It only took the Associated Press six weeks after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!”, but they finally have reported that Barack Obama told a whopper in his joint speech to Congress — and that Democrats have lied all along about abortion and ObamaCare. Even at that, they bury the lead on the story several paragraphs into an analysis of the debate among Democrats on abortion funding, although not far enough for Life News to miss it:
The main point of contention is the proposed new federal subsidies that would help lower-income people purchase health care coverage from private plans — and potentially from a new government-sponsored plan — within a new purchasing exchange.
Currently a law called the Hyde amendment bars federal funding for abortion — except in cases of rape and incest or if the mother’s life would be endangered — and applies those restrictions to Medicaid, forcing states that cover abortion for low-income women to do so with their own money. Separate laws apply the restrictions to the federal employee health plan and military and other programs.
But the Democrats’ health overhaul bill would create a new stream of federal funding not covered by the restrictions.
Stupak says language specifying that someone obtaining an abortion must use her own money, not federal money from the subsidies, doesn’t go far enough because it’s impossible to clearly segregate funds in that way.
“Once you get the affordability credits (subsidies) in there, that’s public funding of abortion. We’re not going there,” Stupak said. “How do you get past the affordability credits is really the issue. And we can’t.”
Democrats have used the Hyde Amendment as a big red herring during this debate. They have repeatedly argued that their ObamaCare bills do not repeal the Hyde Amendment, which is at once both true and irrelevant. The funding for ObamaCare bypassed the Hyde amendment, which allows most Democrats to pose dishonestly on the issue.
That was most true when Barack Obama told Congress and the American people that no federal dollars would go for abortions. He knew, or at least he should have known, that the Hyde Amendment did not cover the funding his own party proposed for coverage. He also knew that his party had blocked efforts to close that loophole in the bill. Obama either lied or showed a dismaying ignorance of the facts in the debate, and given his endorsement of Planned Parenthood and theirs in return, I’m betting he isn’t ignorant on this issue at all.
The media also should have known better. Republicans have been pointing out the Hyde Amendment dodge for several weeks now. The media has ignored it in favor of unsubstantiated and false statements from Democrats. And when they do finally report on the issue correctly, it gets buried in the eighth paragraph of their report.
