Staggering $5 Billion in ObamaCare Premium Subsidies Will Permit Abortion Coverage

Let’s go back in time to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, now known as ObamaCare, in 2010. At the eleventh hour when passage was in doubt due to concern that abortion coverage would be included, President Obama signed a phony Executive Order stating that ObamaCare would not provide abortion coverage. The brave pro-life Democrats who were holding out for an amendment to the Act which would ensure that abortion would not be covered “bought” the phony Executive Order, which has no statutory authority, and caved at the last minute. It is clear at this point that President Obama had no intention of denying abortion coverage under his signature Act, and does not care that taxpayers are forced to underwrite the coverage.

Fast forward to enforcement of ObamaCare. The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) released a comprehensive evaluation of ObamaCare which reveals that a staggering $5 billion in premium subsidies under the Act will permit coverage for elective abortions. And counting, as the premium subsidies will dramatically increase in the future.

Here’s the rub for those of us in Wisconsin. ObamaCare allows individual states to opt-out of abortion coverage in the health care exchanges as Wisconsin did through passage of a law. Wisconsin taxpayers will not provide abortion coverage for plans covering Wisconsin residents. But the complicated nature of the law forces us to pay for abortion coverage in the 26 states which did not pass opt-out laws.

Under decades of federal policy, taxpayers did not pay for abortions under the Hyde Amendment, the Federal Employees Health Benefits program and other federal programs. No longer is the taxpayer protected from tax-subsidized abortion coverage, thanks to ObamaCare.