. Kathleen Sebellius said this during her confirmation hearings.
“Most private plans do not cover
abortion services except in limited instances, but do cover family planning, and Congress has
limited the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan to covering abortion services only in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger.”
Further, even when they do, or if most did, the employer most often does not cover it. Federal employees have access to hundreds of health care plans, but if they want abortion coverage, they pay for it themselves.
The point is that if you force private carriers to cover abortion, it will help lead, along with federal funding of abortion, to the most massive increase in abortions since Roe.
HW, you have the Planned Parenthood NARAL talking points down. I pray to God that you don’t receive ten cents for teaching anyone. Your point that most support abortion for some instances-which are usually rape, incest (less than one-half percent of abortions) and the life of the mother (less than 4 percent) does not argue that Americans support abortion on demand, or that we should have federal funding for all abortions, or forcing anyone to cover it. Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose 95 percent of all abortions.
There are good reasons to differentiate between abortion and other procedures. Chief among them is that other procedures are not intended to kill another human being like the unborn, who is killed by methods-dismemberment, poisoning and etc, that we would not permit on Osama Bin Laden. People may tolerate abortion, but they are right to see that it is different and they have good reasons not to fund it.
September 12th, 2009 | 1:26 am
Anonymous: Since when does the Dept. of HHS issue checks with private funds? If the HHS Secretary decides that abortion is to be covered in the public plan, all members of that plan will pay premiums with that estimated cost added in, along with estimated other costs associated with insurance. Once the money is received, it belongs to the government. Once the premiums are paid, it is not private money.
Then, when a doctor performs an elective abortion, the government will cut him or her a check to pay for the procedure. The check will be from HHS. Hence it is government funded. There is no other way to look at it. Just as when a Medicare recipient pays premiums to the government and receives medical care, the government is funding the medical care so received.
And that doesn’t get into the subsidized premiums issue with regard to private plans (for as long as they last) which is too complicated to blog about, frankly.
September 12th, 2009 | 2:45 am
[...] Read the original: Obamacare: Federal Money Would Fund Abortion » Secondhand Smoke … [...]
September 12th, 2009 | 7:29 pm
No, the government won’t be paying for abortions. On the contrary, government will be COLLECTING MONEY FROM the abortions.
You see, paying for abortions prevents the government from having to pay for childbirths. The childbirths would be much more expensive. So the abortions will be saving more than they cost.
This money saved can be returned in the form of a tax-cut, or a deficit-cut, or government spending on public goods–libraries, research grants, road-repairs, fighting terror, stopping loose nukes, or whatever.
The question is, how much EXTRA are you willing to pay the tax-man to cover the EXTRA costs of right-to-lifist policy? A thousand bucks a year? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand?
September 12th, 2009 | 7:38 pm
Lemme guess: you’re gonna start yammering about the costs of underpopulation and sub-replacement reproduction and how there’s not enough young people in Europe to support the older folks.
Well, that’s a long-term question. Abortions save money NOW (or a few months from now). The new babies won’t be productive until twenty years from now.
If you want to spend money now on something that you hope will pay off twenty years hence, I can think of better investments than forcing indigent women to grow unwelcome pregnancies and bear babies they don’t want.
September 12th, 2009 | 11:12 pm
Sweet fancy Moses, Counterstrike, did you just encourage increased public funding for abortions as a COST SAVING MEASURE? Are you for real? You are aware that the supporters of a public-sector health plan are denying like crazy that it will be used to kill the inconvenient to save money, right? That people are afraid that Uncle Sam will decide that their chemo is too expensive and that putting them down is cheaper?
Aside from the sheer wickedness of your position, do you see how harmful it is to your cause? If ANY prominent advocate of public-sector health care said what you did, the whole proposal would be as dead as disco.
September 15th, 2009 | 12:04 pm
[...] will and honesty that I’d have liked to presume that this Administration had is gone. Go here for more details about this [...]
September 29th, 2009 | 10:34 am
[...] Whenever we have discussed national health care here, I warned that proponents would try to take things too far at too great a cost, and that their desire to cover abortion could kill the bill. That very scenario is playing out. Amendments in the House Committees to explicitly bar abortion funding from the government plan were repeatedly defeated–as politicians promised abortion wasn’t in the bill. Then, an amendment passed that permits the Secretary of HHS to cover abortion, blowing up that myth. And, to make sure that government funding could be added in the regulations, health care was put in a different government account than the usual HHS appropriation–meaning the Hyde Amendment would not be relevant since it only applies to HHS appropriated funds. Tricky and disrespectful of democracy. (More on that particular political ploy here.) [...]
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