By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has discovered that the same provision to expand taxpayer funding of contraception and abortion that was removed from the stimulus bill due to citizen outrage, has been inserted into the new health care reform bill.
“Remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said last month ‘we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it?’” asks Rep. Boehner in an April 5 press release.
“Tucked away inside President Obama’s new health care law is a controversial provision dramatically expanding taxpayer funding of contraceptives and the abortion industry. Washington Democrats actually tried to insert this legislative language in the original trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ but were forced to remove it under pressure from Republicans and the American people. No matter: Democrats just hid it in their government takeover of health care instead.”
Specifically, all states are now free to offer Medicaid “family planning” services – even for those who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid – without receiving approval from the federal government, Rep. Boehner explains. This will pave the way for more taxpayer dollars to go to clinics that undercut parents and promote abortions.
Inside Health Policy provides more details:
“Tucked into the health reform legislation is a controversial provision allowing states to expand coverage for family planning services under Medicaid without a waiver from the federal government. Democrats had tried to insert the language into the Recovery Act in January 2009, but pulled back after it became a lightning rod for GOP attacks … Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) championed the provision in the Senate, adding it to the Senate Finance Committee version of the legislation during mark-up, sources said, and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) pushed for it in the House. . . .”
With surveys showing that more Americans oppose the new health care law after its passage than before, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) says this revelation will only make President Obama’s PR campaign even harder:
“President Obama’s new health care law is already hurting our economy by squeezing employers with job-killing tax hikes and health care cost hikes. Now we learn that Washington Democrats’ government takeover of health care dramatically expands taxpayer funding of contraceptives and the abortion industry. First Democrats removed this controversial provision from the ‘stimulus’ and then they hid it in their government takeover of health care, hoping the American people wouldn’t notice.
“That’s why Republicans are fighting to repeal this health care law and replace it with common-sense reforms that respect taxpayer dollars and protect life.”
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