Healthcare Deceptions – Part 1

            In the heat of the moment Congressman Wilson shouted, “You lie,” at the President.  While many, including the congressman, now agree that the comment lacked civility and was inappropriate, this blogger agrees with his sentiment, but my wife says I should be nice as I explain my point of view.  I’ll try.

          During this rather heated healthcare debate President Obama, many Democrats and their willing accomplices in the media have attempted to deceive the citizens of this nation regarding specific aspects of the proposed law.  In this three part series, I will explore the issue of abortion, illegal immigrants and rationing within the current health care debate.

Obama Healthcare will cover Abortion

           While the President and most Democrats declare that abortion will not be a covered procedure, on July 30^th the house voted down an amendment offered by Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) that explicitly stated that abortion would not be covered by the federal health care plan.  Why would they do that unless they did want it to be covered?

           One person who has probably read and understood more of the healthcare bill than dozens of our elected officials is Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).  In a Fox News report he said, "The public plan is explicitly authorized to cover all abortions. This is not disputed. They will be paid for out of a federal Treasury account. These are as much federal funds as any other funds at the U.S. Treasury."  In a separate press release he states, “The claim that a federal agency would be spending private funds on abortion, not federal funds, is absurd on its face, a political hoax.”  NRLC correctly states that, “funds that would be spent on elective abortions under the bill, and all of the funds that would be spent to subsidize private insurance plans that cover abortion, would be ‘federal funds’ in both the legal sense and in the sense in which those terms are used throughout the government.”

           Even if the public option is not part of the bill that ultimately is signed into law abortion services could, and likely would, still be provided at taxpayer expense.   After the legislation has passed, unelected and unaccountable health commission bureaucrats will fill in the details regarding anything not specifically stated in the law.  If the healthcare bill passes without a very explicit ban on abortion funding, the bureaucrats could simply decide that it was the intent of congress to allow it.  Pro-life groups would certainly sue stating that abortion was not intended.  Members of the house and senate would rush to the nearest television camera and state that they were pro-life and declare how they were assured that the healthcare bill did not provide coverage for abortion, but unelected and unaccountable judges could easily decree from the bench that since congress did not explicitly prohibit it, abortions are covered.

           Unless congress unambiguously prohibits all funding of abortion in the healthcare bill they are implicitly providing for it.