From the very beginning we have been telling you that ObamaCare not only greatly expands access to but provides taxpayer funding for abortion. Here are the facts.
Expanded access to abortion through ObamaCare
ObamaCare requires every American to purchase health insurance, it requires every state to establish health insurance exchanges, and it dramatically expands Medicaid. Each of these – private health insurances programs, exchanges, and Medicaid – can, and in some case are required to, provide coverage for abortion. The result is hundreds of millions of dollars being funneled to the abortion industry every year and the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
In fact, the law specifically provides that state health exchanges may cover abortions unless the state enacts specific legislation prohibiting abortion coverage. Moreover, the law’s requirement that insurance providers cover “preventive services” and preventative care are so broadly defined that they could be used to force coverage of abortions and abortion related drugs. Thus, all Americans are forced to purchase health insurance that could cover abortion and in some cases is required to cover abortion.
This pro-abortion law also opens the door to Planned Parenthood-run clinics in public middle schools and high schools, and specifically provides federal tax dollars to establish these clinics. ObamaCare provides grants for establishing “School-based Health Centers,” which could be run by abortion organizations like Planned Parenthood. While the law prevents these clinics from being used to “provide” abortions, it encourages groups like Planned Parenthood to make abortion referrals. The law’s stated purpose for these clinics is to provide “counseling” and “referrals,” which could include abortions and abortion related services.
Expanded taxpayer funding for abortions through ObamaCare
First of all, there is no language in ObamaCare that prevents tax dollars from being used to pay for abortions. The proposed amendment to ObamaCare that would have prevented all taxpayer funding for abortions that was debated in Congress, known as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, was not included in the final bill signed by President Obama.
In fact, President Obama and the Democrats in Congress worked considerably to keep the Stupak-Pitts Amendment from being included in the final bill. To be clear, they would have rather had a no health care law than allow ObamaCare to be passed with language preventing taxpayer funding of abortion. The Stupak-Pitts Amendment simply said: “No funds authorized or appropriated by [ObamaCare] may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion ….”
Second, the Hyde Amendment – the yearly amendment to appropriations bills that prevents federal taxpayer dollars from funding abortions – does not apply to ObamaCare.
Third, as we have previously explained in detail, the Executive Order signed by President Obama, which he claimed would “ensure that Federal funds are not used for abortion services,” did not prevent taxpayer funds from being used for abortions – and then Solicitor General Elena Kagan and the White House knew it. This Executive Order does not stop ObamaCare from funding abortion because an executive order cannot trump a congressionally enacted statute.
As our legal analysis of a the bill that would become ObamaCare concluded, there is nothing to “prohibit federal dollars from funding plans that include abortion services.” In fact, the law has a section describing “ABORTIONS FOR WHICH PUBLIC FUNDING IS ALLOWED.”
By forcing states to create and run health exchanges and by forcing them to expand their Medicaid rolls which can, and in some case must, include abortion funding, more tax-payer dollars will go to fund abortions. [related]
One example: the Department of Health and Human Services has already used powers granted under ObamaCare to force insurance companies and employers to fully cover an abortion drug.
ObamaCare also provides tax credits and incentives to businesses, insurance companies, and individuals without effectively limiting their being to applied to abortion. Prior to ObamaCare the tax code allowed people to deduct the amount they pay for an abortion from their taxes. Now, under ObamaCare, individuals can not only deduct what they pay for an abortion, they may be able to receive a tax credit to buy insurance policies that cover abortions. The section of the law that purportedly excludes federal dollars from being used to subsidize abortion coverage merely “sets up accounting gimmicks to, supposedly, segregate federal funds from funds being used to pay for abortion services.”
The bottom line is because the law fails to contain any provision actually preventing federal funds from being used to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions, ObamaCare greatly increases taxpayer funding for abortions. And because every American is required to purchase health insurance that in many cases covers, or is even required to cover, abortions, the abortion industry stands to receive windfall profits from ObamaCare.
Regardless of what some in the media, representatives of the abortion industry, or legislators that support abortion say, ObamaCare does provide taxpayer funding for abortion and greatly expands access to abortion. We must stop this pro-abortion law once and for all at the Supreme Court.
LifeNews Note: Matthew Clark writes for the American Center for Law and Justice.
