Washington, DC — The House of Representatives voted today to repeal the Obamacare health care law that fund abortions and prompts concerns about rationed health care.
The House voted 244-184 for repeal (vote breakdown here). Republicans strongly supported repealing the Obamacare bill, voting 239 to 0 to do so, while Democrats strongly opposed repealing the pro-abortion bill, voting 184-5 against repeal.
“ObamaCare takes away from patients the ability to make their own decisions and individual choices. Instead of letting patients and their families work with their doctors to decide the best care, ObamaCare puts Washington in the driver’s seat to make health care choices for them and their family. Taking away choice, driving up costs and making health care dramatically more expensive is not the prescription that Americans asked for,” House Republican Leader Eric Cantor said during debate.
“Despite the claims to the contrary, this law actually paves the way for federal funding of abortion, violating many in this country’s individual religious, ethical, and moral beliefs,” he said. “It is also the basis from which President Obama launched an assault on the religious freedom of millions of Americans, by requiring employers to cover items and services with which they and perhaps their employees fundamentally disagree.”
Until Democrats no longer control the Senate and White House, repeal of Obamacare will remain limited to the House. However, a new poll from Rasmussen Reports finds 80 percent of Americans think repeal is likely if Romney beats Obama and Republicans regain control of the Senate from pro-abortion Democrats.
Unhappy that the Supreme Court didn’t overturn the Obamacare law that includes taxpayer funding of abortions and rationing concerns, leading pro-life groups urged members of the House to vote to repeal the law wholesale.
In a letter to members of Congress the National Right to Life Committee told lawmakers it would score the vote on the Obamacare repeal in the annual listing of pro-life votes it scores and sends to millions of pro-life voters. NRLC is concerned about both abortion funding and health care rationing.
“NRLC vigorously opposed enactment of the Obamacare law in 2009-2010, because of its multiple provisions authorizing federal subsidies for abortion insurance, multiple provisions allowing abortion-expansive federal mandates, and multiple provisions that will place unacceptable limits on the right of vulnerable Americans to use their own money, if they choose, to obtain both health care and health insurance less likely to deny needed health care,” the pro-life group explained.
It continued: “Since its inception, the pro-life movement has been as concerned with protecting the lives of older people and people with disabilities from euthanasia, including the involuntary denial of treatment, food, and fluids necessary to prevent death, as it has been dedicated to protecting unborn children from abortion.”
Meanwhile, the Susan B. Anthony List urged members to vote for repeal as well and focused on abortion funding.
“Obamacare creates heavy federal subsidies – your tax dollars – to help pay for insurance plans that cover elective abortion,” it said in an action alert to its membership. “Millions of Americans will be enrolled – many unknowingly – in health care plans that include elective abortion coverage.”
“These plans will charge enrollees, regardless of age and gender, a minimum of $1 per month – an “abortion surcharge” that will go into an abortion slush fund. Under a rule recently issued by Health and Human Services (HHS), the existence of the “abortion surcharge” only needs to be disclosed once – in the fine print – during the enrollment process,” SBA continued. “This surcharge is included without itemization in the monthly premium and is never disclosed again.
The Supreme Court incorrectly ruled that Obamacare is constitutional, pro-life groups said in response to the decision. They are pointing out that the need is greater now than ever to defeat pro-abortion President Barack Obama and elect a pro-life Senate that will join the House in repealing the legislation.
“All voters who care about the value and dignity of human life must do everything they can to elect Mitt Romney and a Congress who are committed to repeal of ObamaCare,” said National Right to Life President Carol Tobias. “If President Obama wins re-election, it will mean massive abortion subsidies and it will put the lives of millions at risk through systematic government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical care.”
Tobias said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding most of the ObamaCare law is a call-to-action for the right-to-life electorate to work to elect a Congress and president this November committed to repealing ObamaCare in 2013, in order to prevent a future in which abortion insurance will be heavily subsidized by federal taxpayers and federal bureaucrats will be authorized to ration life-saving medical treatment.
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Under the enacted law, federal tax-based subsidies will begin in 2014 to subsidize millions of private insurance plans that will cover abortion-on-demand, including some plans (“multi-state plans”) that will be administered by the federal government. Under another provision of the law, the federal government could even order many plans that do not receive federal subsidies to cover abortion as a “preventive” service. The law also created an array of other mechanisms and funding pipelines by which access to and subsidies for abortion can be expanded if President Obama wins a second term.
Moreover, few Americans realize that under ObamaCare, private citizens’ right to spend their own money to save the lives of their own families will be subject to drastic restriction.
