Advocacy Group Formed to Push People Into Pro-Abortion Obamacare

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 15, 2013   |   1:23PM   |   Washington, DC

A new liberal advocacy group has formed to push abortion-funding Obamacare on Americans and pressure them to sign up for the state exchanges that have it.

Enroll America, a newly formed advocacy group run by supporters of Obamacare, announced a new campaign today to sign up people for the government-run health care plan that contains no safeguards preventing taxpayer dollars from paying for abortions or going to abortion companies like Planned Parenthood.

The Hill has more on the new organization and what it will do.

The organization said it has formed partnerships with several groups of healthcare providers, including insurance companies and hospitals, while also reaching out to community groups and civic organizations.

Anne Filipic, a veteran of the Obama administration and the 2008 campaign, will lead the effort. She worked for Obama’s 2008 campaign in Iowa and Colorado, and most recently served as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Enroll America is an outgrowth of Affordable Care Act supporters — namely the advocacy group Families USA — that will try to raise awareness of the law’s coverage options. The group aims to ensure that as many people as possible enroll in the expanded Medicaid program or buy private insurance through newly created exchanges.

The number of people covered by the healthcare law will be central to evaluating its success or failure. States are also undertaking marketing and public-relations efforts to build awareness of their exchanges, which can begin enrolling customers later this year.

Nestled within the “individual mandate” in the Obamacare act — that portion of the Act requiring every American to purchase government — approved insurance or pay a penalty — is an “abortion premium mandate.” This mandate requires all persons enrolled in insurance plans that include elective abortion coverage to pay a separate premium from their own pockets to fund abortion.  As a result, many pro-life Americans will have to decide between a plan that violates their consciences by funding abortion, or a plan that may not meet their health needs.

As a knowledgeable pro-life source on Capitol Hill informed LifeNews, as authorized by Obamacare, “The final rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion” and the change to longstanding law prohibiting virtually all direct taxpayer funding of abortions (the Hyde Amendment) is accomplished through an accounting arrangement described in the Affordable Care Act and reiterated in the final rule issued today.

“To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer,” the pro-life source informed LifeNews. “The enrollee will make two payments, $1 per month for abortion and another payment for the rest of the services covered. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment.  Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to pay directly subsidize abortions.”

The pro-life advocate told LifeNews that the final HHS rule mentions, but does not address concerns about abortion coverage in “multi-state” plans administered by the Federal Government’s Office of Personell Management (OPM).

“There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act to prevent some OPM (government administered) plans from covering elective abortion, and questions remain about whether OPM multi-state plans will include elective abortion,” the pro-life source said. “If such plans do include abortion, there are concerns that the abortion coverage will even be offered in states that have prohibited abortion coverage in their state exchanges.”

The final rule indicates: “Specific standards for multi-state plans will be described in future rulemaking published by OPM…”

Set to go into effect in 2014, the provisions found in Section 1303 of the Obamacare Act compel enrollees in certain health plans to pay a separate abortion premium from their own pocket, without the ability to decline abortion coverage based on religious or moral objection.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

Brad Mattes of the Life Issues Institute explains it this way:

Here’s how the provision essentially works: An individual enrolled in an insurance plan that covers abortions through an employer, by choice or even unknowingly, must pay an added abortion surcharge of one dollar per month. With no choice of opting out of the plan, paying for this abortion coverage is imposed whether an individual wants to or not.

This amounts to you and I being forced to take twelve dollars a year to the local Planned Parenthood or other abortion mill, place the money in the blood-stained hands of the abortionist and say, “This is to help fund the killing of innocent unborn babies.”

Obamacare even contains a clause that prevents insurance plans from letting people know about the required abortion surcharge. You won’t be notified that you’re paying into a plan that covers abortion until your time of enrollment. By then, in most cases, it’ll be too late. It’s sinister government secrecy—a bureaucratic sleight of hand—that will result in wholesale abortion-on-demand provided by the government.

Take a look at the text of the law for yourself:

(3) RULES RELATING TO NOTICE—(A) NOTICE—A qualified health plan that provides for coverage of [abortions other than in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother] . . . shall provide a notice to enrollees, only as part of the summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment, of such coverage.

(B) RULES RELATING TO PAYMENTS—The notice described in subparagraph (A), any advertising used by the issuer with respect to the plan, any information provided by the Exchange, and any other information specified by the Secretary shall provide information only with respect to the total amount of the combined payments for [abortions other than in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother] (emphasis added).

Why would the law include such wording unless they didn’t want Americans to know what they’re buying until it’s too late?