Front Page
In July National Right to Life exposed a plan to pay for abortion on demand in Pennsylvania with federal tax dollars made available under the ObamaCare Pre-Existing Condition Insurance program, a.k.a. the high-risk insurance pool program. The Pennsylvania plan was carefully written to include abortions done for virtually any reason except sex-selection.

Obama backed down and made a promise not to fund under that particular aspect of ObamaCare (the high-risk insurance pool program) — at least not for the time being. Read "Abortion Groups Caught Off Guard" from Politico for more details.

Please note: The Politico article hugely overstates the abortion lobby's "losses" with respect to ObamaCare, which provides massive federal subsidies for private abortion-paying insurance plans and direct taxpayer payment for abortion under special government programs. The author points to ObamaCare's symbolic accounting measure that is imposed on private health insurance plans that include abortion coverage. Under this measure, billions of federal taxpayer dollars are used to buy insurance policies that pay for abortion, making abortion more easily accessible to millions of people. The government, however, absolves itself of any responsibility for increasing access to abortion by pretending that the full responsibility lies only with the plan enrollees. ObamaCare requires that for each enrollee (man, woman, or child), $1.00 per month from the enrollee's premium copayment must be deposited into a special fund maintained by the insurance plan just to pay for abortions.

On July 23, the Congressional Research Service released a report making it clear that (1), the new health care law does not prevent or restrict the funding of abortion-on-demand under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans (high-risk pools) that are established by the new law. Further, it made clear that President Obama's March 24 executive order does not prevent or restrict the funding of abortion-on-demand under the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans.

Most imortantly, under the new health care law, the federal government subsidizes private health insurance plans by paying substantial portions of the monthly premiums for millions of people — and payments for abortion-on-demand are NOT restricted under these plans.

Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper would like her constituents to know that Obama promised not to pay for abortions through the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans. But she does not want them to know that the promise came only after he was caught red-handed agreeing to fund abortions in Pennsylvania and two other states.

Dahlkemper cites a report by PolitiFact that distorts the record. PolitiFact says that pro-life accusations about Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans were "untrue" because Obama backpedaled, but it fails to mention that the accusations were made before Obama backpedaled!

FactCheck.org provided a much more honest and reasonable assessment.

Read Dahlkemper's misleading comments, PolitiFact's shoddy assessment, and FactCheck.org's in-depth analysis below:


U.S. REPRESENTATIVE KATHY DAHLKEMPER

Our work paid off when the president signed a rock-solid executive order to do just that--clearly ban the use of federal funds for elective abortions in the new health care reform law.

Now, politically-motivated groups are making false claims that Pennsylvania's new high-risk insurance pool, which offers affordable health insurance to the people in our community who have been refused by private insurers because of a "pre-existing condition," will use federal funds for elective abortions.

That is simply untrue.

The nonpartisan, independent fact-checking organization PolitiFact rated this claim as FALSE.

— Canned response to constituent e-mails regarding federal abortion funding


 EXCERPT FROM POLITIFACT'S CURSORY ASSESSMENT

Please Note: PolitiFact (nonpartisan, but hardly free from accusations of liberal bias) considered only the federal policy as it was reformulated AFTER National Right to Life exposed President Obama's agreement with Pennsylvania to fund ALL legal abortions.

Getting back to our rating: The National Right to Life Committee said the Obama administration will give Pennsylvania $160 million to pay for health insurance plans that cover 'any legal abortion.' If we had looked at this case before the Obama administration issued its statements, we might have been a little torn. While the Pennsylvania proposal referred to statutes about legal abortion, [that essentially authorize — and require — any doctor to declare any abortion as "necessary" and thus not "elective" before the abortion is provided] also said that 'elective abortions are not covered,' and that is potentially contradictory. (Emphasis added)

CLICK for PolitiFact's full statement


EXCERPT FROM FACTCHECK.ORG'S IN-DEPTH ASSESSMENT

The claim that the new federal health care law will use taxpayer funds to pay for abortions through "high-risk pools" originated when the National Right to Life Committee issued a press release July 13. It said that Washington had approved a new insurance program that "will cover any abortion that is legal in Pennsylvania." Abortion foes also raised alarms about similar federally subsidized insurance pools being put together in New Mexico and Maryland.

GOOD CAUSE

At issue here are insurance policies to be made available under a newly launched, federally funded program that provides coverage for high-risk uninsured people who have been turned away by private carriers.

We can see what caused abortion opponents to be concerned. An official solicitation issued by the Pennsylvania Insurance Department specified that abortions "will" be covered if they are legal under Pennsylvania law. And according to news reports, a similar document in New Mexico listed "elective" abortions under "covered services."

FOOTNOTE: SEEING THOUGH THE SMOKE

It would be easy to miss the fact that Pennsylvania's official solicitation called for coverage of all state-legal abortions. The press release issued by the state insurance department on June 28, announcing the new program, made no mention of abortion at all. Intrepid readers could click through to find the official solicitation document describing the program more fully, but it contained phrasing the casual reader could interpret as restricting abortion coverage rather than permitting it.

At one point the document states: "Elective abortions are not covered" (page 14). But the term "elective" isn't defined, and so isn't very meaningful.

The operative language starts on page 12, where it says: "The benefit package will include the following core of specific services ..." followed by a long list that includes, on page 14, "only abortions and contraceptives that satisfy the requirements of 18 Pa.C.S. § 3204-3206 and 35 P.S. §§10101, 10103-10105." Those are the sections of Pennsylvania law that cover abortion. So — when all the verbal smoke is cleared away — the solicitation states that the program "will" cover "only" abortions that are legal. That doesn't leave out much.

The first section cited, for instance (Section 3204), allows abortions that a physician deems "necessary ... in the light of all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's age) relevant to the well-being of the woman." The only abortions that the state law forbids a doctor from finding "necessary" are those "sought solely because of the sex of the unborn child."

CLICK for FactCheck.org's full statement

Front Page