HHS Secretary Sebelius: Time for "Re-Education" Effort on Pro-Abortion Health Care
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 1, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Frustrated that Americans are not rallying around the pro-abortion health care plan Presdient Barack Obama signed, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is promoting a "re-education" campaign designed to persuade Americans of its benefits.
“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.
She said the Obama administration has “a lot of reeducation to do” heading into the midterm congressional elections in November, where polls show pro-abortion Democrats who voted for the ObamaCare bill are projected to lose by a landslide.
Sebelius blamed “misinformation given on a 24/7 basis” by Republicans and conservative and pro-life groups opposed to the pro-abortion health care measure is making it so Americans are opposed to it. She said seniors — concerned about the rationing in the bill — “have been a target of a lot of the misinformation."
“Once people understand that [the rebate checks are] just one of the new features for Medicare beneficiaries, they become increasingly more enthusiastic,” Sebelius told ABC News. “They’re worried about what happens to their benefits in the future, worried about what happens to the overall stability of Medicare."
Sebelius’ desire to lobby voters comes after a new poll showing a sharp drop in support for the pro-abortion, government-run health care plan in August.
A new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll has support dropping 7 percent to just 43 percent. Opposition rose 10 percentage points to 45 percent — the weakest showing for ObamaCare since Kaiser’s poll in May.
Democrats hoped support for ObamaCare would increase as the elections drew closer and it could tout some of the provisions they believe the public would support. But Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, admits that’s not happening.
“Public opinion on health reform has been stuck in a fairly narrow band and is not changing dramatically,” he said.
Forty-two percent of respondents said health care reform will play an “extremely important” role in their mid-term election decisions — with many Republicans saying so because they intend to vote against members of Congress who voted for the pro-abortion health care plan.
Meanwhile, 70 percent of the Kaiser poll’s respondents said they oppose the “individual mandate” making it so Americans are forced to buy insurance coverage — which could include abortion coverage.
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