I’m sure you will remember back in March, when the health care legislation was being so hotly debated. At the time, Congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, said that he would not vote for any legislation that included federal funding for abortions. He said that he would ONLY vote for President Obama’s health care legislation as long as the President would issue an Executive Order clarifying that no federal funds would be used for abortions.
The President signed an Executive Order purporting to do just that.
It is unfortunate that Cong. Stupak and his small band of followers didn’t listen to the pro-life warning sirens in March – when they warned of obvious pathways created by Obamacare that lead straight to federal funds being used to pay for abortions. Still, Cong. Stupak and several other blue dog Democrats trusted President Obama and voted for his health care bill.
Fast forward to the present: Pro-Life organizations just reported that more than $160 million in federal funding was being allocated to state high-risk insurance pools in Pennsylvania and New Mexico that included abortion services.
After this news surfaced, the Department of Health and Human Services was quick to post a statement rejecting this claim. Then they issued a second statement promising to communicate to state agencies that federal funds for patients with “pre-existing conditions will not” be used for abortion services.
While that is certainly good news, it does nothing to alleviate the concerns of pro-life Americans. After all, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has still never refuted her comments in a letter to Democratic and Republican congressional leaders on the implementation of the President’s healthcare law when she wrote, “States may choose whether and how they participate in the program, which is funded by the federal government.”
I believe this confusion between the states, the federal government and HHS, only proves the President’s Executive Order on this issue is meaningless and can’t be relied on to protect the lives of the unborn.
Whether the policy consequence was intended or not, this latest revelation is sadly just another example of a President whose track record with the truth has left many Americans scratching their heads.
I want to remind you:
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It was this President who said if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor – but even the New York Times reported that in fact, under Obamacare, that’s not necessarily might not be the case.
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It was this President who said, “We must pass the stimulus to keep unemployment from reaching double digits,” However, a year after its passage, the unemployment rate had already skyrocketed to double digits, and continues to hover around 10%.
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It was this President who said, he “will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days,” but that hasn’t been true – many bills have been signed within hours or days of passage.
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It was this President who said, “we’ll have the negotiations (about healthcare) televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies,” instead, the meetings were held behind closed doors.
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It was this President who said he was, “committed to returning earmarks to less than $7.8 billion a year, the level they were at before 1994." However, for the fiscal year 2010, total earmarks are costing taxpayers $15.9 billion.
As I’ve said many times before, elections have consequences – but at least we can do something about it come November.
