Republicans in the House of Representatives have pulled the bill to defund Planned Parenthood after conservative Republicans said the legislation did not go far enough in repealing ObamaCare.
President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan worked overtime to try to convince all Republicans to support the bill and made last-minute changes to it on Thursday night — but those changes were apparently not enough to encourage some more liberal and some more conservative Republicans to support the measure.
The White House confirmed the decision to pull the bill, which occurred just before House Republicans recessed the House to hold a meeting among all Republican lawmakers. A GOP leadership aide said Republicans were meeting in the Capitol basement to talk about the status of the bill.
The White House on Thursday agreed to changes to woo Freedom Caucus support, including adding an amendment to the bill that repeals the federal requirement for insurers to cover essential health benefits. The amendment would require states to outline the benefits.
But the changes weren’t enough to persuade some reluctant moderates who are worried about people in their districts losing coverage and making themselves open to attacks from Democrats in 2018.
Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., a moderate, said that he was still no on the bill after a procedural vote on Friday.
What doomed the bill was what Republicans couldn’t include in there: a full repeal of Obamacare. Republicans planned to use an arcane procedure called reconciliation to get the bill through the Senate with simply 51 votes and not the 60 needed for a filibuster.
But to use reconciliation, a bill must decrease the deficit and address spending and budgetary levels.
Additional reports indicate President Trump pulled the bill:
President Trump said Friday that he and Republican House leaders have pulled a key health care bill from consideration, ending for now efforts to replace and repeal Obamacare.
“We just pulled it,” Mr. Trump told Robert Costa, a reporter for The Washington Post, in a phone call.
A GOP leadership aide said the speaker spoke to Mr. Trump at 3 p.m., and the president asked him to pull the bill.
The legislation enjoyed the support of pro-life groups like the Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life for defunding Planned Parenthood and closing abortion-funding loopholes in Obamacare.
SIGN THE PETITION! Congress Must De-Fund Planned Parenthood Immediately
The National Right to Life Committee set out reasons to LifeNews.com why it is supporting the bill.
“This legislation would eliminate multiple abortion-subsidizing and abortion-expanding provisions of the Obama Health Care law or the PPACA. The PPACA contains multiple provisions authorizing federal subsidies for abortion and abortion-expanding regulatory mandates,” it said. ”
A 2014 GAO report revealed that over 1,000 federally subsidized plans nationwide were covering elective abortion. H.R. 1628 would repeal the provisions of law that created this system, and prohibit any future federal tax credits from subsidizing the purchase of plans that cover elective abortion, thereby restoring the longstanding principles of the Hyde Amendment with respect to federally funded health coverage.”
National Right to Life told LifeNews: “We are supporting H.R. 1628 because it: 1) prevents credits from being used for plans that pay for abortions, 2) eliminates about 85% of federal PP funding for the next year, 3) preserves non-taxed employer provided health plans and 4) postpones the “Cadillac tax” until 2026.”
As LifeNews.com reported, President Donald Trump made an offer to the Planned Parenthood abortion company that it would not only keep its funding but would increase its taxcpayer funding if it would stop killing babies in abortions and focus on legitimate non-abortion healthcare. But Planned Parenthood said no.
As a result, Republicans in Congress have released the American Health Care Act. Their plan to repeal Obamacare includes provisions that would revoke funding for Planned Parenthood. Under the legislation there is a provision in the bill that prohibits states from using “direct spending” on “prohibited entities” with federal funds allocated from the legislation and those entities include any entity that “provides for abortions.” That means the nation’s biggest abortion corporation — Planned Parenthood.
And it’s not happy.
In an email Planned Parenthood sent to its supports, the abortion giant said: “The threat we’ve been warning about has just hit the House of Representatives. Republican leadership introduced a bill that would cut millions of patients off from care at Planned Parenthood health center.”
The new language also prohibits premium tax credits from being used to purchase plans that offer elective abortion coverage — the abortion funding component of Obamacare. Between 2018 and 2020, under the proposal, the small business tax credit generally is not available with respect to a qualified health plan that provides coverage relating to elective abortions.
A recent survey found that community health centers not only provide more comprehensive health care than Planned Parenthood, excluding abortions, they also outnumber the abortion group’s facilities by 20 to one.
The U.S. Senate took the first step in paving the way for a vote on defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion corporation in early January. The Senate approved on a party-line vote a budget resolution bill. This repeal resolution is the first step in the process to re-direct Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding to legitimate health care entities and repeal Obamacare using the budget reconciliation procedure.
President Donald Trump promised to sign a bill that would defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.
Recent polls also indicate Americans support the defunding efforts. New polling found 56 percent of Americans in battleground states want Planned Parenthood defunded.
The expose’ videos catching Planned Parenthood officials selling the body parts of aborted babies have shocked the nation. Here is a list of all twelve:
- In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
- In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.
- In the third video: Holly O’Donnell, a former Stem Express employee who worked inside a Planned Parenthood clinic, detailed first-hand the unspeakable atrocities and how she fainted in horror over handling baby legs.
- In the fourth video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Savita Ginde stated, “We don’t want to do just a flat-fee (per baby) of like, $200. A per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it.” She also laughed while looking at a plate of fetal kidneys that were “good to go.”
- In the fifth video: Melissa Farrell of Planned Parenthood-Gulf Coast in Houston boasted of Planned Parenthood’s skill in obtaining “intact fetal cadavers” and how her “research” department “contributes so much to the bottom line of our organization here, you know we’re one of the largest affiliates, our Research Department is the largest in the United States.”
- In the sixth video: Holly O’Donnell described technicians taking fetal parts without patient consent: “There were times when they would just take what they wanted. And these mothers don’t know. And there’s no way they would know.”
- In the seventh and perhaps most disturbing video: Holly O’Donnell described the harvesting, or “procurement,” of organs from a nearly intact late-term fetus aborted at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte’s Alameda clinic in San Jose, CA. “‘You want to see something kind of cool,’” O’Donnell says her supervisor asked her. “And she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think.”
- In the eighth video: StemExpress CEO Cate Dyer admits Planned Parenthood sells “a lot of” fully intact aborted babies.
- The ninth video: catches a Planned Parenthood medical director discussing how the abortion company sells fully intact aborted babies — including one who “just fell out” of the womb.
- The 10th video: catches the nation’s biggest abortion business selling specific body parts — including the heart, eyes and “gonads” of unborn babies. The video also shows the shocking ways in which Planned Parenthood officials admit that they are breaking federal law by selling aborted baby body parts for profit.
- Unreleased Videos: Unreleased videos from CMP show Deb Vanderhei of Planned Parenthood caught on tape talking about how Planned Parenthood abortion business affiliates may “want to increase revenue [from selling baby parts] but we can’t stop them…” Another video has a woman talking about the “financial incentives” of selling aborted baby body parts.
- The 11th video: catches a Texas Planned Parenthood abortionist planning to sell the intact heads of aborted babies for research. Amna Dermish is caught on tape describing an illegal partial-birth abortion procedure to terminate living, late-term unborn babies which she hopes will yield intact fetal heads for brain harvesting.
- The 12th video in the series shows new footage of Jennefer Russo, medical director at Planned Parenthood in Orange County, California, describing to undercover investigators how her abortion business tries to harvest intact aborted babies’ bodies for a local for-profit biotech company and changes the abortion procedure to do so.
