After all the blunt force trauma of August's town hall meetings
there seemed to be a possible compromise on the horizon for a mandated
public option in ObamaCare. We all heard the President say in the last
week that he would be open to passing a bill that doesn't include it.
But that might be changing. One wonders what special interest pressures
are being exerted behind the scenes. Media outlets are now pondering if
the President has been rolled on it again. Hey, is everybody clear on
what is meant by "public option"? I pulled this overly simplistic
snapshot from the Boston Globe:
What is a public option?
A public option is a government offered health insurance plan, and is
part of the U.S. House of Representatives’ health care reform bill. The
White House has suggested it would be willing to pass a bill that
doesn't include the public option.
How would it work?
Americans would have the option to pay for public health insurance, or to keep their private health insurance.
Supporters and critics
Democrats generally support the idea, on the belief that it would
offer lower premiums and force private insurers to do the same.
Republicans generally oppose it, believing that it would cause the
private insurance industry to collapse, resulting in a single-payer
system with no choices for consumers.
Deep breath... Sounds simple, but it isn't. HR3200 is over a
thousand pages that some Congressmen have publicly said it's pointless
to read without multiple lawyers on hand to explain what you just read.
That is one of the reasons there's been so much throttled up resistance
to it from the pro-life community. Conspicuous removal of Hyde
Amendment language was a HUGE RED FLAG that something sinister might be
afoot. For this forum let me be focused and clear on the public option
as it pertains to the governmental funding of abortion. Is it in there
or not? There seems to be two extremes declaring that it IS and that it ISN'T.
Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes, "As President Obama prepares to address Congress on health care reform, America's pro-life movement is gassing up." She writes that pro-lifers are "planning a major drive...to try to stop federal funding of abortion." Parker says such funding is allowed under proposed health care legislation. She asserts that Obama "has partly invited this havoc by not being completely forthright about how health care reform, as currently proposed, would provide taxpayer funding for abortion...Somewhere
between hysterical claims that Americans will be forced to pay for
abortions and assertions that no federal funds will go toward abortion
is a more nuanced, if less interesting, truth."
Most likely the devil is in the details.
What happens next in America will depend on whether God's people can navigate the nuances.
Tonight at 9PM ET President Obama will address a joint session of
Congress. Surprisingly he's expected to reverse last week's position
and come out strong on the public option once again.
"President Barack Obama plans to give a strong endorsement
of a public option – or government health-insurance plan – in his
remarks to Congress on Wednesday night but will stop short of an
ultimatum, leaving wiggle room for negotiation as the bill moves
through Congress, according to sources familiar with his remarks."
-Politico
We must understand that in the current climate of conscience in America the #FTW of the pro-abortion camp is GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZED ABORTIONS.
Sure they're gonna try to score big, but then they back off a bit and
seem like the reasonable ones when the debate hits its fever pitch. We
saw this a few weeks ago when the President called government funding
of abortions a "fabrication." Whether it's outright funding or
government collected premiums that are then used to pay for abortions,
the result is still the same. Fact: What the government pays for–you get a lot more of.
This will be true of abortion like anything else. What looks like
compromise and reason at this next stage could initiate a far-reaching
cultural shift in the nation. A shift to "entitlement".
Entitlement to
abortion because we're Americans. There can be no reasoning with a
spirit of death seeking to destroy another generation of our children,
and that is why we must hold this line no matter how unreasonable it
makes us appear.
Now I know a statement like that is inviting all kinds of criticism.
I will be the first in line to admit that I have not done all that I
can do to help the helpless in my community. Listen, I believe we must
act now to care for the poor and needy. But we cannot sacrifice the
most helpless among us and claim to be acting on moral grounds.
Protecting life in the womb IS the moral core.
Are there any fathers out there with the spirit of Elijah that will
stretch themselves out over a dead generation and give them back to
their mothers alive? I believe there are. Start tonight by stretching
out in prayer over Congress and our President.
Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the
room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, "Look, your
son is alive!" Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now I know that you are
a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the
truth. (1 Ki 17:23-24 NIV)
This article was originally posted on the Bound4LIFE Blog