The following news release was issued today, June 28, 2012.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today left intact the dangerous rationing provisions and abortion funding in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The decision is a blow to efforts to protect the vulnerable lives of unborn babies, elderly persons and those with serious illnesses.
"Any law that results in funding the killing of unborn children and the withholding of medical care must not stand," said Scott Fischbach, Executive Director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL). "The state's pro-life majority is extremely disappointed that the nation's highest court has upheld a law that will lead to abortion funding and rationing."
Today's Supreme Court National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius ruling, upholding most of the Obamacare law, is a call to action for the right-to-life electorate to work to elect a Congress and president this November committed to repealing the law in 2013, in order to prevent a future in which abortion insurance will be heavily subsidized by federal taxpayers and federal bureaucrats will be authorized to ration life-saving medical treatment.
Under the enacted law, federal tax-based subsidies will begin in 2014 to subsidize millions of private insurance plans that will cover abortion on demand, including some plans ("multi-state plans") that will be administered by the federal government. Under another provision of the law, the federal government could even order many plans that do not receive federal subsidies to cover abortion as a "preventive" service. The law also created an array of other mechanisms and funding pipelines by which access to and subsidies for abortion can be expanded if President Obama wins a second term.
Moreover, few Americans realize that under Obamacare, private citizens' right to spend their own money to save the lives of their own families will be subject to drastic restriction.
"If President Obama wins re-election, it will mean massive abortion subsidies and it will put the lives of millions at risk through systematic government-imposed rationing of lifesaving medical care," Fischbach added.
Unless repealed, Obamacare will give federal bureaucrats the power to impose so-called "quality" measures on all health care providers, under which treatment that a doctor and patient deem needed to save that patient's life or preserve the patient's health but which runs afoul of the imposed standards will be denied, even if the patient is willing and able to pay for it. In 2015 and thereafter, an 18-member "Independent Payment Advisory Board" is directed to inform the federal Department of Health and Human Services how to use those imposed standards to limit what private citizens are permitted to spend on their own families’ health care to below the rate of medical inflation.
The much-anticipated decision also upholds the requirement that each state establish an insurance exchange. The exchanges are marketplaces where citizens will select their coverage plans. States without an exchange plan in place by Jan. 1, 2013, will have one imposed upon them by the federal government; the Dayton administration has already begun plans to establish a Minnesota exchange.
"MCCL renews its call to legislators to work together on establishing and implementing an exchange that will exclude abortion coverage, and will guarantee coverage for pregnant women, persons with disabilities, elderly persons and other vulnerable people," Fischbach said.
The provisions of the law that will authorize rationing are documented at http://www.nrlc.org/HealthCareRationing/index.html.
