Tag Archives: H.R. 3200

Healthcare Bill Goes from Bad to Worse

December 22, 2009

Erick Erickson at Red State is reporting a troubling late addition to the Health Care Legislation.  Quote from Red State:

Reid has slipped in a provision into the health care legislation prohibiting future Congresses from changing any regulations imposed on Americans by the Independent Medicare [note: originally referred to as "medical"] Advisory Boards, which are commonly called the “Death Panels.

harry reidOne more reason to work to defeat this terrible legislation.  Its important for Catholics not to give up and continue to let Congress know that this cannot stand.   Here is a story that quotes the Bishops and other prolife leaders.

We at St Michael Society ask that you take a moment during this busy week to join the fight.  Stop the Abortion Mandate has some great tools that you can use.

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Catholic Bishops Ask for Your Help to Stop Abortion Funding

October 29, 2009

Congress is preparing to debate health care reform legislation.  The Catholic bishops of the United States strongly support genuine health care reform that protects the life and dignity of all, from the moment of conception until natural death. However, all current bills are seriously deficient on abortion and conscience rights, and do not yet provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor.

With this link, you’ll find a special flier from the US Bishops Conference that you can share with others asking us to please contact your Representative and Senators immediately and urge them to fix these bills with pro-life amendments. 

Additionally this web address that allows you to send an email message to Congress with a click of a button. The bishops have asked for our swift action and the commitment of our prayers for this critical effort.  Thank you for your help.  We can help make sure that health care reform will be about saving lives, not destroying them.  

Let us pray:

That Congress will act to ensure that needed health care reform will truly protect the life, dignity and health care of all and that we will raise our voices to protect the unborn and the most vulnerable and to preserve our freedom of conscience. We pray to the Lord.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post is excerpted from a USCCB letter.

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Backing Up Bart

October 23, 2009

Healthcare reform is coming down to the wire and the Associated Press notes this morning that abortion is indeed dividing House Democrats. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is pulling out all the stops to make sure she has the votes she needs to pass a healthcare reform bill – and to make sure that abortion will be paid for by government dollars.

bart_stupak_official_109th_congress_photoBut one Democratic Congressman is doing everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen. Congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan and a Catholic, is bucking his party leaders and standing up for the unborn. He has an amendment that says in plain language no government funds will be used to fund abortion through healthcare.

In fact, Stupak’s amendment (Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) is the co-sponsor) is the onlyway that abortion will be excluded from the healthcare bill.

 Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) says that the Dems have done everything they can to make sure abortion is not included in healthcare. Um….right. Then why did you vote down at least 5 different amendments in committee that would have explicitly included abortion? Oh right, because you have 100% pro-abortion vote rating from NARAL.

But what about the Hyde Amendment, doesn’t that already make sure the government doesn’t fund abortions? Nope, it sure doesn’t. Want to read why? See here and here.

How It’s Going to Go Down

Since Congress is ultimately a governing body and makes laws, it means sometimes they do complicated things that we members of the general public could care less about. However, this time we have to pay attention.thumbs-up

Congressman Stupak’s amendment must be allowed on the House floor for a vote to make sure abortion is excluded from healthcare. But pro-abortion Catholic Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to give the okay to let it go to the floor.

Stupak made is clear to Pelosi that unless his amendment comes to the floor for a vote, he will vote with the Republicans to stop the debate on the health care bill – which has to happen for the giant, massive H.R. 3200 to come to the floor for a vote at all.

If Stupak and his pro-life Democrat colleagues are successful in stopping the House from adopting the rules for debate, Pelosi may not be able to have a vote at all on healthcare reform. The Associated Press story this morning says that Stupak may very well have the votes to do that.

Pelosi and her pro-choice allies have repeatedly said that abortion is not included in healthcare reform. If they are so confident, why not let a specific exclusion of abortion be included in the bill?

 What can you do?

 1)      Thank Congressman Stupak for standing up for the unborn. He’s in a difficult position and is doing the right thing. Send him a note here.

2)      Contact Speaker Pelosi’s office and tell her to allow a vote on Congressman Stupak’s amendment. Contact her office here.

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US Bishops: Ready to Oppose Healthcare If Principles Aren’t Met

October 8, 2009

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USSCB) made it crystal clear today that current healthcare legislation does NOT mean their concerns of: 1) making sure government funds do not pay for abortions and 2) that conscience rights are protected.

It gets better.

The bishops say in this new letter that they will continue to work with Congress but -

“If final legislation does not meet our principles, we will have no choice but to oppose the bill.”

USSCB LogoThe USSCB has always advocated for some type of healthcare reform since Catholic moral teachings say that physical health is a gift entrusted to us by God. Here’s what the Catechism says:

2288: We must take reasonable care of [life and physical health], taking into account the needs of others and the common good.  Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance. [emphasis mine]

But the killing of the unborn come above anything else, as it should. Abortion is a grave moral evil and making healthcare out to be a moral right, which many have done, should never include the government funding of such an act.

The Bishops aren’t fooled by the clever rhetoric of the Obama Administration and the phony compromises put forth by pro-abortion Members of Congress.

See the full letter from the bishops here: www.usccb.org/sdwp/national/2009-10-08-healthcare-letter-congress.pdf.

 

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Gibbs Hasn’t Gotten the Memo

October 8, 2009

Gibbs photoAt the daily press briefing yesterday, Fred Lucas of CNSNews.com asked President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, about abortion funding in healthcare reform:

Lucas: Thanks, Robert. It’s a question on health care, actually; two questions. First, in a letter to senators last week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said that, quoting, “So far the health reform bills considered in the committee, including the new Senate Finance Committee bill, have not met the President’s challenge of barring the use of federal dollars for abortion.” Is that statement wrong?

MR. GIBBS: Well, I don’t want to get me in trouble at church, but I would mention there’s a law that precludes the use of federal funds for abortion that isn’t going to be changed in these health care bills.

L:ucas: There have been, though, several amendments that would explicitly bar abortions, that would therefore reject it, some of those amendments by Democrats –

MR. GIBBS: Again, there’s a fairly well documented federal law that prevents it.

Gibbs is either blissfully ignorant or is outright being deceptive. There have been a slew of stories on how abortion is paid for through the current proposals of healthcare reform legislation.  The Associated Press, TIME Magazine, and FactCheck.org, just to name a few, have all confirmed the government will fund abortions and that the Hyde Amendment does not pertain to healthcare reform.

The Susan B. Anthony List explains how politicians, and now Obama’s main spokesman, are hiding behind the Hyde Amendment when asked about abortion funding in the healthcare bill through this short and humorous video.

And Stop the Abortion Mandate has a chart that clearly shows the Hyde Amendment only applies to funds allocated to Medicaid through the Health & Human Services Department, not through the new revenue stream that is created by the healthcare reform proposals.

And National Right to Life and LifeNews.com also clearly explain why Hyde does not pertain to healthcare reform.

Robert Gibbs needs to be truthful about the government funding abortions in healthcare. But then he’d have to face the huge majority of Americans who oppose funding abortion with government money.

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Hiding Behind the Hyde Amendment

October 5, 2009

The Susan B. Anthony List has taken a creative and somewhat humorous approach in attempting to explain why the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits government money from funding some abortions, does NOT apply to current healthcare proposals. Many elected officials are hiding behind the Hyde Amendment when questioned by their constituents or the media on whether or not abortion will be funded by government money through healthcare.

In reality, the Hyde Amendment is completely sidestepped in current healthcare proposals and does not apply, which opens up an entire new source of money in the government that will go to funding abortions.

Here’s a 70 second explanation:

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Abortion a Stumbling Block for Healthcare Reform?

October 2, 2009

No one fooled by Capps Amendment…Rep. Bart Stupak holding his ground…Dems working on 2nd phony amendment…

Whenever the liberal Dems are pressed on whether or not abortion is funded by government dollars through healthcare, they often point back to the Capps Amendment in the House bill, which they say makes sure gov dollars aren’t spent on elective abortions. Of course, unless they are Nancy Pelosi, who doublespeaks when asked about it this summer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOMDyvVJad0.  

Fortunately for the majority of Americans who don’t want the government to fund abortions through healthcare, Congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan, is holding his ground against President Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Stupak is pushing for an explicit exclusion of abortion to be written into healthcare legislation – and if he doesn’t get it, he says he’s got 40 votes against healthcare reform, something that Pelosi just can’t afford.

US News & World Report has a great Q&A with Stupak on his recent phone call with President Obama on abortion funding in healthcare. The gist is that Stupak is holding his ground and refuses to concede that the Capps Amendment prohibits gov money from paying for abortion.

So what to do now?

Well, Rep. Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and who has a pro-choice voting record even Nancy Pelosi would be envious of, wants to come up with a “compromise” with some of the more moderate members of Stupak’s coalition (read: former-pro-lifer-but-still-portrayed-as-pro-lifer Rep. Tim Ryan). He wants to strip away Stupak’s support bit by bit till he has the votes needed to pass a phony compromise, claim victory and hand the bill over to Pelosi. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Colorado Democrat, admitted as much.

Doug Johnson, the legislative director at National Right to Life, blows up the rhetoric once again:

 ”Pelosi and Waxman are working on cosmetic changes to the Capps Amendment, which they will then try to peddle as an even-more-generous ‘compromise’ by the pro-abortion side (but which in reality will put the federal government into the elective abortion business in both the public plan and the premium subsidy program).”

Johnson also says that even if the House members adopt the new Waxman language, it doesn’t alleviate the concern of abortion funding found in the public option. In fact, the government option “problem is very important and separate and distinct from the premium-subsidy problem.”

TIME Magazine, the independent FactCheck.org and the Associated Press, among others, have all confirmed that abortion will be paid for using government dollars with the current healthcare plan.

For more info on the Capps Amendment and other talking points, see www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com.

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183 Members of Congress Sign Letter to Speaker Pelosi Urging Abortion Vote

September 30, 2009

183 Democrat and Republican Members of Congress signed a letter urging Speaker Pelosi to allow a vote on the pro-life amendment to be offered by Reps. Stupak and Pitts. The New York Times ran a story outlining the importance of the abortion issue in House consideration of health care reform. We thought you might be interested in the letter found here.

“Proposed healthcare reform legislation, H.R. 3200, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, radically departs from the current federal government policy of not paying for elective abortion or subsidizing plans that cover abortion. None of the bill reported out of the three committees of jurisdiction have addressed our serious concerns about public funding of abortion.”

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