Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: cassandra and sara's daddy on July 14, 2010, 08:14:10 PM
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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- The Obama administration has officially approved the first instance of taxpayer funded abortions under the new national government-run health care program. This is the kind of abortion funding the pro-life movement warned about when Congress considered the bill.
The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to set up a new "high-risk" insurance program under a provision of the federal health care legislation enacted in March.
It has quietly approved a plan submitted by an appointee of pro-abortion Governor Edward Rendell under which the new program will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania.
The high-risk pool program is one of the new programs created by the sweeping health care legislation, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Obama signed into law on March 23. The law authorizes $5 billion in federal funds for the program, which will cover as many as 400,000 people when it is implemented nationwide.
"The Obama Administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million in federal tax funds, which we've discovered will pay for insurance plans that cover any legal abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee.
Johnson told LifeNews.com: "This is just the first proof of the phoniness of President Obama's assurances that federal funds would not subsidize abortion -- but it will not be the last."
"President Obama successfully opposed including language in the bill to prevent federal subsidies for abortions, and now the Administration is quietly advancing its abortion-expanding agenda through administrative decisions such as this, which they hope will escape broad public attention," Johnson said.
The abortion funding comes despite language in the bill that some pro-abortion Democrats and Obama himself claimed would prevent abortion funding and despite a controversial executive order Obama signed supposedly stopping abortion funding.
The pro-life community strongly opposed the executive order and said Rep. Bart Stupak and other House Democrats who voted for the pro-abortion health care bill in exchange for it were selling out their pro-life principles. This first case of forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions under the new law appears to prove them right that the bill language and executive order were ineffective.
Proving the point further that the abortion funding comes from federal taxpayer dollars, Johnson explained that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has emphasized that the high-risk pool program is a federal program and that the states will not incur any cost.
On May 11, 2010, in a letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on implementation of the new law, DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that “states may choose whether and how they participate in the program, which is funded entirely by the federal government.”
Johnson says that on June 28, Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario (a member of the appointed cabinet of Governor Edward Rendell, a Democrat) issued a press release announcing that the federal Department of Health and Human Services had approved his agency's proposal for implementing the new program in Pennsylvania.
"The state will receive $160 million to set up the program, which will provide coverage to as many as 5,600 people between now and 2014," according to the release. "The plan's benefit package will include preventive care, physician services, diagnostic testing, hospitalization, mental health services, prescription medications and much more, with subsidized premiums of $283 a month."
Johnson says the "much more" Ario refers to is abortion funding.
The section on abortion (see page 14) asserts that "elective abortions are not covered," though it does not define elective -- which Johnson calls a "red herring."
The proposal specifies coverage "includes only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of" several specific statutes, the most pertinent of which is 18 Pa. C.S. § 3204, which says abortion is legal in Pennsylvania. The statute essentially says all abortions except those to determine the sex of the baby are legal.
"Under the Rendell-Sebelius plan, federal funds will subsidize coverage of abortion performed for any reason, except sex selection," said NRLC's Johnson. "The Pennsylvania proposal conspicuously lacks language that would prevent funding of abortions performed as a method of birth control or for any other reason, except sex selection -- and the Obama Administration has now approved this."
Related web sites:
National Right to Life - http://www.nrlc.org
Press release from Ario - http://tinyurl.com/icrelease
Pennsylvania plan analysis -
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/PennsylvaniaHighRiskPoolPlan.pdf
so how do we thank stupal et al
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so how do we thank stupal et al
Nothing polite comes to mind
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Wow, you mean that the Obama administration found a clever way to circumvent the executive order that Obama promised (did he ?) to sign ??
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its for the change
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What change, the one to unbridled socialism?
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pants on fire
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It's for the children. I mean the almost-children.
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Not the kind of attention I like my state getting.
:facepalm:
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Has anyone heard anything from Stupac and the other 12 who fell for the paperwork promise?
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Has anyone heard anything from Stupac and the other 12 who fell for the paperwork promise?
No, and I doubt you ever will. IMO, they had always intended to vote for ObamaCare. The whole abortion issue was just political cover for them.
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I thought it was SOP around here to include a link to the original story when posting it in a thread?
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Has anyone heard anything from Stupac and the other 12 who fell for the paperwork promise?
Other then the fact that Stupac is "retiring". No, nothing.
Since his election in 1993 he has sponsored 36 bills, but none became law. He cosponsored 157 bills, 5 of which were enacted into law. He has voted with the members of his party 96% of the time. He has abstained from 5% of the votes.[7]
On April 9th, 2010, Stupak announced that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term. [8]
[edit] Political positions
[edit] Health Care
Based on his opinion that the bill for Health care reform in the United States would provide federal funding for elective abortion, he coauthored and was the lead sponsor of the Stupak–Pitts Amendment. The amendment's language was approved in the House by a 240-194 margin, but was dropped in the Senate. Stupak opposed the bill’s passage after the anti-abortion language was removed and stated that 15-20 like minded pro-life Democrats would do so as well in the final version. However, after he was promised an Executive Order from President Barack Obama, Stupak changed his position on the bill and voted for the Senate health care bill, without the Stupak–Pitts Amendment, on March 22, 2010.
Be interesting to see where he pops up at post-retirement.........