Pro-life senators are condemning Senate Democrats for supporting Obamacare enhanced subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortions and gender transitions.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has made extending government health care spending that was intended to be a temporary COVID-era benefit a central part of his fight in shutting down the government.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has a theory on why that is. One of the Democratic Party’s fundamental reasons, he said, is that “they want to kill babies in the womb.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., told The Daily Signal, “It’s disgusting that Democrats are shutting down the government to continue to hide the failures of Obamacare with massive taxpayer-funded subsidy checks to insurance companies that can fund abortions and [transgender] surgeries.”
“Republicans cannot allow American taxpayers to foot the bill for Democrats’ liberal wish list that lets this happen,” the Florida senator said.
Autumn Christensen, the senior policy adviser at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told The Daily Signal that “Republicans have consistently stood against taxpayer-funded abortion in Obamacare, and we are confident they will continue to do so. Extending subsidies without Hyde is a clear vote to expand abortion on demand, and every such vote will be scored by SBA Pro-Life America.”
The Hyde Amendment, which dates back to the mid-1970s, prohibits federal money from going to pay for abortions—except in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Abortion has remained subsidized by Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, through a legislative workaround, however.
Measures that would have increased protections of federal dollars from going to abortion failed to be included in Obamacare when it was passed in 2010. A bipartisan proposal known as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment would have extended Hyde Amendment-like protections to Obamacare subsidized insurance plans. That proposal effectively banned federal taxpayer dollars from directly going to fund abortions or to insurance plans that cover abortions (with the exceptions of cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother is threatened). It passed the House with dozens of votes from Democrat members, but was not supported in the Senate.
“Americans’ tax dollars should never be used to fund the killing of unborn children or dangerous gender transition procedures. We need to end the Schumer Shutdown so we can make health care more affordable, not subsidize Democrats’ radical anti-family, anti-patient agenda,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, told The Daily Signal.
When asked whether Congress could pass legislation like the Stupak-Pitts Amendment today, Johnson replied in the negative.
What’s more, several organizations have sounded the alarm about several states, such as Colorado, that permit federally funded insurance programs to pay for transgender procedures.
“[A]ny Republican member of Congress who’s ever professed pro-life views, I don’t see how they could possibly vote for an extension of these, again, temporary COVID pandemic, enhanced subsidies that would perpetuate a massive fraud and fund abortions and transgender surgeries, probably for minors,” Johnson added.
The Wisconsin senator also cited an Oct. 5 Washington Post editorial that opined, “The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act was never actually affordable.” He outlined how the government program was forcing “a very small percentage of the American population to bear the full cost of covering everybody with preexisting conditions.”
Johnson explained that there were likely massive amounts of fraud in the temporary COVID-19 pandemic-era enhanced subsidies, noting that they created plans without premiums.
“Tens of billions of dollars flowing into insurance companies taking off commissions to unscrupulous brokers and agents who are signing up people without their knowledge because they don’t have to pay any premiums for plans that they don’t use,” the Wisconsin senator explained.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also weighed in on the issue, telling The Daily Signal: “It’s important for Americans to realize that Senate Democrats are holding their government hostage, not just for health care for illegals, but for a host of other things voters soundly rejected last year, like federal dollars subsidizing abortion and transgender surgeries.”
He added:
They are also trying to continue a massive amount of fraud being perpetrated against American taxpayers through COVID-era Obamacare subsidies. We cannot give them one inch.
Madison LaClare, the director of federal government affairs at the National Right to Life emphasized that her organization “cannot support a bill that contains these subsidies without an amendment in place to prevent any funds from covering abortions.”
“Members of Congress are working to reach an agreement on these subsidies, and we know it is possible to continue to fund essential government services without funding abortions,” LaClare said.
