Whitehouse.blogs.com 3/21/10 – Today, the President announced that he will be issuing an executive order after the passage of the health insurance reform law that will reaffirm its consistency with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion.

While the legislation as written maintains current law, the executive order provides additional safeguards to ensure that the status quo is upheld and enforced, and that the health care legislation’s restrictions against the public funding of abortions cannot be circumvented.

The President has said from the start that this health insurance reform should not be the forum to upset longstanding precedent. The health care legislation and this executive order are consistent with this principle.

The President is grateful for the tireless efforts of leaders on both sides of this issue to craft a consensus approach that allows the bill to move forward.

 

Evidently, that Executive Order and Obama’s word aren’t worth a hill of beans.

The Health and Human Services Department is giving Pennsylvania $160 million for the establishment of a new high-risk insurance pool that will cover any abortion that is legal in the state.
 
Republican House of Representatives Leader John Boehner said Tuesday:

The fact that the high-risk pool insurance program in Pennsylvania will use federal taxpayer dollars to fund abortions is unconscionable.  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 told Congress and the American people that, under his health care plan, “no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.”  
 
Boehner sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on May 13th,  asking if her department had given the states instructions on how to carry out the president’s Executive Order on abortion funding.   Boehner also asked Sebelius if  abortion coverage was excluded from the new federal high-risk pools. 
 
He says his questions remain unanswered.

Boehner wrote to Sebelius:
 
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.

  
The Family Research Council reports that the $160 million in taxpayer funds that Pennsylvania will receive is the first known instance of direct federal funding of abortions through the new high-risk insurance pools.

Tom McClusky, senior vice president of the Family Research Council’s political action committee said:

The abortion funding for pool participants validates the arguments pro-life groups made throughout the health care debate – that taxpayer dollars will fund abortions.
 
For our efforts to remove the bill’s abortion funding, we were called ‘deceivers’ by President Obama and ‘liars’ by his allies. Now we know who the true deceivers and liars really are. 

This action by the Obama Administration also exposes the worthlessness of President Obama’s Executive Order that supposedly would prevent federal funding of abortion, but which both sides, including Planned Parenthood, agreed was unenforceable.
 
While the American people deserve an apology from President Obama for his deception, we should only be satisfied when this Pennsylvania abortion funding is rescinded and the health care law repealed.

Per McClusky, the new health care law also includes $12.5 billion for community health centers, and $6 billion for CO-OPS, both of which can fund abortions.  There are even tax credits available in Obamacare to help women pay for plans that cover abortion.

Before we move along, allow me to tell you what a co-op is.  This description is from a study of Obamacare commissioned by Health Insurance Brokers and prepared by attorneys: 

A Co-OP initiative would be established to foster the creation of non-profit, member-run health insurance companies in all 50 states and District of Columbia to offer qualified health plans.

A grant or loan would not be awarded unless the following conditions are met to be a qualified health insurance issuer:  an organization must not be an existing health insurer or sponsored by a state or local government, substantially all of its activities must consist of the issuance of qualified health benefits plans in each state in which it is licensed, governance of the organization must be subject to a majority vote of its members, must operate with a strong consumer focus, and any profits must be used to lower premiums, improve benefits, or improve the quality of health care delivered to its members.Any profits made would be used to lower premiums, improve benefits, or to otherwise improve the quality of health care delivered to its members.

The cooperative would coordinate with the implementation of state insurance reforms required by this bill.

$6 billion would be appropriated to finance the program and award loans and grants to establish CO-OPS by 7/1/2013.

Translation:  Each state will have a bunch of political hacks deciding which health insurance companies will be allowed to do business there.  It’s the current State Health Insurance Commissioner system on steroids.

 McClusky said:
 
Even before it’s fully implemented, the Democrats’ health care plan “is already being exposed as a high-taxing, poorly thought-out, and taxpayer-funding-of-abortion monstrosity.

Republican leader Boehner says House Republicans plan to codify the Hyde amendment, thereby prohibiting all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion.  Any health plan that includes abortion coverage would not receive federal funds under the Republican plan.

I, like the majority of Americans, am firmly against the use of our taxes to pay for ending an innocent life.  This action by Obama and his administration clearly demonstrates why this president faces a credibility crisis.  The great disconnect between him and the American people is not going to heal any time soon.

 Sources:  drudgereport.com, cnsnews.com