On Monday February 22, 2010, following the release of President Obama’s new health care reform proposal, Nancy Ann Deparle, Director of the White House Office of Health Care Reform,   made the following statement on a conference call about how the Obama proposal addresses abortion: 

The starting point is the Senate bill with the Nelson language.  It’s not a perfect proposal, but it was crafted in a bipartisan manner.  It’s different from the House, but our effort was to not change the status quo on abortion.  I know it’s not ideal, but that’s the starting point we’re working from.

Her statement that the Senate abortion language was “crafted in a bipartisan manner” is inexplicable.   In fact, the Senate abortion language was crafted behind closed doors without a Republican in the room, which was evidenced by the fact that no Republican Senators voted in favor of it (as part of the manager’s amendment to the bill).  Instead of modeling the Senate abortion language after the House abortion language (the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, with its bipartisan nature demonstrated by the political diversity of its cosponsors as well as the 64 Democratic members who voted for it), Majority Leader Reid decided to model the language after the pro-abortion Capps Amendment that was included in an early version of the House bill and in the Senate Finance Committee Bill.  Reid was able to tighten the language just enough to win over Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska, who was holding the key 60^th vote. 

However, no rewording can hide what the Senate language does.  The genesis of the language aside, Ms. Deparle grossly misrepresents how it compares to existing law or the “status quo on abortion.” 

The most well known embodiment of the “status quo on abortion” is the Hyde Amendment, a funding limitation added annually to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Bill.  However, there are numerous other laws that adopt the same principles in the Hyde Amendment – that no federal funds may be used to pay for abortions (except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother) or to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions. 

The Senate bill does not adopt the comprehensive approach to prohibiting federal funding of abortion found in the Hyde Amendment (and the House health care reform bill).  Instead, the Senate bill:

• Only prohibits the use of certain funds to pay for abortions, leaving open the possibility that other authorized funds – such as the 11 billion dollars provided for Community Health Centers –  will be used to pay for abortions.  Furthermore, even the paltry limitation in the bill is not built on solid ground – it is tied to the existence of the Hyde Amendment which is subject to elimination every year.  So, if the Hyde amendment is ever removed from LHHS appropriations, the limited prohibition on federal funding for abortion in the Senate health care reform bill will disappear as well.  Pro-abortion lawmakers are committed to getting rid of the Hyde Amendment, and it is perhaps not cynical to see this as the first step in a two-step plan to do that. 

• Allows federal dollars to directly subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions. Again, this contravenes existing law.  The most well-known example of the prohibition on the use of federal dollars to subsidize insurance plans that cover abortions is the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP).

The Senate bill also fails to maintain the “status quo” on abortion in other ways.  The bill creates new broad mandate authorities for federal agencies and officials that could allow them to require private insurance companies to provide abortion coverage.  For example, under the Mikulski Amendment to the Senate bill, an administrative agency may determine that abortion is “preventive care” and then require all insurance companies to cover abortion.  If that happens, all Americans will be forced to pay for abortions through their insurance premiums, even in violation of their conscience. 

Speaking of conscience, while the Hyde-Weldon conscience amendment (added annually to LHHS appropriations) prohibits government entities from discriminating against health care entities that refuse to participate in abortions, the Senate bill only prohibits discrimination against health care entities by insurance plans participating in the new government exchanges.

Clearly, the Obama Administration is not trying to maintain the “status quo” on abortion with health care reform.  Health care reform is another weapon in the Administration’s arsenal to mainstream abortion in the United States.

For a detailed comparison of the Hyde Amendment, the House bill, and the Senate bill, including citations, please click here.

On Monday morning, February 22, 2010, President Obama unveiled a “new” health care reform proposal, purporting to combine ideas from the Senate-passed bill, the House-passed bill, and Republican proposals.  However, a careful examination of the White House proposal (which lacks actual legislative language) and statements made by members of the Obama Administration during a health care conference call on Monday reveal the truth – the “new” proposal is simply a modified version of the anti-life bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve. 

Unfortunately, while the White House was crafting modifications to the Senate bill, they failed to remove the anti-life language.  Therefore, all of AUL’s concerns about the bill’s abortion-related provisions, conscience provision, and end-of-life provisions remain.  Further, the White House proposal dramatically increases funding – by 11 billion dollars – for “community health centers” which will include Planned Parenthood abortion centers.  Because the proposal lacks a blanket prohibition on the use of federal funds for abortions, these new funds could be used to directly pay for abortions.

For detailed analyses of the anti-life provisions in the Senate health care reform bill, please see the following posts:

Legal Analysis of Life Concerns in President’s Proposal (Same as the Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Abortion Tax and other Problems in President’s Proposal (Same as the Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Abortion Funding Chart (In President’s Proposal and Senate Health Care Reform Bill)

Comparison Chart of Hyde Amendment, Senate Bill/President’s Proposal, and House Bill

Also, please see the letter which AUL’s sister organization, AUL Action, sent to President Obama on July 21, 2009.

And maybe closer than you think

In a stunning reversal of fortunes, Senator Ben Nelson’s popularity is in a nosedive at home in Nebraska after he threw away his pro-life credentials for a few Medicaid dollars.

After standing firm for weeks insisting that there be no expansion of abortion through the government health care bill, Nelson abandoned that pledge once he secured millions in payments to Nebraska’s Medicaid program.  In response to the deal’s details becoming public, Senator Coburn stated in a press release that voters “will hold accountable anyone who defends sacrificing the unborn on the altar of political expediency.”

Well, Senator Coburn looks like a prophet in Nebraska.  According to a December 28 Rassmussen poll, if the election were held today between Democratic Senator Nelson and Republican Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman, Nelson would lose by a shocking 31 points.  By contrast, Nelson won his last election in 2006 with 64% of the vote.

And health care reform is the overriding reason for Nelson’s stark decline.  65% of Nebraskans say they oppose any health care reform that provides coverage for abortion while only 6% support mandated abortion coverage.  What would happen if he switched his vote?  Rasmussen asked and found that 20% of those voters backing Heineman would immediately come his way.

And if that wasn’t enough, Nelson’s special deal for free Medicaid money has only 17% support back home.  So much for buying votes.

While some are predicting health care passage later this month, these poll numbers offer a sobering reality check to which both Senators and Representatives should pay close heed.

Statement of Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life

“60 U.S. Senators just made history by voting to move forward with a bill that imposes a first-ever mandatory abortion tax on the American people. Majority Leader Reid held this vote in the middle of the night because he knows that the vast majority of Americans don’t want this new tax and don’t want tax dollars bankrolling insurance plans that cover abortion. A ‘yes’ vote is a solid ‘yes’ to the expansion of federal funding for abortion. We will be making this tragic decision clear to those constituents who have been misinformed that their Senator is pro-life.”

- Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of AUL Action

For more on the abortion tax and the bill itself, click here: http://blog.aul.org/

For more information or to schedule an interview please email press@aul.org

Over the past week, the Obama Administration has made two key decisions on bioethics — both of which promote unethical and anti-life policies.

First, on November 24, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13521, establishing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. The new Commission, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will “advise the President on bioethical issues that may emerge as a consequence of advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. The Commission shall pursue its work with the goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, healthcare delivery, and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner.” By deliberate design, the Commission will be heavily involved in determining the Administration’s policies regarding human cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and already-proven and ethical forms of research such as the use of adult stem cells.

However, it is important to view the Order and the purported goals of this Commission in light of the fact that, in June 2009, President Obama dissolved the President’s Council on Bioethics established by President George W. Bush in 2001. As Dr. David Prentice of the Family Research Council has noted, the Council’s charter was not scheduled to end until September 2009 and, at the time there was concern that “it was booted early to clear the deck for a new bioethics group aligned with the [P]resident. But no new bioethics council was formed to fill the void. Seems likely the old bioethics council was just giving contrary signals to the President (10 of the 18 members criticized the President after his March 9 speech where he opened the possibility of using more human embryos for research, including creating cloned human embryos for experiments.) Given that the [National Institutes of Health] was preparing to promulgate new guidelines for using human embryos, including the steps to take for their destruction to allow federal taxpayer funding of their harvested cells, the ‘President’s’ bioethics council presented an official unwelcome burr under the saddle.”

The complete membership of the Commission has yet to be disclosed, but the Executive Order provides that “at least one and not more than three [of the Commission members] … may be bioethicists or scientists drawn from the executive branch, as designated by the President.” So, President Obama is in a position to appoint like-minded individuals to the Commission — individuals, who like the President, support life-destroying and unethical research while blithely ignoring the substantial promise of ethical forms of research including adult stem-cell research which has already yielded treatments and therapies for more than 70 diseases and conditions.

And just today, the Administration explicitly authorized the use of taxpayer dollars for destructive embryo research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has approved up to $21 million for research on 13 embryonic stem-cell lines — lines created through the destruction of days-old human embryos. Notably, in March 2009, President Obama rescinded President Bush’s August 2001 Executive Order limiting federal funding to research on then-existing embryonic stem-cell lines and prohibiting federal funding of the production of or research on newly-created embryonic stem-cell lines.

In making today’s announcement, NIH’s Frances Collins noted that “[w]hat we are announcing today is just the beginning.” According to LifeNews.com, “NIH is also reviewing hundreds of other embryonic stem cell lines for federal funding under the guidelines the agency issued to implement Obama’s order.”

The politically-driven audacity of these moves cannot be underestimated. Why are American taxpayers being forced to fund research that many consider immoral? Moreover, why are we investing in this immoral research when ethical forms of research are yielding real treatments for real patients while destructive embryo research has never yielded a single positive outcome? The answer would appear to be: “It’s politics, stupid.”

by Denise M. Burke
Vice President of Legal Affairs
 
As debate rages over healthcare legislation currently under consideration in Congress and, specifically, whether abortion should be taxpayer-funded under the guise of “healthcare reform,” it would be easy to overlook an important and very inauspicious milestone:  the 20th anniversary of the federal “Freedom of Choice” Act (FOCA).

A Brief History of FOCA
Twenty years ago, in November 1989, FOCA was first introduced in Congress by Senator Alan Cranston and Representative Don Edwards, both California Democrats.  This radical new legislation seemed, in part, to be a response to the February 1989 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services where the Court upheld a Missouri law that restricted the use of state facilities and personnel for the performance of abortions and required viability testing in pregnancies of 20 weeks or more.

http://www.aul.org/FOCA_20_yr_anniv

If Congressional leaders have their way, sweeping health care reform legislation will force American taxpayers to fund abortion-on-demand. A few days ago I had a chance to explain this to the country in an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled: “Tax Dollars Shouldn’t Fund Abortion”:

Democratic leaders claim that all they want is to maintain the “status quo” on abortion. In reality, maintaining what we have now isn’t even on the table. To do that, a health-care bill would have to explicitly prevent federal dollars from being used for elective abortions. Provisions that would have done that were killed by all five committees that have handled health-care reform bills this year. Instead, the abortion compromise in the works is a provision modeled on an amendment Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.) added to the House bill.

The Capps Amendment is a radical departure from the status quo. As it stands now, the federal government does not pay into health-care plans that cover elective abortions. What’s more, no government health plans cover elective abortion, period. That includes Medicaid, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and other programs.

At Americans United for Life we are working tirelessly to alert the American people to the truth: that the health care reform proposals being pushed by Congressional leaders would mandate taxpayer funding or abortion.

But time is running out. The White House is pressuring Congress to rush through a health care bill that currently would force all American taxpayers to subsidize abortion on demand.

Your contribution NOW will help us continue this critical fight during the final weeks of the health care debate. The need could not be more urgent.

Updated October 12, 2009

The U.S. House of Representatives

The three committees of jurisdiction marked up and reported out versions of the House health care reform bill, H.R. 3200.  The House Democratic leadership is currently reconciling the different versions of the bill behind closed doors. In some cases, they will also need to reconcile different versions of amendments from the same committee.   For instance, the Energy and Commerce Committee adopted two different conscience clause amendments: a clear and comprehensive amendment from Rep. Stupak [D-MI], and an insufficient amendment from Rep. Capps [D-CA].

After this process is finished, but before the Republicans in the House will likely have much time to review the finalized language, the Rules Committee will determine the rules under which H.R. 3200 may be considered by the full House.  Rules generally govern the number of amendments which can be offered, how much debate will be allowed on the bill, and what procedures will govern the voting process. 

After the Rules Committee completes its work, the bill will move to the full House for consideration.[1]  The House Democratic Leadership has said that this could happen in mid-October.  At that point, members of the House may offer amendments to the bill to be voted on by the whole House.  However, it is possible that the Rules Committee, at the behest of the Democratic leadership, may prohibit pro-life amendments from receiving a vote.  Congressmen Stupak and Joe Pitts (R-PA) sent a letter on behalf of 183 members of Congress to Speaker Pelosi urging her to allow floor consideration of an amendment that would exclude abortion funding and coverage.

When and if the bill passes the full House, and if a bill passes the Senate, the House leadership will choose conferees.  These are House members who will represent the House in a conference with the Senate during which the two bodies try to reconcile the versions of the bills that each body has passed.

Two Senate Bills — Normal Process

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee bill was marked up and reported out of Committee before the August recess.  The Senate Finance Committee is expected to report out its bill on Tuesday, October 13^th.  Staff members for both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee are already working to reconcile their bills. Ultimately, however, Majority Leader Harry Reid and other members of the Democratic Party will determine the content of the final Senate Bill.

Once there is a unified Senate health care reform bill, the full Senate will consider the bill on the Senate floor, likely in mid-October.  At that point, all Senators, including those who may have already offered unsuccessful amendments in Committee, may offer amendments to the bill to be voted on by the whole Senate.  Eventually, Senate Majority Leader Reid or another senator will offer a cloture motion to limit debate and the number of amendments.  If that motion receives 60 votes, an exact date will be set for the final vote on the bill. 

When and if the bill passes the full Senate, and if a bill passes the House, the Senate leadership will choose conferees.  These are senators who will represent the Senate in a conference with the House during which the two bodies try to reconcile the differing versions of the bills that each body has passed.

Two Senate Bills — Alternative Process

In the event that the Senate Democratic leadership does not believe that they have 60 votes to invoke cloture, or if they fear that the amendment process may significantly alter the bill, they may decide to use an alternative process available in the Senate for floor consideration.  This process is called “reconciliation.”  Reconciliation is a fast-track procedure reserved for bills relating to taxes, spending, and debt.

This is how the reconciliation would likely work in this case:

·         The Senate Budget Committee would essentially staple the two bills (HELP and Finance) together without considering how the provisions complement or conflict with each other.

·         The Senate Democratic leadership would then offer a “substitute amendment” on the Floor that includes everything they want from the two bills, and removes everything else.

·         Under Reconciliation rules, only 51 votes are needed to add amendments (including the substitute amendment) and for final passage (unlike the normal process that requires 60 votes to get cloture and prevent a filibuster).

·         Amendments are subject to strict rules.  All amendments must be “germane” (on topic) and are subject to the “Byrd Rule” (explained below).  The Senate Parliamentarian decides whether amendments meet these two tests.

·         Debate is severely limited, ensuring a final vote.

Under the “Byrd Rule,” any Senator can raise a Budget Point of Order challenging a provision of the bill.  Once the provision is challenged, it must pass six tests.  Failing any one of the tests will result in the provision’s removal from the bill.  A provision would fail this point of order if it is considered extraneous; that is, if it has no effect on spending or revenues, it is not a “necessary term or condition” of another provision that does affect spending or revenues, or if its small budget effect is “merely incidental” to its larger non-budgetary purpose.

Even if a provision is likely to violate one of these tests, a supporter of the provision can ask that the Byrd Rule be waived before the parliamentarian rules on the point of order.  60 votes are needed to waive the point of order. 

The Byrd Rule is significant because it could lead to the removal of several key provisions in the health care bill.  For instance, the exchanges / gateways would likely be considered extraneous.  This could make this procedure unattractive to the Senate Democratic leadership.

Once the limited consideration time expires, the bill will receive a vote.  If the bill passes, the Senate leadership will choose conferees. These are senators who will represent the Senate in a conference with the House during which the two bodies try to reconcile the differing versions of the bills that each body has passed.

It is important to note that Democratic Leadership will be confronted with considerable opposition if they use the Reconciliation process.  The Senate prides itself on being the greatest deliberative body in the world, and the Reconciliation process largely circumvents traditional Senate procedure.

Conference

The House and Senate conferees will work together to try to reconcile the House version of the bill with the Senate version of the bill.  A conference can go smoothly and move quickly, or can require long periods of deliberation and compromise.  Senate and House leadership may choose conferees without diverse beliefs, which would enable them to remove provisions in the bill that they do not like without resistance.  For example, if there are no pro-life conferees, the conscience protection added to H.R. 3200 will certainly be removed.  The White House will also weigh in heavily at this time, urging the conferees to make changes to the bill that fit their agenda.  We expect this process to take many weeks, consuming November and December.

Final Passage

Once a bill is agreed upon in conference, the conference bill is sent back to both the House and Senate for final passage.  The House and Senate will each have to conduct another vote on the bill in order to pass the bill along to the President to sign into law.  The earliest this is likely to occur is late December.

President’s Signature

In order to the bill to become a law, President Obama would need to sign the finalized health care legislation.

With all the twists and turns in the health care debate, we keep hearing the question: what’s next? So I wanted to take a minute and sketch out for you what we know from our meetings here in the Nation’s Capital and on the Hill.

Next week, the Senate Finance Committee is poised to vote out its health care reform bill. After that, Majority Leader Harry Reid and his allies will determine the content of the final Senate bill–and Americans want to know what’s in it. The New York Times reports that a group of centrist Democratic senators sent a letter to the majority leader, Harry Reid (D-Nevada), urging that the public be given at least 72 hours to review the legislation before debate begins on the Senate floor.

If the public does get a chance to view the bill, what it finds certainly won’t please the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose including abortion funding in health care reform. Like the other four committees (three in the House and one in the Senate) that have reported out health care reform bills, the Senate Finance Committee failed to include language in the legislation that would adequately exclude federal funding and coverage of abortion.

Senate Finance Committee staff is already working to reconcile their bill with the bill reported out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Ultimately, however, Majority Leader Harry Reid and other members of the Democratic Party will determine the content of the final Senate bill.

Similarly, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democratic Leadership are working to reconcile the three different versions of the House Bill (H.R. 3200) that were reported out of the House Committees, and will therefore control the content of that bill.

Recent intelligence from the Hill indicates that a purported “compromise” on abortion funding and coverage in health care reform is in the works. The template for the language is Rep. Lois Capps’ (D-Calif.) amendment that was added to the House version of the bill (H.R. 3200) during the Energy and Commerce Committee mark-up, with similar language included in the Senate Finance Committee Bill.

But don’t be fooled: The Capps Amendment is not a compromise. In fact, it mandates abortion coverage in the public health care plan; mandates that at least one private insurance plan within a geographic area provide abortion coverage; and allows individuals to apply their affordability credits (government subsidies) to private plans that cover abortion.

The Democratic leadership plans to bring the House and Senate bills to their respective floors in mid-October, providing little if any time for pro-life members of Congress to review the legislation. In any case, the merged bill is expected to be dramatically different than the Senate Finance Committee proposal. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters:

“The real bill will be written by Democrat leaders in a closed-to-the-public conference room somewhere in the Capitol. The real bill will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar experiment.”

Furthermore, while pro-life members of Congress should have the opportunity to offer pro-life amendments during the floor debate, it is likely that the pro-abortion leadership will use procedural maneuvers to block the consideration of amendments that would exclude abortion coverage and funding.

Our legal team is doing everything they can to ensure that Americans understand that millions of lives, born and unborn, are at risk if Congress fails to pass a health care bill that respects life.

You are among the millions of Americans who believes that “Real Health Care Respects Life” and we are working hard for you to get your voice to Congress. But we can do much more with your help. Will you make a donation today and help us continue to spread the word about the threat of abortion in health care?

Thank you for all your support and for standing with us!

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee (SFC), released his Committee’s health care reform bill on September 16, 2009.  The SFC bill, America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009, provides the spending cuts which will offset the costs of health care reform.  The SFC and the Senate HELP Committee share jurisdiction over health care reform in the Senate, but only the SFC can determine the funding offsets.

The SFC is scheduled to mark up its bill this week.  For daily updates on life-related amendments in the SFC mark-up, click here.  The SFC marks up “in concept” as opposed to amending specific statutory language.  In other words, the process works like this:  First, a member of the Committee offers an amendment to change a provision of the bill.  After debating the amendment, the Committee members vote on it.  If a majority of the members vote in favor of the amendment, the bill’s language will reflect the change made by the amendment.  Three Senators, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) plan to offer amendments during the mark up concerning abortion.

Currently, the SFC bill addresses abortion in a way that closely parallels the abortion provisions in the House health care reform bill, H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, as added by the Capps amendment. One key difference in the SFC bill, however, is its rejection of the public health insurance option. Where the Capps amendment assures abortion will be a mandatory public plan benefit, the SFC bill does not raise this same concern because it does not include a public plan option.

Pro-life Provisions

On abortion the SFC bill:

Leaves intact state laws regarding the prohibition or requirement of coverage or funding for abortions, and state laws involving abortion-related procedural requirements (see pg. 25); and

Ensures that at least one insurance plan in each state exchange does not provide coverage for abortion (except for abortions in cases of rape, incest or life of the mother) (see pg. 27).  

On conscience protection:

Maintains Federal conscience protections and abortion-related antidiscrimination laws (see pg. 25).

Pro-abortion Provisions

However, the SFC bill also:

Allows qualified health plans to provide coverage for all abortions (see pg. 26) and mandates that at least one plan in each state exchange provide coverage of all abortions (see pg. 27);

Permits “cost-sharing credits” to go to private plans that cover abortion services provided that the plans “segregate” the funds and use only premium dollars to pay for the abortion services (however, this accounting mechanism does not hide the fact that the government is allowing the plans that cover abortions to receive the credits) (see pg. 26);

Would allow the federal government to mandate abortion coverage for abortions in private health insurance if the Hyde amendment ever fails (see pg. 26).

Is not funded through the Labor, Health and Human Services (LHHS) Appropriations Bill, so the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits the use of taxpayer money for abortion through the Medicaid program) does not apply to the bill. 

AUL Action urges the SFC to accept the pro-life amendments offered by Senators Hatch and Enzi in the upcoming days and to respect life through this important reform.

End of Life Provision

There are no provisions addressing end-of-life issues in the Bill.

Physician Quality Reporting / Rationing Provision

The SFC bill would require the Secretary of HHS “to provide reports to physicians that compare their resource use with that of other physicians or groups of physicians caring for patients with similar conditions.”  Beginning in 2015, “payment would be reduced by five percent if an aggregation of the physician‘s resource use is at or above the 90th percentile of national utilization.”  In other words, doctors who fall in the top 10% of expenditures, compared to doctors treating similar patients and conditions, would be penalized.  This could lead doctors to make decisions based on reimbursement concerns rather than concerns for their patients.

This week, Americans United for Life’s legislative arm AUL Action met with senior White House officials Melody Barnes, Tina Tchen and Joshua DuBois.  AUL Action President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest called on the White House to clarify President Obama’s recent statement of support for keeping abortion funding out of health care reform.  After the meeting, Dr. Yoest stated that the White House remained noncommittal on explicit language excluding abortion from the health care bill. 

“After the meeting, we remain deeply concerned about abortion funding and the abortion mandate in health care reform.  Ms. Barnes reiterated the President’s statement about opposing abortion funding in his address before Congress last week but the White House would not commit to language that explicitly excludes abortion from health care reform.  The reality on the Hill right now is that the health care bills do include abortion funding. 

Without a specific statutory amendment that includes an explicit ban on federal funding and coverage, taxpayers will be paying for abortion.  Including abortion in health care is something the pro-life movement will oppose vigorously.”  

Dr. Yoest provided the White House with a brief from the Americans United for Life legal team that documents why anything less than a explicit ban on abortion funding and coverage will allow government-funded abortion.     

Dr. Yoest also delivered a petition with over 39,000 signatures from pro-life Americans telling President Obama that they urge him to veto any bill that does not specifically forbid mandating insurance companies to cover abortion.  The petition also urges the President to veto any bill that could make taxpayers responsible for directly or indirectly paying for abortion.  

For further information, please visit AUL’s health care website: www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com

CBN Story: Pro-Lifers Suspicious of New Health Care Bill

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) has released his proposal for “America’s Health Future Act.”  This bill has been said to address the pro-life community’s concerns about abortion funding and coverage and freedom of conscience. The proposal deals with the issue of abortion by incorporating similar language to the Capps amendment to H.R. 3200, which does not explicitly exclude abortion coverage and funding; in fact, the Capps Amendment mandates abortion funding. 

Americans United for Life’s President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest said, “This bill provides $6 billion for the establishment of health insurance cooperatives which would be permitted to cover abortion.  Under the Baucus bill, abortions permitted under the Hyde amendment (currently in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother) can be mandated in the minimum benefits package. If the Hyde Amendment is ever eliminated, the Baucus bill would mandate coverage for all abortions.  Real health care respects life and the pro-life community will never support any bill that does not explicitly say that abortion funding and coverage is not allowed. ”

Americans United for Life’s sister organization, Americans United for Life Action, is meeting with the White House tomorrow to discuss concerns regarding abortion funding and coverage, conscience protection and end of life issues in the current health care reform proposals. 

Mary Harned, Americans United for Life’s Staff Counsel cautions that there is still a long road ahead in the health care fight: “The mark-up of the Baucus bill will begin next Tuesday.  Even if language expressly excluding abortion funding and coverage is added to the bill, it will then need to be reconciled with the bill reported from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.  After that process, the bill will then: (1) go through an amendment process on the Senate Floor; (2) go to conference where it will be reconciled with whatever bill the House produces.”

 For further information, please visit AUL’s health care website: www.RealHealthCareRespectsLife.com

In his address to a Joint Session of Congress this evening, President Obama repeated his claim that “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion.”  However, he failed to commit to supporting language that explicitly prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion.

AUL’s President and CEO, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, expressed disappointment in the President’s address, stating, “President Obama has previously articulated a desire to see a decrease in the number of abortions performed in the United States.  Yet he is throwing his support behind legislation that will equate abortion with basic health care.”  Dr. Yoest further explained that “Americans understand that abortion is not health care, and that the women and unborn children in our country deserve better.” 

AUL’s Staff Counsel, Mary Harned, said, “No matter how President Obama and Congress change the structure of the health care reform proposals — whether there is a public option, co-op, exchange, or the like — any legislation that provides government funding for health care must contain explicit language that excludes abortion.  Abortion is not health care; however, based on how courts have interpreted Medicaid, we know that courts will interpret any legislation relating to government-funded health care as requiring abortion coverage unless there is an explicit prohibition (like Hyde).”

In their legal memoranda, AUL’s legal team has carefully explained how existing law will not prevent the health care bills from mandating taxpayer funding of abortion.  They also documented how seven circuit courts have held that abortion is covered under Medicaid, necessitating an explicit prohibition on the inclusion of abortion.  Dr. Yoest stated that “courts will certainly interpret any legislation that provides federal funding for health care as they have interpreted Medicaid in the past.  So, any health care reform must include an explicit prohibition on abortion funding and coverage.”

Current proposals mandate abortion coverage and funding in a number of ways, including:

1. An amendment to H.R. 3200 permits and may require abortion coverage in the public health insurance plan, and permits taxpayer funding of private plans that cover elective abortion through the provision of affordability credits
2. The Senate HELP bill delegates to a “Medical Advisory Committee” the role of deciding what benefits any private or public health care plan must offer. This Committee is expected to include abortion as a required minimum benefit.
3. Prior court holdings that state that abortion is included within several of Medicaid’s mandatory categories of care (inpatient services, outpatient services, and preventative care) will certainly apply to any federal statute revising Medicaid and involving health care reform.
4. The rejection of several key pro-life amendments in the House and Senate Committees, which would have ensured that abortion was not funded in the bills, demonstrates that the bills are intended to mandate abortion.