Abortion: IOKIYAR

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Abortion is funded by the RNC and Focus on the Family’s health insurance plans. How’s that for hypocrisy?

I read this earlier today at Atrios’s site that links to the Politico article. Abortion is available to RNC employees through their Cigna policy.

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.

Leading up to passage of the House health care reform bill last week, 176 House Republicans joined 64 Democrats in voting for the so-called Stupak amendment, a measure that prohibits federal funds from being used to buy health insurance that covers elective abortions.

Amy Sullivan at Swampland apparently broke that Focus on the Family purchases health care insurance from a company that funds abortions thus their premiums are funding abortions.

It does if you hold the organization to the same standard it uses to insist that health reform would result in publicly funded abortions.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fungibility argument that many pro-life groups and politicians have employed to oppose health reform. The problem, they say, is that if any insurance plan that covers abortion is allowed to participate in a public exchange, then premiums paid to that plan in the form of taxpayer-funded subsidies help support that abortion coverage even if individual abortion procedures are paid for out of a separate pool of privately-paid premium dollars. You can debate about whether it makes sense to use this strict standard, but that’s the argument.

But are those pro-life organizations holding themselves to the same strict standard? As it happens, Focus on the Family provides its employees health insurance through Principal, an insurance company that covers “abortion services.” A Focus spokeswoman confirmed the fact that the organization pays premiums to Principal, but declined to comment on whether that amounts to an indirect funding of abortion.

Even if the specific plan Focus uses for its employees doesn’t include abortion coverage–and I’m assuming it doesn’t–the organization and its employees still pay premiums to a company that funds abortions. If health reform proposals have a fungibility problem, then Focus does as well. And if they don’t think they do have a fungibility problem, then it would be interesting to hear why they think the set-up proposed in health reform legislation is so untenable.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican.

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    • TMC on November 13, 2009 at 03:09
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    to express my fury  

    • dkmich on November 13, 2009 at 12:06
  1. — of Jane Hamsher fame —

  2. that is not hyprocritical and a downright lie from Repugs?  Just look at how they have bashed “gays” over so many years, while “enjoying” them.  They have a little hideaway for that stuff, and other bizarre goings-on, too — Take your pick!

    Thank you for this, TMC!

  3. Progressive to me carries an important historical meaning:

    I always think of union organizing, improved working conditions, food and drug regulation, government provided safety nets, women’s equality,civil rights etc. Radical to me means causing and affecting positive change in those areas when the American People are inclined to support them and there is political momentum. It means selling your idea/s to the people first, before legislative action. The first part never happened.

    And now, the House Bill has Regressive features e.g. a legislative assault on Roe v. Wade and compulsory purchase of a product who services and prices are not regulated. These are Regressive measures.

    I really thought the Obama Presidency & Democratic Congress with an energized electorate was going to make this a Radical Period, not just a Progressive Fantasy (with the calculated capitulations to pass just anything)

    And to use Women’s Reproductive Rights as a bargaining chip isn’t just a minor capitulation, it’s BETRAYAL!

     

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