The anti-abortion lobby’s full court press against health reform light on the facts

Minnesota’s largest anti-abortion group, Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, is vigorously opposing all of the health reform proposals being offered by Democrats in Congress — and it’s not just about abortion. Several Republican talking points have crept into the group’s campaign, and most of them have been debunked by the very fact-checkers the group uses to diss Obama’s health care reform plan.

In a special edition of their newsletter (DOC), the group goes after President Obama, saying his facts are incorrect.

“Despite public statements by Pres. Barack Obama that ‘no federal dollars will be used to fund abortion,’ all of the major bills under consideration would put the federal government into the business of subsidizing elective abortion on a massive scale,” wrote MCCL, then going on to quote Factcheck.org. “‘Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans,’ reported the independent FactCheck.org.”

But what FactCheck.org actually said was that it’s a grey area in between. “The truth is that bills now before Congress don’t require federal money to be used for supporting abortion coverage. So the president is right to that limited extent. But it’s equally true that House and Senate legislation would allow a new ‘public’ insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them.”

The rest of the groups claims have also been debunked by Factcheck.org.

Health Rationing

MCCL says that all of the health reform proposals would dole out care based on age and disability. “In addition to the expansion of abortion, all major bills under consideration — as currently written — would likely lead to the rationing of care,” the group writes. “The bills addressing health care ‘reform’ all require the rationing of health care.”

Paul Stark, Student Outreach Coordinator, wrote, “The health care legislation pending in Congress would likely lead to the rationing of care for elderly, disabled and other vulnerable persons.”

When RNC chair Michael Steele used a similar line in an ad attacking health care reform, Factcheck.org corrected him. “It’s … false for Steele to imply that Democratic health care legislation proposes to ‘ration health care based on age.’”

While none of the bills specifically spells out a rationing of health care, Politifact took time to explore the issue. “Everyone hates the word rationing,” Katherine Baicker, a health economics professor at Harvard University, told the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site. “From an economics perspective, there’s no way around rationing. Some care is being rationed now. Everyone isn’t getting everything.”

But MCCL does not acknowledge — let alone condemn — the fact that health care is currently rationed.

Medicare cuts

Stark wrote, “[A] substantial part of the cost under the proposals would be paid for by ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ − reducing Medicare funding for older people in order to cover the uninsured.”

MCCL president Leo Lalonde wrote about seniors’ reactions when MCCL told them at a fall meeting that Medicare would be deeply cut. “This information and much more was shared with Fall Tour attendees, who reacted with anger, fear and disbelief. Some people already understood this threat. But many more did not, and were deeply disturbed to learn that Medicare — the only source of medical care for many senior citizens— could be severely restricted under Obama’s plan.”

Factcheck.org found that claim to be false:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the House bill would result in “savings” [to Medicare] of $219 billion after all increases and decreases are netted out. The House bill would trim projected increases in payments for hospitals, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others, including home health care providers and suppliers of motor-driven wheelchairs. But it also proposes what CBO estimates is a $245 billion increase in spending for doctors, by canceling a scheduled 21 percent cut in physician payments. None of the “savings” or “cuts” (whichever you prefer) come from reducing current or future benefit levels for seniors.