Posted October 3, 2008

Your concern is well founded and your advice sound. The solution to the problem of abortion cannot be found until an understanding of the economics that drives abortion.

If one examines the increase in abortion with the increase in government spending, you will see a strong correlation. That is because it costs a lot of money to raise a child, over $170,000 and government would rather take that money for their squandering.

Abortions result from unwanted pregnancies, the pregnancies are unwanted largely because children are not affordable. The resulting tragedy is far worse that the 50 million children killed in the clinic, there are also the uncounted millions of children never conceived, killed in the heart by being unwanted.

After 20 years the effects of the missing children began to be felt, as they would have been entering the workforce and by now produced more wealth than the cost of their upbringing. Our country now falters because of their absence and our hearts are barren.

The only path to restoration is to withdraw our faith and treasure from Big Government and return them to God and family. Then children will again be wanted, affordable, and loved and prosperity will return to our land.

See more at my web site:

http://www.ameshymn.org/nothere_.htm

http://www.ameshymn.org/silent.htm

The Silent Voice

A mighty army, 50 million strong,
To save a nation, but for wrong,
And the ease for which we long,
They are no more.

Lies for cries, we know our right,
And fill our lives with each delight;
Womb-bound children yearn for the light,
But death are given.

Frantic flames seek to efface
and turn to ash each new disgrace
and keep from sight the ghastly trace
of aborted joy.

As our strength begins to fade,
Our years move from light to shade,
The awful toll we can not evade,
God's work undone.

When we near the setting sun
And our course is almost run
We'll be alone in what we've done,
No one to care.

Then the silent voice will be heard,
Tongues long stilled pronounce each word,
"As we were dying, you deferred.
We cannot save you."

Again with the long, boring, obviously biased propaganda cut and paste from the extreme right. PULEASE can we stick to original thought here! Nobody reads this stuff excepted those already indoctrinated by the greedy corporate spin machine. More big business insurance company backed phoney baloney.

What this article is saying is that two independant groups (Dr.'s and the largest senior citizen advocacy group) who should know are supporting health care reform. After all, quality health care for all US citizens sure does sound like an evil plan to me.

Opponents only want the failure of this reform for their own return to power no matter who it hurts.

Thanks for providing that AMT - pretty clear to me that federal funds will pay for any and all abortions without regard to the situation.

This bill is the biggest piece of trash that has ever come out of the House of Representatives. When your cutting costs you have to start at the bottom and work your way to the top and consider every possbility for reducing a cost. In effect the bill is treating the symptom but not the disease. Pelosi and the Democrats have chosen to attack the insurance industry instead of the medical care providers that drive the cost of the insurance premiums. The problem with this is that medical costs are going to continue to spiral out of control. What will the government do, they will simply pass the cost onto the taxpayers through either taxes, charges or more national debt. This bill does nothing to make healthcare affordable without treating the disease.

"Ellsworth's language aims to strengthen stipulations already in the bill against federal money being used to pay for abortions."

No!

Ellsworth's amendment is a sham intended to prevent an up-or-down vote on banning federal funding of abortion. It would also weaken the conscience clause.

Read on for details:


MEMORANDUM
November 5, 2009
To: Congressional staff
From: Richard Doerflinger
Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Re: The Ellsworth amendment to H.R. 3962 on abortion: Initial observations

The House leadership is asking members for reactions to new abortion language proposed
by Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IN) for H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America
Act. The Ellsworth amendment (henceforth "the amendment") is said to be a
"compromise" addressing pro-life concerns raised against the current bill.

However, on examination it is not a meaningful compromise. It addresses none of the
substantial criticisms offered by the Catholic bishops' conference and other pro-life
advocates for health care reform, and in one respect makes the bill worse. Details follow.

1. The Public Option

The current bill states that an "affordability credit" may not be used to pay for most
abortions; the amendment adds that "no other federal funds" may be so used. Logically
this should mean that the public option, the government-run health plan offered by the
Secretary of HHS to compete with private plans nationwide, cannot include abortion
coverage. While all funds in the public plan begin as private funds, in the pockets of
taxpayers and purchasers, they all become federal funds once they are paid to the
government (whether paid as taxes or premiums) -- and all abortions in the plan are paid
for by the federal government. The public plan is closely modeled in various respects on
Medicare; and as in Medicare, all funds paid out for health care are federal expenditures,
whether they began as tax dollars, premiums or co-pays. Of course Medicare is a federal
program, and it is explicit in longstanding law that all its funds are covered by the Hyde
amendment.

But then the amendment simply ignores these facts, instead setting up an elaborate
procedure for hiring contractors to "segregate" the funds paid as premiums from other
amounts paid to the government -- so the former can be used to pay directly and
specifically for elective abortions. Of course Medicare and other federal programs
frequently work through contractors, and this in no way affects the fact that these are
federal programs, the funds handled are federal funds, and the contractors are paid with
federal funds. In fact the amendment reaffirms that the HHS Secretary has the same
authority over this activity as she has over Medicare, and retains all the insurance risk. So
this money-laundering system, aside from making the operation of the public plan more
unwieldy, does nothing to address pro-life concerns. If the HHS Secretary decides to
cover elective abortions in the public plan, as H.R. 3692 allows her to do, then every
American purchasing the federal government's own health plan will be forced by the
government to pay directly for elective abortions, just as if the amendment did not exist.

2. Federal Subsidies for Private Health Plans

Under the amendment, the bill continues to violate longstanding federal policy against
using federal funds for "health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion."
Federal affordability credits will be used to purchase private plans that cover elective
abortions, and all Americans who purchase such plans will be forced to pay for those
abortions; the federal government's role will be to "segregate" purchasers' premium
dollars from the affordability credits, using an "actuarial estimate" of the average cost of
abortion procedures, so it can be claimed that no "federal funds" are used for abortions
themselves. Such a claim misses the point, as the Hyde amendment and parallel federal
provisions forbid federal funding of entire benefits packages that include elective
abortions. Moreover, the government's approach of "segregating" the supposed cost of
abortion into a distinct "abortion surcharge" charged to all purchasers only makes the
mandatory payment for abortion in these plans even more specific and direct than if the
purchaser had to pay it as part of an overall premium for health care.

The amendment does not address the bill's violation of the Hyde amendment policy
against using federal funds for pro-abortion benefits packages; nor does it address the
bill's provision for government collaboration with pro-abortion insurers to regulate how
purchasers are forced to pay for other people's abortions. It only adds that the
"segregation" of funds will follow formalities such as "generally accepted accounting
requirements," so those who purchase health coverage from pro-abortion insurers will
more clearly be forced to pay for abortions through their premiums rather than through
their tax dollars as such. Again, this simply misses the point. Purchasers will be required
to pay for these abortions just as much as if the amendment did not exist.

3. "One Plan Without Abortion"

H.R. 3962 requires that each rating area of the health insurance Exchange must include at
least one plan that includes elective abortion coverage, and one plan that does not. The
first requirement is unprecedented and totally unacceptable; no other federal program
tries to require that every region of the country must have an abortion provider. The
amendment leaves this offensive provision in place. It does, however, amend the
provision regarding the one plan without elective abortions, "freezing" the Hyde
amendment (solely for purposes of this provision) at its current standard. A health plan
will count as the local plan without elective abortions only if it excludes (at least)
abortions beyond those involving rape, incest or danger to the mother's life. Supporters
suggest that the annual Hyde amendment may well be vulnerable in future years, and this
change ensures that there will always be a private plan in each region that excludes most
abortions.

The intent behind this change seems positive. But it would only have any effect if the
Hyde amendment is rescinded. And if the Hyde amendment is rescinded, this bill will
create a much more massive problem that this amendment does not address: Regardless
of who the HHS Secretary is, this program will begin providing direct and potentially
unlimited federal taxpayer funding for elective abortions throughout the country, in both
public and private health plans. This is because the amendment does not "freeze" the
Hyde amendment at its current standard on the one issue that it is actually designed to
address: the use of federal funds for abortions and coverage including abortion. If Hyde
falls, it will be small comfort that pro-life Americans may be able to retreat to one private
refuge in each part of the country that does not make them pay for other people's
abortions through their premiums " they will be forced by the government to pay for
them anyway, through their taxes. In that event, what will be achieved?

4. "Conscience" Protection for Pro-Abortion Plans

One unambiguously positive feature of H.R. 3962 is Section 259, offered as an
amendment in committee by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA). This
section, modeled on the Weldon amendment that has been part of the Labor/HHS
appropriations bill since 2004, prevents the federal government (and any state or local
government receiving federal funds under the Act) from discriminating against a health care entity, including a health plan, because the entity does not perform, refer for, pay for
or provide coverage of abortion.

The Ellsworth amendment adds new language stating that the federal government "may
not discriminate among" health plans "on the basis of their coverage of [abortion]
services." This is weaker than the language already in Section 259 of the bill, because it
does not address discrimination by state or local governments, or forms of involvement in
abortion other than providing coverage. More notably, its only legal effect is to extend
the protection against discrimination to plans that do provide abortion coverage, an
unprecedented change in federal law. This provision actually makes the bill worse on
abortion.

In short, the Ellsworth amendment addresses no substantive criticism of H.R. 3962. It
provides for federal funding of abortion, and of coverage that includes abortion, including
direct federal funding of abortion procedures through the public plan. Its one provision
for protecting Americans from being forced to pay premium dollars for abortion will only
take effect when the government, under this bill, is forcing all Americans to pay tax
dollars for such abortions instead. And its one provision on "conscience" makes the bill
worse, by providing new protection for abortion providers. This is not a meaningful
compromise.

http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/Ellsworth/USCCBcritiqueofEllsworthAmend.pdf