Obama Administration Approves First Direct Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Through New High-Risk Insurance Pools
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
By Susan Jones, Senior Editor
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden react to cheers as they arrive in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 23, 2010, for the signing ceremony for the health care bill. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)(CNSNews.com) - If you want proof that President Obama's Executive Order on taxpayer-funded abortion was a sham, look no further than Pennsylvania, says House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio).
Boehner and other Republicans point to reports that the Health and Human Services Department is giving Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state.
"The fact that the high-risk pool insurance program in Pennsylvania will use federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions is unconscionable," Boehner said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Just last month at the White House, I asked President Obama to provide the American people with a progress report on the implementation of his Executive Order, which purports to ban taxpayer-funding of abortions. Unfortunately, the President provided no information, and the American people are still waiting for answers."
President Obama pledged that under his health care plan “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”
In a May 13 letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Boehner asked if her department has provided guidance to the states on how to implement the president’s Executive Order on abortion funding. Boehner also asked Sebelius if the new federal high-risk pools would exclude abortion coverage.
He says his questions remain unanswered.
"Millions of Americans care deeply about this aspect of the new law and its implementation, and no progress report is complete without detailed information about it,” Boehner wrote to Sebelius.
The conservative Family Research Council says the $160 million in taxpayer funds for Pennsylvania is the first known instance of direct federal funding of abortions through the new high-risk insurance pools.
The abortion funding for pool participants validates the arguments pro-life groups made throughout the health care debate – that taxpayer dollars will fund abortions, said Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the Family Research Council’s political action arm.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/69384
Obamacare Covers Abortion in Pennsylvania — and in New Mexico, Too [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Yesterday, we visited the Pennsylvania high-risk health-care insurance program and its abortion funding.
In New Mexico, the new $37 million high-risk pool began enrolling individuals on July 1. They will start receiving benefits in August, including elective-abortion services, according to the state insurance department's website. Once a deductible is paid, 80 percent of the elective abortion is covered.
Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee tells me: "HHS has been hiding most of these high-risk plans, including the plan that HHS will administer directly in 21 states. Of the four state plans we've managed to ferret out, two provided coverage of all essentially all abortions — Pennsylvania and New Mexico. This is part of a pattern, under this administration, of making 'soft' rhetorical statements on abortion policy, but consistently promoting and expanding abortion through low-visibility administrative decisions. The administration's heavy funding of groups pushing a proposed new pro-abortion constitution in Kenya is another example."
(The Kenya campaign can be read about here and here.)
http://article.nationalreview.com/43789 … jean-lopez
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? … ZiNjEwNjU=
In a statement to The Corner, House minority leader John Boehner, who has continued to press the administration on the continuing story of Obamacare's abortion lies, says: "In just the past 24 hours, we've learned of two states in which the new federal high-risk insurance programs created under Obamacare and approved by the Obama administration will use federal funds to pay for abortion, despite promises by the White House and Democratic leaders that no such funding would occur under Obamacare. These developments provide stark confirmation that President Obama's executive order last spring was little more than a political ploy to ensure passage of Obamacare by circumventing the will of the American people, who are clearly opposed to taxpayer-funded abortion."
Boehner adds: "President Obama and Secretary Sebelius owe the American people an immediate explanation, as do Speaker Pelosi and the leaders of organizations such as the Catholic Health Association and NETWORK, who claimed the law and executive order would not allow federal funding of abortion, despite warnings by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others to the contrary."
The Obama administration lied, and members of Congress who claim to be pro-life went along with the sham. There should, indeed, be electoral consequences
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/? … U1YjJmZjk=
What-ever Ron... Obama-Care covers abortion. Obama is a LIAR.
