In the public relations push for his takeover of the American health care system, President Obama promised that those who like their insurance could keep it, premiums would decrease, and no one would lose their doctor. We know now those were all lies told repeatedly and never questioned by a media that is still looking the other way. Another promise Obama made was that ObamaCare would not fund abortions. LifeNews reports that this was also a lie:
The ObamaCare statute specifically requires the issuers of Exchange plans that cover abortion to “collect from each enrollee in the plan” a “separate payment” for the type of abortions for which funding is prohibited under the Hyde Amendment (which is all abortions other than in cases of life of the mother, rape, or incest) and a separate payment for all other services. [42 U.S.C. 18023(b)]. These separate payments are then to be deposited into separate accounts.
During the regulatory process, commenters questioned HHS on how this was to be implemented, and according to HHS, the commenters “recommended that HHS clarify . . . whether [Exchange plan] issuers may satisfy the separate payment provision by providing each enrollee with an itemized bill, and whether an enrollee’s coverage would be terminated for failure to comply with the separate payment provision.” Rather than doing so, HHS merely said that the comments would be taken into consideration in any future guidance. [77 Fed. Reg. 18430 (March 27, 2012)].
Now, despite the clear language of the ObamaCare statute, it appears that the separate check requirement is not going to be enforced by the Obama Administration. Gretchen Borchelt, director of state reproductive health policy at the National Women’s Law Center, told the Huffington Post that “we used to talk about it as being two checks that the consumer would have to write because of the segregation requirements, but that’s not the way it’s being implemented.” (Huffington Post, Sept. 3, 2013).
Likewise, a spokeswoman for Rhode Island’s Exchange told PolitiFact Rhode Island that “the customer is not billed a separate fee.” (Politifact, Oct. 2, 2013. The Rhode Island Exchange will handle the billing, not the plan issuers). As PolitiFact notes, “it turns out to be a hidden fee.”
There is nothing the media is willing to make Obama pay a political price for. Not even repeatedly lying to millions who are about to lose their insurance or forcing people to violate their conscience over the abomination of abortion.
