ROMNEY HEALTH CARE PLAN FUNDS ABORTIONS

ROMNEY HEALTH CARE PLAN FUNDS ABORTIONS

Obama Plan is More Pro-Life

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney released his proposal to advance health insurance coverage and it does so in a way that could fund abortions for millions of Americans, while President Obama’s health care law does not. Let’s look at the comparative features:

The Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) leave in place the right of states to prohibit the sale of health insurance plans that include abortion as a benefit. Nine states currently have such laws and more are considering them. Romney would nullify the right of states to prohibit pro-abortion insurance policies and allow pro-abortion policies to be sold in contradiction of state law so long as it was registered in at least one other state.

Both the ACA and the Romney plan would expand health insurance through tax credits and subsidies. The ACA would also add some coverage for the poor through a modest Medicaid expansion. No federal Medicaid funds can be used for abortion.

Under the Romney plan, the tax breaks for insurance would go to bosses to provide insurance for their employees. Most bosses include abortion in their policies and employees are forced to take the boss’s plan or have to buy individual policies in the private market.

Romney would also give tax breaks to persons buying an individual policy. Individual policies would be dramatically more expensive than group policies purchased by boss’s so only an economical option if a person does not have a boss’s plan.

While these individual policies would also not have the group purchasing savings of plans on the state health care exchanges that the ACA offers, unlike the ACA plans the Romney plan allows them to use their government subsidies or tax credits to pay for abortions. Unlike Romney’s plan, ACA Exchange plans cannot use government subsidies or tax credit for abortion. State may allow some plans to offer abortion coverage as a rider paid 100% by the individual, but federal law guarantees that there be pro-life options and allows states to make all of the plans pro-life. 14 states have already elected this option and more have it under consideration.

The Romney plan expects expansion of boss's plan health insurance, while the ACA expects a slight increases in boss's plans but tens of millions purchasing insurance through the exchanges.  Since boss's plans can and mostly do use tax advantages for abortion while most individuals choose pro-life plans given the option, the portion of insured Americans with abortion coverage would be starkly higher with Romney's plan.  This is assuming Romney's plan has the claimed results of increased coverage.  His critics suggest that it will not.