Tony Perkins at the Family Research Council comments:
In a tightly controlled press conference yesterday afternoon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released her 1,990 page version of health care overhaul. What does it cost, you ask? That depends on who you talk to. Speaker Pelosi would like us to believe that the bill is cheap--but in truth, the plan clocks in at over $1.5 trillion dollars when you include the companion "Doc Fix" bill also introduced yesterday. Instead of truly reforming the health care system, the Speaker's bill is more about social engineering than helping those in need. The new legislation, H.R. 3962, guarantees that the government would use tax dollars to fund abortions by using the marketing gimmicks that were prevalent in the Capps amendment.
And the rewards for abortionists don't end there. The Speaker also added a separate bill, the Indian Health legislation, into her overall reform. The move is crafty, because Speaker Pelosi has
tied up the Indian Health bill in committee to keep pro-life restrictions from being included. Also missing from H.R. 3962 are protections that appeared in earlier bills to ban federal promotion of assisted suicide (Section 240) and rationing. Other sections of the bill would rewrite current tax law and redefine the family by allowing domestic partners to be the equivalent of spouses (Section 571).
If that weren't enough, Pelosi's plan seeks federal funding for sexual predators (Section 713) and also, in a reward to trial lawyers, prohibits states from using tort reform to reduce health care costs. Further expanding the nanny state, the bill also seeks to regulate vending machines (Section 2572). And while the unborn are left vulnerable, pets are not. Speaker Pelosi makes sure that veterinarians are eligible for millions in scholarships and hand outs (Sections 340m/765). There is still time to make your voice heard. Please sign our petition to keep abortion out of health care and tune into our webcast Tuesday night to learn more about the action you can take!
FRC followed up with a Press Release
New Democratic Health Bill Strips Federal Pro-Life Protections:
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement concerning the new proposal:
"Speaker Pelosi might as well rename her bill the 'Government Funded Abortions for America Act.' This almost 2,000 page bill, which will cost more than one trillion dollars, guts the Hyde Amendment abortion funding ban by explicitly authorizing federal funding for elective abortion funding in the government option. The bill also subsidizes health plans that cover all elective abortions.
"Speaker Pelosi's commitment to federally funded abortion is, apparently, absolute. She is ignoring the roughly 70 percent of the American people who, polls show, consistently oppose federal funding of elective abortion, which indisputably is what this new health bill does.
"In another gift to the abortion industry, she added the Indian Health provision to the bill without a permanent abortion funding ban. Such a provision passed in the Senate in the last Congress, but Speaker Pelosi is so desperate to avoid adding the Hyde Amendment to the overall health care bill that she avoided adding this provision to permanently exclude paying for abortion in this new section on Indian Health Care.
"Even more blatantly, Speaker Pelosi took out a key provision that would ensure that when patients are given information on end-of-life options it would not include physician-assisted suicide. Instead, she offered the new bill that includes end-of-life 'counseling' without ensuring that such 'counseling' will not encourage physician-assisted suicide as already occurs in Oregon and Washington.
"From womb to tomb, this legislation would use funds garnered from taxpayers to fund abortions and encourage seniors to end their lives early in states such as Oregon and Washington. Consequently, it is paramount that Members of both parties support amendments to prevent a massive new wave of federal funding for abortion, to permanently prevent abortion funding in Indian Health and to re-insert the language preventing physician assisted suicide 'counseling'."