The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report revealing that 1,036 plans in Obamacare (also known as the Affordable Care Act) health insurance exchanges are paying for elective abortions.  In other words, U.S. taxpayers are paying for surgical and chemical abortions under Obamacare.

The audit found that in five states all health insurance exchange plans included elective abortion coverage.  In another eight states, 95 to 100 percent of the plans paid for elective abortions.

President Barack Obama had  promised that no federal dollars would be used to underwrite abortion coverage.  He even issued an executive order to that effect to mollify opposition from within his own political party.

Yet the GAO report verifies what knowledgeable observers knew at the time.  The President’s executive order had no legal effect, because it conflicted with the law’s own provisions, which clearly authorized federal subsidies (called “affordability credits”) for abortion coverage.

The GAO audit also revealed that insurers are uniformly failing to collect an abortion surcharge that was required in every health insurance plan that included abortion coverage.  Under that provision, individuals were to be assessed a separate fee of $1 per month for abortion “services,” regardless of the age, gender, or ability to conceive of the insured.

U.S. Representative Randy Hultgren, a pro-life Republican from Illinois, reacted to this report by urging full transparency from the President and for the U.S. Senate to pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) which ensures the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal tax dollars from paying for abortions, is implemented across the federal government.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed this legislation, which was introduced by U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ).

H.R. 7 is co-sponsored by Illinois U.S. Representatives Rodney Davis (R-Champaign), Randy Hultgren (R-Geneva), Daniel Lipinski (D-Chicago), John Shimkus (R-Danville), Aaron Schock (R-Peoria), Peter Roskam (R-Wheaton), and Adam Kinzinger (R-Rockford).

This bill is currently before the U.S. Senate, where U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is unlikely to take it up for debate.

U.S. Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA) says that Americans should be outraged.  “Many of us argued at the time Obamacare passed that it would funnel taxpayer dollars to elective abortions.  This independent report validates our claims and proves that yet another Obamacare promise has been broken.”

Casey Mattox, Senior Counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), charges that the architects of Obamacare built a “purposely deceptive accounting scheme” into the Affordable Care Act.

“We were told we had to pass the bill to find out what was in it.  Now we know what exactly is in it:  corporate welfare for the Administration’s abortion industry cronies.”

Read more:  GAO Report Confirms Obamacare Subsidizes Abortion

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Only 7 Illinois Reps Vote to Ban Federal Abortion Funding

Republican members of Illinois’ Congressional delegation have voted to slap a total ban on federal taxpayer funding of elective abortions.

Seven of Illinois’ eighteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted for the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.  This pro-life legislation was introduced by U.S. Representative Christopher Smith (R-NJ) and was passed on January 28 by a vote of 227 to 188.  The bill number is H.R. 7

HR 7 seeks to accomplish three important goals: 

1.  Make the Hyde Amendment and other current abortion funding prohibitions  permanent;

2.  Ensure that the Affordable Care Act faithfully conforms with the Hyde Amendment as promised by the President;

3.  Provide full disclosure, transparency and the prominent display of the extent to which any health insurance plan on the exchange funds abortion.

Republicans Peter Roskam (Wheaton), Rodney Davis (Champaign), Randy Hultgren (Geneva), John Shimkus (Harrisburg), Adam Kinzinger (Joliet) and Aaron Schock (Peoria) voted for the bill.  The only Democrat from Illinois to support this bill was U.S. Representative Dan Lipinski from Chicago.

Democrats Robin Kelly (Chicago), Luis Gutierrez (Chicago), Mike Quigley (Chicago), Danny Davis (Chicago), Tammy Duckworth (Schaumburg), Jan Schakowsky (Chicago), Bradley Schneider (Lincolnshire), Bill Foster (Joliet), William Enyart (Belleville) and Cheri Bustos (Moline) voted to support the use of federal taxpayer dollars for abortion.  U.S. Representative Bobby Rush (Chicago), who has supported abortion funding in the past, did not vote.

Before the vote on this bill, the Congressman Smith took to the floor to make some important points, including the following:

Obamacare requires premium payers to be assessed a separate abortion surcharge every month to pay for abortions. We have learned that consumers may never know they are paying the surcharge, despite assurances to the contrary when the ACA was passed.

In 2009, U.S. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) said:

“…if you are receiving Federal assistance to buy insurance, and if that plan has any abortion coverage, the insurance company must bill you separately, and you must pay separately from your own personal funds–perhaps a credit card transaction, your separate personal check, or automatic withdrawal from your bank account–for that abortion coverage. Now, let me say that again. You have to write two checks: one for the basic policy and one for the additional coverage for abortion.” 

However, research published by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) indicates that insurance carriers are not actually billing the surcharge separately at all. In fact, Gretchen Borchelt, director of state reproductive health policy at the National Women’s Law Center, told the Huffington Post that “we used to talk about it as being two checks that the consumer would have to write because of the segregation requirements, but that’s not the way it’s being implemented.”

Finally, Mr. Speaker, because abortion brutally dismembers, decapitates or chemically poisons an unborn child to death, Americans have consistently demanded that public funds not pay for abortion.

A huge majority—well over 60%–according to most polls show that women and men in this country don’t want to be complicit in abortion by subsidizing it.  A December 2009 Quinnipiac poll found 72% opposed to “allowing abortions to be paid for by public funds under a health reform bill.”

Another poll by International Communications Research asked “If the choice were up to you, would you want your own insurance policy to include abortion?”  69% of women said no!

Mr. Speaker, that’s because an ever growing number of people recognize that abortion isn’t health care—it kills babies and harms women.

We live in an age of ultrasound imaging—the ultimate window to the womb and the child who resides there.  We are in the midst of a fetal health care revolution, an explosion of benign interventions designed to diagnose, treat and cure the precious lives of these youngest patients. 

HR 7 will help save lives and will reduce abortions.

The Judiciary Committee Report accompanying HR 7 suggests that the Hyde Amendment has saved over a million children because 1 in 4 women who would have procured an abortion don’t go through with it if public funding isn’t available. 

HR 7 will reduce abortions.  HR 7 will help save lives.

President Barack Obama has already pledged to veto the abortion funding ban should it reach his desk.  It is unlikely to do so, since U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is unlikely to allow the bill to be taken up for debate in that chamber.  

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