Finance Committee Passes Health Care Proposal 14-9

This week the U.S. Senate Finance Committee approved the America’s Healthy Future Act which was crafted by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mt.). The bill contains an array of far-reaching provisions which endanger the lives of senior citizens and unborn children. On September 30, 2009, the Finance Committee defeated two prolife amendments to the bill, offered by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

Now that the Finance Committee approved the Baucus bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nv.) will need to combine the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) and Finance bills into a single bill. The full Senate may take up a bill later this month.

Be sure to check out detailed analysis from our legal counsel of the Baucus health care proposal and how it will promote abortion and fund abortion with public money:

The Baucus Plan and Abortion–part 1
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part II
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part III
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part IV (Final)

White House Engaged in “Smuggling Operation” on Abortion in Health Care

The Federal Legislative Department of National Right to Life has issued the following statement:

NRLC: White House Press Secretary’s Remarks Show White House Still Engaged in Smuggling Operation for Government Funding of Abortion

WASHINGTON (October 8, 2009) — A spokesman for the nation’s major pro-life organization said that remarks by the White House press secretary on October 7, “once again demonstrated that the White House is a partner in an ongoing smuggling operation, which if successful will result in funding of abortion on demand by the federal government.”

The following exchange occurred during the October 7, 2009, daily press briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:

QUESTION [by CNS News reporter Fred Lucas]: It’s a question on health care, actually; two questions. First, in a letter to senators last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that, quoting, “So far the health reform bills considered in the committee, including the new Senate Finance Committee bill, have not met the President’s challenge of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion.” Is that statement wrong?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t want to get me in trouble at church, but I would mention there’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion that isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.

Q: There have been, though, several amendments that would explicitly bar abortions, that would therefore reject it, some of those amendments by Democrats –

MR. GIBBS: Again, there’s a fairly well documented federal law that prevents it.

In his answers, Gibbs in essence repeated a discredited claim made by President Obama himself on August 20, when the President said: “There are no plans under health reform to revoke the existing prohibition on using federal taxpayer dollars for abortions. Nobody is talking about changing that existing provision, the Hyde Amendment. Let’s be clear about that. It’s just not true.”

More recently, Obama said in a September 9 speech to both houses of Congress that “under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.” On September 13, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News asked Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, “So you’re saying it will go beyond what we have seen so far in the House and explicitly rule out any public funding for abortion?,” and received from Sebelius this answer: “Well that’s exactly what the President said and I think that’s what he intends that the bill he signs will do.”

40 Days for Life Mid-Way Rally

“As we are about to reach Day 20 of our 40 days of prayer, fasting, vigil and outreach, it is time to gather with pro-life members of the Mid-Missouri communities to share stories, enjoy refreshments and encourage one another, building towards a strong finish of our 40 Days for Life campaign,” said Kathy Forck, spokesperson for the Columbia 40 Days for Life campaign.

The rally will be held:
October 12, 2009 at 6:30pm
St. Andrew Catholic Church 400 St. Andrew Lane Holts Summit, MO

Speakers at the 40 Days for Life mid-point event include: State Representative Jeanie Riddle, State Representative and 6th District Senatorial Candidate Kenny Jones, 6th District Senatorial Candidate Mike Kehoe, and other prayer volunteers as they share about their experiences while praying at the vigil.

Music will be provided by the talented group “Renaissance” from southeast Missouri.

There is a lot of good news coming out of this campaign, too! On their website, Kathy Fork relates:

“Thursdays are the day that the Planned Parenthood in Columbia performs abortions. That is all they do on Thursdays, nothing else. Typically we see 15-20 young women go into the clinic for abortions on these days. This past Thursday, Oct. 1st, there were only 6 young women that went in for abortions. We have to believe that our prayers are working and that at the most 14 babies were saved as a result of the amazing turnout (or lack thereof). Praise God and let us remain faithful in our prayers!”

It is truly a blessing to have such a dedicated group sacrificing so much of their time to help rescue women and unborn children from the tragedy of abortion, but they still need your help. They continue to look for volunteers to keep vigil on the weekends and in the evening hours from 4pm to 7pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

For more information on the upcoming rally or to get involved please contact Mike and Kathy Forck at 573-491-3522 or 573-821-5130 Or visit them online at: www.40daysforlife.com/columbia-mo

Stop Hyding Behind Henry!

A video from the Susan B. Anthony List:

Related: Why the Hyde Amendment Will Not Prevent Abortion Funding Under HR 3200

Senate Finance Committee Rejects Pro-Life Amendments

From LifeSiteNews:

The Senate Finance Committee torpedoed two key pro-life amendments on Wednesday designed to prevent government-subsidies of abortion and guarantee conscience protections for health-care providers in the health-care reform bill.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) proposed to amend the “America’s Health Future Act of 2009″ under consideration by the Finance Committee led by Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.). His amendments would have codified current conscience protections for health-care providers with moral objections to abortion and also made permanent the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from paying for abortions.

Hatch instead proposed that women could purchase additional coverage for abortions through “riders” that would not be subsidized by the government.

However, the amendments were rejected by the Committee by votes of 13 – 10. In both amendments, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) joined committee Republicans in support of the measures, while pro-abortion Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) joined Baucus’ committee Democrats to vote against the bill.

Be sure to check out detailed analysis from our legal counsel of the Baucus health care proposal and how it will promote abortion and fund abortion with public money:

The Baucus Plan and Abortion–part 1
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part II
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part III
The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part IV (Final)

The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part IV (Final)

The Senate Finance Committee is now in session considering Sen. Max Baucus’ health care proposal. They are supposed to consider some pro-life amendments to the bill sometime today. Thank you so much, Jim, for your very thoughtful and detailed analysis for us! Here now is part IV.

This is the final portion of a series that attempts to describe the problems of the Baucus health care proposal, the so-called “Chairman’s Mark,” now being debated in the Senate Finance Committee. Our august Senators are still playing “hide the ball” with the text of the proposal and amendments. As before, we can only use what is provided. If any language turns out to differ from the “Chairman’s Mark” (CM) because the CM is an inaccurate summary or it has been amended in committee, then these observations may need to be revised accordingly.

Proponents of the Baucus plan have claimed that it contains provisions that keep our tax money from paying for abortions. Douglas Johnson, the formidable Legislative Director for the National Right to Life Committee, calls these provisions “head fakes.” He is absolutely correct.

One of the “head fakes” is this sentence: “No tax credit or cost-sharing credits may be used to pay for abortions beyond those permitted by the most recent appropriation for the Department of Health and Human Services. “ CM, p. 26. Apart from the mendacity of tying any restrictive language to appropriations restrictions that will be ended if there is enough political muscle to enact this health reform, there is mendacity in this sentence. While it appears to be pro-life, when one puts it to the test in light of past experience with pro-life language in court, one finds that it will do nothing to prevent federal subsidies of abortion.

It is likely that the courts will see the restriction as merely a directive to the federal Treasury not to write checks to abortionists. That would make the sentence no restriction at all to payments for abortions by health insurers. This is how a Missouri law that resembled this sentence was interpreted two decades ago. Section 188.205 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri says, “It shall be unlawful for any public funds to be expended for the purpose of . . . encouraging or counseling a woman to have an abortion not necessary to save her life.” A few years after enactment, during litigation with Planned Parenthood, Missouri’s Attorney General officially stated that the statute “was not directed at the conduct of any physician or health care provider, private or public,” but “is directed solely at those persons responsible for expending public funds.” Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 109 S. Ct. 3040, 3044 (1989). Planned Parenthood was so delighted with this interpretation that it immediately dropped its challenge to this portion of the statute. Id. The same interpretation of the federal statute could well be made: it governs only those government officials who write the subsidy checks and no one else afterward.

The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part III

Here is the third installment of Jim Cole’s analysis of Sen. Max Baucus’ health care bill. The Senators are supposed to be voting on multiple pro-life amendments to the bill today. We will keep you posted.

Making All Americans Pay for Abortion Coverage

In the first two installments of this series, I described how the Baucus plan compels abortion coverage in new health care plans. Now we turn to the money and consider how the Baucus plan will compel everyone to pay for abortions in their new health care coverage.

Everyone realizes that insurance is a mechanism for customers to share risk. (Health care plans are another way of doing the same thing, so I use the terms “health insurance,” “policies,” and “health plans” interchangeably in this paper.) Everyone pays premiums for insurance coverage, but not everyone draws benefits at the same time. If the insurance company has forecast the payout of benefits correctly, then customers are charged a premium that will produce a pot of insurance money that is large enough at all times to pay the benefits of those who actually draw benefits, plus make a profit for the owners of the insurance company. The idea is that everyone may draw benefits, but not all at once, while everyone pays premiums all the time.

Now, if abortion is not the subject of a separate rider, then everyone’s premiums go into the pot of money that pays for health care (including abortions), and thus everyone pays for abortion benefits. However, if abortion is made the subject of a separate rider, and only those who desire abortion coverage are paying for it, then the other customers will not be contributing to abortion coverage. In this situation, those who do not want to subsidize abortions will not have to do so. Some states, such as Missouri, have required a separate rider for abortion coverage in private and employer health insurance plans for just this reason. (See section 376.805 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri.)

The Baucus plan does not appear to allow for a separate rider for specific services. Everything in the Baucus scheme points to having one premium for each of the four plan levels of coverage (bronze, silver, gold, & platinum), without the complications of riders and extra premiums. The exchanges are supposed to supply a standard application form for all health plans, compose a standard format of describing their benefits, enable consumers to sign up for insurance at drivers’ license offices, hospitals, schools, and other offices designated by the state, and operate just one “open enrollment” period every year. CM, pp. 15, 28. It would defeat the simplicity of having just four levels of plans and standardized formats to allow separate riders and separate premiums for particular services. To the extent that no separate rider for abortion is offered, that means that the risk and costs of abortion coverage are going to be shared among all the persons who buy a policy or plan, and everyone’s premiums will help cover abortion services. This is the first way that the Baucus plan makes people pay for abortion, whether they want to or not.

Involuntary enrollment in health coverage

The Baucus Plan and Abortion — Part II

The Senate Financial Services Committee will be voting TOMORROW on several pro-life amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ proposed health care bill. Here’s more analysis of the bill from MRL legal counsel Jim Cole (see part I):

The actual text of Senator Baucus’ health care bill is still being kept off-line at this time. Apparently the Senate Finance Committee worked on the proposal in this past week, but unlike all other bills, which are assigned bill numbers and are printed on-line, the actual language of the Baucus proposal has no bill number and remains hidden from the ordinary citizen. The Government’s site for finding bills on-line, the “Thomas” site of the Library of Congress, has a link to “Senate Finance Committee Version: America’s Healthy Future Act of 2009,” but it pulls up only the “Chairman’s Mark” summary that was described in the first installment of this series. (You may examine the “Chairman’s Mark” yourself here.) The Thomas site’s list of Senator Baucus’ bills does not include the actual bill, either.

The bill is not only hidden from view, it is also a moving target. Amendments are being offered in committee, but there is nothing on-line to reflect the texts of amendments. Only fleeting and frequently erroneous descriptions of amendments appear from time to time in the news media.

As a result, all comments from an ordinary citizen like myself on the Baucus proposal are provisional. Only the summary called the “Chairman’s Mark” is available to work with. Readers are asked to keep in mind that when our Senate masters finally deign to unveil to us what they are legislating, the text may differ from what is described here. We can only work with what is available at this time.

Mandating Abortion Coverage In Health Care Plans

Let me describe another way that abortion is required to be covered by health insurance and health care plans by the Baucus proposal. In the first installment of this series, I related how all new health care plans will have to cover abortion in the same situations that the government must pay for in the Medicaid program. Chairman’s Mark (“CM”), p. 26. (To oversimplify, these consist of when pregnancy threatens the physical life of the mother and when pregnancy has resulted from rape and incest. Except for the Hyde Amendment, Medicaid would have to pay for all abortions for Medicaid-eligible patients, not just abortions in these situations.) Insurance companies and health plans may offer greater coverage of abortion if they desire. As was pointed out in the first installment, if and when the Hyde Amendment is ever terminated, the Baucus proposal will force health policies and plans to cover all abortions.

There is second provision of the Baucus bill that functions to expand mandatory abortion coverage. It comes into play in connection with health plan “exchanges” created by the Baucus bill. Every health policy and plan must be available in an “exchange” to be established by each state under the supervision of the federal government. CM, p. 14. (Think of something akin to stock exchanges.) Each state must immediately establish a health insurance/ plan exchange for individuals and for small groups, and two or more states may combine exchanges into a regional exchange. CM, p. 16. In later years, the exchanges will include employer plans of 50+ employees. Id. If any state proves recalcitrant and fails to establish its exchange within 24 months, then the federal government will establish a nonprofit corporation to serve as that state’s exchange. CM, p. 11. After three years of operation of the state exchange, a state may license one or more private organizations to operate additional exchanges. CM, p. 16. The Baucus plan requires every state exchange to approve at least one health plan that offers abortion coverage that exceeds the federal minimum requirements: “The Secretary would ensure that in each state exchange, at least one plan provides coverage of abortions beyond those for which Federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services are permitted.” CM, p. 27.

The Baucus Plan and Abortion–part 1

The following, from Missouri Right to Life’s Legal Counsel Jim Cole, is part I of a detailed analysis of Senator Baucus’ health care plan, the “America’s Healthy Future Act”, that has been discussed recently in the Senate Financial Services Committee.:

In the years I served as the state legislative chair for Missouri Right to Life, one of the lessons I learned was that when legislators keep the text of their legislation secret until the very last minute, they are usually trying to pull a fast one. Senator Baucus’ much-publicized health care reform plan gives every indication of that kind of maneuver.

The Senator has released a “Chairman’s Mark” of his plan, but that is not the text of the bill, merely a summary that his staff has prepared. (Some misinformed editors on the Web have provided links to what they call the “text of the bill,” but all the links this writer has found lead to the summary called the “Chairman’s Mark,” not the actual bill.) The text of the bill itself—the part that will actually become the law if enacted—does not appear to be available as of the time of this post. Therefore, all we the people know about the Senator’s plan is what he says about it in the “Chairman’s Mark.” To force people to assess the merits of his bill while hiding the actual text is not a way to win confidence and quell doubts, to say the least.

But for the moment, if we assume that the description of the bill in the “Chairman’s Mark” is accurate, then many people will wonder, “Does the bill promote abortion? Will it fund abortion with public money?” The answer to both questions is “yes.”

I do not pretend to have found all the ways that abortion may be paid for by the Baucus plan. Even if the text of his bill was available, there are ways of hiding how money is going to flow, such as by deputizing the new health care bureaucrats to work out details of the plan. But I can point to a few things in the “Chairman’s Mark” that indicate the Baucus plan would promote abortion and use the public’s dollars to pay for it.

Here is the first way in which the bill will promote abortion. It relates to the minimum coverage that the government will require all health care bills to provide.

Beginning at page 25 of the “Chairman’s Mark” is found a section entitled, “Abortion Coverage Prohibited as Part of Minimum Benefits Package.” It recites that abortion cannot be mandated in a new health plan “except in those cases for which federal funds appropriated for the Department of Health and Human Services are permitted” for abortions. “Chairman’s Mark,” p. 26. (The Department will be called here “HHS.”) The reference to appropriations to HHS refers to the Hyde Amendment, which is an annual rider that has to be enacted every year as an amendment to the HHS appropriations bill. The Hyde Amendment allows HHS money to pay only for abortions to save the life of the mother and in situations of rape and incest. It covers mainly the Medicaid program.

Unfortunately, one of the goals of the President is to do away with the Hyde Amendment. During his campaign, he promised to work for its defeat, and he makes no secret that he wants the federal government to fund abortions. If his allies in Congress have the political strength to enact this health care plan, they will have the strength to do away with the Hyde Amendment, too. Once that is done, then under the Baucus health care proposal, the government may mandate that minimum benefits for health care plans shall include all abortions. And there is no doubt that it would do so under the Obama Administration.

The prospect of such a maneuver makes a mockery of any claim that the Baucus health care plan does not promote abortion. If Senator Baucus truly wanted to ensure that the government would not mandate that abortion must be among the minimum benefits of all health care plans, then his plan would simply say so, without tying the limitation to an annual appropriation rider that the President will work to end as soon as he can.

More later on additional ways that the Baucus plan attempts to insert the detestable practice of abortion into the mainstream of medical practice and then uses the public’s dollars to help pay for it.

Parts II and III to follow soon…

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has introduced several amendments that would prevent government funding for abortion and would protect current conscience laws for health workers. The Financial Services Committee will be voting THIS TUESDAY on these pro-life amendments.

Kirksville Planned Parenthood to Close This November

Good News!

KIRKSVILLE, MO. — Planned Parenthood in Kirksville will be closing for good on November 14th.

The health center, specialized in treating low-income women, has been in Kirksville for 38 years.

Officials say they’re closing because of fewer clients and a shortage of rural nurse practitioners.

Read more

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider. Even those clinics which do not perform abortions, like the one in Kirksville, make abortion referrals and distribute the morning after pill, which can act as an abortifacient.