The White House wants the abortion dispute over health care reform to go away. It won't. And now another problem. The respected, non-partisan factcheck.org says the President has it wrong. Time to send the White House a present. See below:
It should be pointed out that Factcheck.org has sided with the White House many times during this debate on health care. They have debunked countless false claims.
The last thing The White House needs is conservative and moderate Democrats rebelling against the administration's health care plan as they quote from Factcheck.org on the floor of the house. Bad audio and video.
Now read below from Factcheck.org. Full link here.
Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.
President Obama said Wednesday that’s "not true" and among several "fabrications" being spread by "people who are bearing false witness." But abortion foes say it’s the president who’s making a false claim. "President Obama today brazenly misrepresented the abortion-related component" of health care legislation, said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. So which side is right?
The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new "public" insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them. Obama has said in the past that "reproductive services" would be covered by his public plan, so it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the "public plan" would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions "fabrications."