Today, President Obama today proposed "a targeted set of changes to" the Senate-passed health reform bill. None of President Obama's proposed changes diminish any of the sweeping pro-abortion problems in the Senate bill and he actually proposes to increase the funds that would be available to directly subsidize abortion procedures (through Community Health Centers) and to subsidize private health insurance that covers abortion (through the premium-subsidy tax credits program).
If all of the President's proposed changes were made and without the addition of the prolife Stupak-Pitts amendment, the resulting legislation would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers, would institute federal subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion on demand (including some federally administered plans) and would authorize federal mandates that would require even non-subsidized private plans to cover elective abortion.
The Senate bill, due to a last-minute amendment, provides $7 billion for the nation's 1,250 Community Health Centers, without any restriction whatever on the use of these federal funds to pay directly for abortion on demand. (These funds are entirely untouched by the "Hyde Amendment" that currently covers Medicaid.) Obama today proposed to increase that figure to $11 billion, but without adding a prohibition on the use of the funds for abortion. Two pro-abortion groups, the Reproductive Health Access Project and the Abortion Access Project, are already actively campaigning for Community Health Centers to perform elective abortions.
Any member of Congress who votes for the final legislation proposed by President Obama will be voting for direct federal funding of elective abortion through Community Health Centers and an array of other pro-abortion federal subsidies and mandates.
FULL STORY
