Health Care Bill Includes Monthly Abortion Premium: House Minority Leader Boehner

Health Care Bill Includes Monthly Abortion Premium: House Minority Leader Boehner

By James Tillman

November 6, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to House Republican Leader John Boehner, the government-run health care bill being considered in Congress would include "a monthly abortion premium ... [to] be charged of all enrollees in the government-run plan."

On his blog Boehner states that this premium "will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account - and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services."

He continues: "Section 213 [of the bill] describes the process in which the Health Benefits Commissioner is to assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run plan. The Commissioner must charge at a minimum 1$ per enrollee per month."

His statement immediately gathered attention among those favoring the health care bill, who denied that Boehner's post accurately portrayed the situation.

According to Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, however, "Boehner's post is perfectly accurate."

Johnson told David Brody of CBN News that "we call it the 'abortion surcharge.' It is just one more thing illustrating what we've been saying: The bill explicitly authorizes the big new federal government health insurance plan, the public option, to pay for all elective abortions."

Nevertheless, Johnson continued by saying that "even if the Democratic leadership struck out the 'abortion surcharge,' the same fundamental problem would remain: The 'public option' is a federal agency program, and when it pays for elective abortions, that is federal funding of abortion on demand -- no matter what convoluted cloaking devices the pro-abortion politicians invent to try to conceal what they are doing."

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