Here are some things to know and do during this session.
Action Item: Obamacare replacement
Next week, February 21-26, Congress will be in recess (district work period.) When they return, we expect committees to begin drafting budget reconciliation legislation, which may contain the following:
1. Language to repeal some or all of Obamacare
2. Elements of healthcare replacement and
3. Language to defund Planned Parenthood
Number 2 is of most immediate concern!
It is urgent that you reach out to your pro-life lawmakers to urge that any healthcare replacement legislation must explicitly exclude abortion coverage in federally subsidized healthcare plans.
Tell your lawmakers:
- Federal subsidies must not be used to purchase plans that cover elective abortion. The prohibition must be written into the underlying healthcare legislation, not something that is “fixed later.”
- Insurers must not be federally mandated to cover abortion and there must be robust conscience protections for health care providers.
- They should retain employer paid health insurance and keep it fully untaxed so that Americans who have employer-based insurance have continued access to quality healthcare to preserve their lives and good healthcare, rather than care that would be reduced and rationed more each year due to caps on deductibility.
Background:
Abortion spending restrictions save lives! There are, by conservative estimate, more than two million Americans who were born alive and are with us today, who would have been aborted if the Hyde Amendment had not been in place. The Guttmacher Institute has termed this a “tragic result,” but NRLC regards it as a major pro-life success story. The Hyde Amendment is the most successful domestic “abortion reduction” policy ever enacted by Congress. However, it is likely that any replacement plan will be funded outside the regular appropriations process, so the Hyde Amendment would not affect it – it is necessary to enact air-tight pro-life language in the text of the new law.
Everyone,
A vote has been scheduled for this Thursday, February 16th in the U.S. House of Representatives on H. J. Res. 43, sponsored by Rep. Diane Black (R-TN). This resolution would use the Congressional Review Act to nullify an 11th hour Obama Administration rule designed to prevent states from redirecting Title X funds away from unsuitable organizations such as Planned Parenthood. NRLC intends to include the roll call on final passage of H. J. Res. 43 in our scorecard of key right-to-life votes of the 115th Congress.
This issue is separate and distinct from any Federal effort to defund Planned Parenthood.
In recent years, several states receiving Title X family planning grants have opted to direct those funds to county health departments, community health centers, or other types of providers, in preference to organizations engaged in objectionable activities, such as Planned Parenthood, a mega-marketer of abortion that has also been involved in fetal organ trafficking.
H.J. Res. 43, if passed by the Senate and signed by the President, would mean that states, if they chose, could continue to attempt to redirect Title X funds away from objectionable organizations.
