“Today’s announcement by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA-07) that the House of Representatives will vote next week on (H.R. 7), the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, is welcomed news for the majority of Americans who do not want their tax dollars paying for the grisly business of abortion,” said U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, co-chair of the House Bipartisan Pro-Life Caucus and author of H.R. 7.
“The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, co-sponsored by 165 House Members of the House and a quarter of the Senate, will make existing policies like the Hyde Amendment permanent—and will rid Obamacare of its massive expansion of public funding for abortion insurance plans,” Smith said.
In response to the implementation of Obamacare, the bill has been updated, to end public funding for abortion coverage in Obamacare as of January 2015. In addition, H.R. 7 has been amended to include, H.R. 3279, the “Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act.” This important improvement will ensure that until H.R. 7 goes into full effect, consumers will be able to easily identify which Obamacare exchange plans include abortion on demand.
“In the run up to passage of Obamacare, Americans were repeatedly told by President Obama himself, including in a speech to a joint session of Congress in September 2009 that ‘under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions,’” Smith said.
“In an eleventh hour ploy to garner the votes of a remnant of pro-life congressional democrats absolutely needed for passage in the House, President Obama issued an executive order now infamous that said that Obamacare ‘maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to newly created health insurance exchanges.’”
“Like the President’s promise that you can keep your insurance plan if you like it, the massive public funding for abortion in Obamacare insurance plans breaks another solemn presidential promise.
“At its core, the Hyde Amendment has two parts. It not only prohibits funding for most abortions but bans funding for insurance plans that include elective abortion.
“Under Obamacare, billions of dollars in the form of tax credits are today buying abortion-subsidizing health insurance plans in exchanges throughout the country. For example, of the 112 health insurance plans available to members of Congress and staff, most, that is, 103 plans pay for abortion on demand.
“Unfortunately for most consumers, finding out if the plans on their state’s exchange or the Federally Facilitated Marketplace covers abortion is almost impossible because the information is not consistently available. This is vital information since the many plans that include elective abortion are required by law to impose a mandatory monthly abortion surcharge. These surcharges are not optional. Once you sign up for a plan with abortion coverage, you MUST pay the surcharge. Doubtlessly there are many Americans who would object to paying a surcharge into a fund to be used for the purpose of destroying innocent human lives,” Smith said.
The changes to the bill include:
- The provisions preventing taxpayer funding for abortion under the ACA go into effect for plan years beginning January 1, 2015.
- Between enactment and January 1, 2015, the transparency requirements included in H.R. 3279, the Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act will ensure that consumers are fully informed about abortion coverage and surcharges in plans sold on the exchanges.
- Technical corrections are made to eliminate the accounting gimmicks and secrecy clauses in PL 111-148. In addition conforming language is included to ensure that no multi-state plan includes elective abortion (instead of the current language only requiring that one plan has to exclude abortion language).
- Tax provisions not relevant to the ACA have been removed.
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