Besides the surprise revelation about restrictions on private health insurance (below), what else is in that 1,018 page health care bill that’s just coming to light?

Mandated taxpayer funding of abortion. FOCA has returned, under the cover of this bill.

Pro-life groups and lawmakers are continuing to raise the alarm over the healthcare reform package President Obama is aggressively pushing through both the House and the Senate.  The groups are urging Americans to oppose the healthcare overhaul, as pro-abortion lawmakers are insisting that abortion must be included in the basic healthcare package that all public and private insurers will eventually be required to cover.

But they’re using stealth language.

In a hearing of the committee last Thursday, Senator Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, a staunch liberal and abortion supporter, offered an amendment to require all health insurance companies to provide “preventive care and screening” for “pregnant women and individuals of child-bearing age.”  You won’t see the word “abortion” anywhere in the amendment.  However, Mikulski’s use of these words is purposefully vague enough so as to give a green light to the HRSA to draft rules to require coverage of abortions as “preventive care”.  Don’t believe it?  She as much as said so in committee.

This type of amendment would not have been inserted without approval from the White House.  You can be sure that Rahm Emanuel and other Obama surrogates are the real source behind the language and Mikulski is the all-too-willing messenger.  If you want to make abortion—including partial birth abortion—a mandated “covered benefit,” what better (and more insidious) way to do it than to mask it in vague language and let the unaccountable administrative agency draft the rules.

It’s called plausible deniability.

And being “unaccountable” is key to making it happen. Unless enough senators do what Orrin Hatch did by pressing for clarification. Look at this exchange:

Further evidence of the hidden abortion expansion in the bill came during a meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee last week, when Sen. Orrin Hatch asked for confirmation from Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) as to whether the funds would cover abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. 

Following the meeting, Planned Parenthood immediately launched a petition to tell Sen. Hatch “to stop lying about health care legislation,” and claimed that the senator was “falsely claiming that the amendment mandates abortion coverage.” 

However, it was Mikulski who admitted in the exchange that Planned Parenthood clinics and their abortion services would be subsidized by the healthcare plan, though she appeared reluctant to answer the question.

HATCH: “…Would this include abortion providers? I mean, it looks to me like you’re expanding it to… for instance, Planned Parenthood. Would that put them into this system?”

MIKULSKI: “It would include women’s health clinics that provide comprehensive services and under the definition of a woman’s health clinic, it would include, uh, it would include, uh, Planned, uh, Parenthood clinics. It would, um, it does not expand in any way expand a service. In other words, it does not expand, um, uh, or mandate abortion service.”

HATCH: “No, but it would provide for them.”

MIKULSKI: “It would provide for any service deemed medically necessary or medically appropriate.”

HATCH: “Well, I would have a rough time supporting it on that basis. I just wanted to get that clarified. Thank you.”

Later, Hatch asked, “Madam Chairman, would you be willing to put some language in [about] not including abortion services? Then I think you would have more support.”

Mikulski answered, “No, I would not, uh, be willing to do that at this time.”

Accordingly, the committee yesterday rejected amendments offered by the National Right to Life Committee that would have explicitly excluded abortion from the bill. 

On Friday, an amendment introduced by Mikulski known as the Women’s Health Amendment passed by a 12-11 margin.  Capitol Hill pro-lifers expect that the broad language of the amendment will provide the gateway to abortion coverage in the federal plan.

Unless these stealth politics can be stopped.

What is most disturbing about all of this is that the public is being hoodwinked: most have no idea of the games that are being played. All the more reason why a national discussion on this issue needs to begin immediately.

It has started. The strategy is coming to light as the details do. I don’t think I’ve received as many emails on one topic or issue in a 24 hour period as I have on this silent FOCA maneuver since the ‘health reform bill’ was made public Tuesday.