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Obamacare and $1 Abortions: Latest Rule Requires an 'Abortion Surcharge'

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Shhh... Obama's got a little secret he doesn't want you to know. You'll be paying $1 per month for abortions.

Forget all the promises Obama made about not subsidizing abortion; about people not having to pay for abortions if they didn't want to.  Forget all the speeches in which pro-lifers were ridiculed and hollered at for "lying" that Obamacare would fund abortions.  Forget the Executive Order. The latest rule to be finalized regarding Obamacare mandates $1 abortions.  Don't want to pay it?  Too bad. 

Highlights

By Jennifer Hartline
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
3/18/2012 (1 decade ago)

Published in U.S.

Keywords: abortion, Obamacare, contraception, HHS mandate, health insurance, Jennifer Hartline

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - Shhhh.... President Obama's got a little secret he doesn't want you to know.

His administration just finalized another "rule" regarding Obamacare and the insurance exchange program: $1 abortions.

Forget all the promises Obama made about not subsidizing abortion; about people not having to pay for abortions if they didn't want to.  Forget all the speeches in which pro-lifers were ridiculed and hollered at for "lying" that Obamacare would fund abortions.  Forget everything Nancy Pelosi and Kathleen Sebelius have said.  Forget the Executive Order that isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

From LifeNews.com: "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."

Senator Ben Nelson helped engineer the accounting gimmick that this mandate will utilize -- the compromise that enticed Congressman Stupak and others to bail on their commitment to Life and vote for Obamacare.  Under this shell game, the government is not technically subsidizing abortions -- you and I are by government mandate.  This is how Obamacare attempts to get around the Hyde Amendment for now.  The goal is to get rid of Hyde permanently, because then elective abortions will be covered by taxpayer funding.

Here's how it will break down:  Insurers will collect a $1 surcharge per month from each payer.  If you write checks for your insurance premiums, you'll have to write two checks; one for the premium cost, and a separate check for $1 for this "surcharge."  If it gets billed to your credit card, you'll see two separate charges; one for the premium cost and one for $1. 

The insurance companies may only disclose to the enrollee at the time of enrollment what the surcharge is for; thereafter, they are not permitted to reveal in any of their policy literature what the $1 is for.  In addition, "insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to directly subsidize abortions."

In other words, the government (that means Obama) is saying that your insurance company can only tell you what the $1 surcharge each month is for at the time you enroll, and only if you know enough already to ask them about it (since they can't disclose the $1 charge) and read the pages of fine print which is the only place in your policy where it's mentioned.  Once you enroll, if you didn't ask, Obama says they can't tell you.

Is this your idea of freedom or choice?  There's no "opting out" if your plan covers elective abortions.  You can't refuse to pay the surcharge.  Jill Stanek writes, "But if an insurance company participating in the Obamacare exchange program does offer elective abortions, everyone who buys insurance from that company will have to pay a $1 separate surcharge every month to cover the cost of abortions. It doesn't matter if you are pro-life. It doesn't matter if you're a 72-yr-old woman who will never abort. You have to pay the $1 surcharge."

Insurance companies participating in the exchange program do not have to provide elective abortion coverage, so my next question is, how many plans will be available that don't offer abortion coverage?  How limited will they be in number and in coverage? 

It seems to me that women will be the ones to really swallow the double-edged sword here.  Will there even be such a thing as a plan that offers OB/GYN care but does not cover abortion?  Will women even have the option of choosing a plan that doesn't provide abortion coverage and thus the $1 surcharge?

After all, according to this administration, "women's health care" now absolutely means contraception, abortifacients, abortion, and sterilization, without exception.  That means that insurers will either provide complete "women's health care" coverage or none at all.  Surely they won't be permitted to cover only some components of "women's health care" and refuse others, right?  It's really not hard to see this one coming.  The contraceptive mandate was just laying the foundation for this demeaning and manufactured version of "women's health care" which now regards fertility as a disease.

This President's modus operandi has been deny, deny, accuse, deny some more.  Lie.  Mandate.  Use accounting schemes to mislead and obfuscate.  Violate Constitutional rights.  Cover-up and lie some more.

Will enough people protest?  C'mon, it's only $12 a year, right?  And since the surcharge goes unnamed every month, it just happens in the background, almost hidden.  Practically forgotten.  It's not called what it really is.  Much the same way we don't want to call abortion what it really is.

It ought to send chills down the spine to realize the lengths Obama has gone, and will continue to go, for the purpose of advancing abortion in the U.S..  He serves no master more than he serves abortion.

Some will think that's too harsh or unjustified a statement to make about the President.  What about respect for the Office, some will ask?  I can only say that his actions are dishonest, dictatorial, and evil.  He has revealed his true priorities, and they are deadly.  He has demonstrated that no organization in America is more important to him than Planned Parenthood.  Obama is going after states that try to defund Planned Parenthood by withholding their Medicaid funding.  This man who claims to champion women's health will gladly jeopardize real health care for women for the sake of protecting Planned Parenthood.

As a state senator, Obama voted against a bill identical to the Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act -- a bill designed to ensure babies who survived the first attempt on their lives were not subjected to a second attempt but were given the medical care they needed.  He voted in favor of infanticide, and did so with his customary verbosity so as to try and conceal the fact that he thought babies who survived an abortion didn't require the care of a doctor who wasn't just trying to kill them moments before.  No amount of eloquent spin can hide that fact.

He is not a respectable leader.  He doesn't want to be the leader of a free republic -- he wants to be King.  He hands down mandates from on-high.  Then he coerces private companies into withholding the truth and helping him deceive the American people.

And astonishingly, he still has the support of a great many Catholics. Still, many Americans think he is a good President who should be given a second term.  He arrogantly tramples on fundamental Constitutional rights, and still people defend and applaud him.  Those folks must enjoy the slavery of government dictates and control.  They must enjoy being deceived and manipulated.  It boggles the mind.

If Obamacare is not repealed or found unconstitutional, these rules go into effect in 2014.  In just a few months, we have one last chance to stop all this and ensure that Barack Obama is a one-term President.  If we reward his duplicity with four more years, then we deserve every deceitful, dictatorial thing he will do with those years.

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Jennifer Hartline is a grateful Catholic, a proud Army wife and homeschooling mother of three children.  She is a contributing writer for Catholic Online.  Visit her online at Wake Up, Deborah!

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