Healthcare reform legislation
Senate vote within hours could determine healthcare - call now
November 20, 2009 - This weekend the U.S. Senate will hold a crucial vote on whether or not to proceed with the expensive healthcare overhaul bill that will:
* launch government funding of abortions
* threaten the conscience rights of faith-based healthcare professionals and
* deeply inject the government into the physician-patient relationship.
Read full story and call to action
National Right to Life: Polling summary
November 20, 2009 - National Right to Life has prepared a compilation of recent poll results showing that the public opposes government funding for abortion. View summary
New York Times: Haggling Over Abortion Compromise in Health Bill
Nov. 5, 2009 - The bill would establish a new government insurance plan, which would compete with private insurers around the country. Under the bill as now written, the secretary of health and human services could decide whether the public insurance option covers abortions. Douglas D. Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said Mr. Ellsworth's proposal was "a phony compromise." Read article
Baptist Press: Pro-lifers: Amendment to healthcare bill "phony"
Nov. 5, 2009 - The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to vote on health-care legislation that includes a so-called pro-life compromise opponents of abortion say is bogus. The House may vote as early as Saturday on the Affordable Health Care for America Act, H.R. 3962. The bill of about 2,000 pages in length includes a "public health insurance option," managed by the federal government, that would authorize funds for elective abortions and a federal subsidy program for private plans that cover abortion. Read article
Listen to healthcare legislation webcast
- REP. CHRIS SMITH, U.S. House of Representatives
- DR. DAVID STEVENS, Christian Medical Association
- MARJORIE DANNENFELSER, Susan B. Anthony List
- CHARMAINE YOEST, Americans United for Life
- KRISTAN HAWKINS, Students for Life of America
- DAVID BEREIT, 40 Days for Life
- KELLYANNE CONWAY, The Polling Company
- WENDY WRIGHT, Concerned Women for America
- DOUGLAS JOHNSON, National Right to Life Committee
- KRISTEN DAY, Democrats for Life
Freedom2Care blogs:
- Urge Congress before Friday to vote NO on pro-abortion "Rule" on H.R. 3962
- Govt.-run health care bill a radical revamp of U.S. policy, would fund abortions from U.S. Treasury
- Contact your Representative today: vote NO to stop government-funded abortions
- Silent no more
- Pro-Life Dems rightly balk at abortion in healthcare bill
CMA Doctors: Sen. Harry Reid's "We'll Put Up If you Shut Up" Deal Won't Sway Principled Physicians
October 21, 2009 - CMA CEO David Stevens, MD: "Mr. Reid and his allies may be working behind closed doors on a clever way to pass healthcare legislation, but maybe they should be working on who's going to carry out their new scheme if over half the nation's physicians quit medicine." Read Full Release
NRLC: White House wrong on abortion funding
National Right to Life Committee - Many members of Congress, and the President, have suggested that the Hyde Amendment will prevent federal government funding of abortion under H.R. 3200. This claim is entirely erroneous. Under H.R. 3200, the new federal insurance program (the "public option") will pay for elective abortion with federal government funds, and public funds will also directly subsidize private insurance plans that cover all abortions. Read full text
National Right to Life: Bills would fund abortions
October 9, 2009 - Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have approved health care restructuring bills that would create big new federal programs: (1) a national health insurance program that would be run entirely by the federal government (called the "public plan" or "public option"); and (2) a program to provide tax-funded subsidies to help tens of millions of Americans buy health insurance. These new programs would cover elective abortion, which would be a sharp break from current federal policy. A federal agency would collect the premium money (which, once collected, are federal funds), and would receive bills from abortionists, who would be paid with checks drawn on a federal Treasury account. Read full document
Investor's Business Daily: 45% of docs ready to quit if healthcare "reform" bill passes
Two of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted, a new IBD/TIPP Poll has found.
The poll contradicts the claims of not only the White House, but also doctors' own lobby - the powerful American Medical Association - both of which suggest the medical profession is behind the proposed overhaul. read article
CMA physicians support conscience provisions to protect poor patients
September 30, 2009 - The 16,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org), the nation's largest association of faith-based physicians, today voiced support for the conscience-protecting provisions in the "Empowering Patients First Act," a bill introduced by Rep. Tom Price (R-GA 6th). CMA contended that the protections are needed to avoid a potentially catastrophic loss of faith-based healthcare on which millions of poor patients depend. Read CMA news release and letter
Rep. Price's bill offers strong conscience protections
Sep. 28, 2009 - Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price has introduced H.R. 3400, the Empowering Patients First Act. Several Freedom2Care-participating groups have supported aspects of this bill, including the following conscience protections:
HR 3400 - Empowering Patients First Act - SEC. 106. NON-DISCRIMINATION ON ABORTION AND RESPECT FOR RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE.
(a) NON-DISCRIMINATION.-A Federal agency or program, and any State or local government that receives Federal financial assistance, may not subject any individual or institutional health care entity to discrimination on the basis that the health care entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
(b) DEFINITION.-In this section, the term ‘‘health care entity'' includes an individual physician or other health care professional, a hospital, a provider-sponsored organization, a health maintenance organization, a health insurance plan, or any other kind of health care facility, organization, or plan.
(c) ADMINISTRATION.-The Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Health and Human Services is designated to receive complaints of discrimination based on this section, and coordinate the investigation of such complaints.
(d) CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION.-Nothing in this Act shall be construed as forbidding a health plan or health insurance issuer to accommodate the conscientious objection of a purchaser or an individual or institutional health care provider when a procedure is contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of such purchaser or provider.
HR 3200 Capps amendment - real or phony?
Sep. 16, 2009 - Rep. Lois Capps and Douglas Johnson of The National Right to Life Committee disgree on whether her amendment to HR 3200 is a protection against or an invitation to government-funded abortions. Read about the debate in The Hill blog.
