Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions
John Boehner isn't very happy about it...and you shouldn't be either:
Most Americans want lower health care costs – not a government-run plan that raises costs and asks taxpayers to subsidize abortions.
Republicans have been working to put a stop to taxpayer funding for abortions, and to prohibit the Democrats’ health care bill from forcing taxpayers to subsidize them as well. Reps. Joe Pitts (R-PA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) offered an amendment last week during Energy & Commerce Committee consideration of the bill that would make clear that abortions could not be a required basic benefit of any government or private plan. After first approving the amendment by a 31-27 vote, Democrats used a parliamentary gimmick to re-vote the amendment and defeated it by the narrow margin of 29-30.
In an interview with CBN News last week, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said “It’s pretty clear to me that this will force every provider to have to provide abortions whether they want to or not.”
“In this bill, it outlines ‘essential services’ and one of the ‘essential services’ that’s in the public option is the issue of abortion. It’s going to be pretty clear to me that this will force every provider to have to provide abortions whether they want to or not. Catholic hospitals, other hospitals that have moral objections to this practice and the last thing I think the American people want is to have taxpayer funds for abortions.”
“Listen, I’ve got 11 brothers and sisters. It wasn’t convenient for my mother to have 12 of us, but I’m sure glad she did. I’m adamantly opposed to abortion, always have been. And I just don’t think the American people want their tax dollars being used for this purpose… There is no question if you’re paying premiums into this public plan, you’re going to be paying for health care coverage for other Americans who are going to do things in this system that I have moral objections to and a lot of other Americans do.”
Across the country, American families are rejecting the Democrats’ plan for a government takeover of health care. Last week, no less than five polls showed increasing opposition to government-run health care that will raise costs, destroy jobs, and put bureaucrats in charge of decisions that only patients and doctors should make – as a new web video from Boehner warns.
For the sake of American families struggling with health care costs – most of whom don't want their hard-earned money being used by the federal government to subsidize abortion – President Obama and congressional Democrats should scrap the current health care bill, and work in a bipartisan way for true reforms. Unless Democratic leaders agree to work with Republicans on a bipartisan plan that achieves real reform that Americans are seeking, it will be a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress.
