I wanted to check some things out because i heard of some "Obama want's insurance to cover abortion" rumors on FB.
I went to the site and this is what i found:
Abortion
The president insisted that no federal money would pay for abortions:
Obama: [U]nder our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions.
The truth of that depends on what is meant by “federal dollars.” Actually, as we’ve written before, under Democratic legislation now before Congress, the “public option” would cover abortions in cases of rape, incest or threat to the life of the mother and could cover all abortions if the administration chooses, and as Obama once promised. Private insurance plans purchased with the help of federal subsidies to low- and moderate-income workers also could cover all abortions, as many, if not most, private plans do today.
Under an amendment adopted by a House committee, abortions would be paid for by the "public option" only with money collected from policyholders in the form of premiums, not with money collected from taxpayers. But is money collected by the government and paid out to abortion providers by the government “federal dollars"? The anti-abortion side says yes. And the same goes for federal subsidies given to low- and moderate-income persons to help them buy insurance. If they use those dollars to buy private policies that cover all abortions, does that mean “federal dollars” go to fund abortions? Again, abortion foes say yes.
The advocates of abortion rights argue otherwise. They say the House bill would be an extension of longstanding policy under the Hyde amendment, which forbids use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund Medicaid abortions except in cases of rape, incest or threat to the mother’s life, but also allows states to use their own Medicaid money to fund other abortions (and 17 of them do). In any case, the matter is not so simple or clear as the president would like it to seem.
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