BOSTON, MA, November 4, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Americans should be able to learn whether health plans they are purchasing under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) fund abortion, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston told Congress last week.
In a letter to Congress the cardinal, who serves as Chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, urged the House and Senate to pass Rep. Chris Smith’s Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act, which would mandate transparency about abortion coverage in health plans in the ACA exchanges.
Currently, the ACA mandates that insurance companies that are part of the law's state exchanges not disclose whether they pay for elective abortions until enrollment.
During testimony last week, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) had asked Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius about whether “the federal exchanges that offer [abortion have]…clearly identified which” plans do and do not cover abortion. Shimkus noted “right now you cannot make that determination.”
Sebelius responded she did not know the answer, but would “check and make sure that is clearly identifiable.”
O’Malley expressed concern that under the ACA “not only may pro-life people have a very limited choice of health plans that do not violate their consciences – but the law makes it all but impossible for them to find out which plans” don’t violate consciences.
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He also criticized the fact that under the ACA insurers can include abortion coverage in health plans offered on the state health exchanges, while still receiving federal tax subsidies – something that he said violates longstanding policies against federal funding for abortion.
The Obama administration has side-stepped such policies by requiring abortion-providing plans in the exchanges to collect a $1 abortion surcharge from every enrollee, without opt out, to be put into a separate abortion fund.
“This substantive problem on abortion is compounded by the ACA’s unique secrecy provisions,” complained O’Malley. “This injustice of this is clear when we realize most Americans do not want to have to purchase abortion coverage.”
O’Malley said that being transparent about which plans cover abortion “should be a point of agreement between lawmakers,” whether pro-life or pro-choice. “Choice” means nothing, he said, “if the law conceals the facts needed to make that choice.”
In 2010, the ACA was passed with an Executive Order ostensibly preventing the funding of elective abortions. However, funding efforts for elective abortion coverage in MD, PA, and NM that summer, as well as the HHS birth control mandate issued in 2012, have left many pro-life advocates concerned about whether the Executive Order has any impact on the ACA as it continues to be implemented.
The Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act was introduced on October 9 by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ). It has 109 cosponsors, and would provide the American people with what Smith called the “right to know upfront and with full transparency when they are purchasing a plan that subsidizes the killing of unborn children.”
Smith has also introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which would prevent abortion funding under the ACA except in cases of life of the mother, rape, and incest. In his letter, Cardinal O’Malley reiterated the bishops’ support for that bill as well.