Pro-Life Groups Raise Concerns About Obamacare Replacement Plans

Dozens of pro-life leaders sent a letter to Congress Thursday afternoon urging Republican senators and representatives to honor their commitment to prohibit taxpayer-funding of elective abortion coverage under any health-care bill to replace Obamacare.

"Currently, any bill funding healthcare must carry restrictions on abortion funding or it will end up funding the brutal practice of abortion," the letter states. "That is why the Republican platform rightly calls for a 'permanent ban on federal funding and subsidies for abortion and healthcare plans that include abortion.' The platform continues stating, 'We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage.' President Trump also pledged his opposition to taxpayer funding for abortion in his 2016 letter to Pro-life Leaders."

The letter runs through Republican health care bills and proposals that would prohibit federal funding of elective abortion coverage and concludes: "We are encouraged by this longstanding commitment by Republicans to ensure that no Republican healthcare proposal, including those that provide tax credits for health insurance, funds abortion or plans that cover abortion and urge you to ensure this essential pro-life policy is included in any healthcare legislation considered to replace Obamacare."

The letter strikes an optimistic and non-confrontational tone, but privately pro-life leaders have expressed concern about Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. One Obamacare replacement plan recently introduced by Republican senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine didn't simply fail to deal with Obamacare's abortion-funding problem; the Cassidy-Collins plan would actually increase taxpayer-funding of elective abortion.

Pro-life leaders say they have been given reassurances by Republicans in Congress that any Obamacare replacement will satisfy their concerns, but they haven't seen legislative language yet that would address the issue of abortion in Obamacare's exchanges. Without their support, it's hard to see how a partial repeal-and-replace bill could pass either the House or the Senate.