You might remember the assurances we were given that Obamacare would not in anyway fund abortions. This morning, the Obama Administration announced the award of over $655,000 in taxpayer grants to three Planned Parenthood affiliates to act as “navigators,” helping enroll Americans in federally facilitated insurance exchanges under Obamacare. Those grants are part of $67 million in federal funds that will go to over 100 organizations to help promote the health care law.
Once again, President Obama is making an end run around the laws that govern our country, using administrative actions and ambiguity to mask lawlessness. Planned Parenthood clinics across the country could stand to receive even larger influxes of taxpayer dollars from state and federal coffers as more of Obamacare is implemented. As Heritage’s Alyene Senger points out, fears of low enrollment in Obamacare exchanges have prompted both federal and state governments to begin funding an army of taxpayer-compensated community groups that will facilitate entrance into the health care marketplaces.
While federal navigators will help aid enrollment in the federally facilitated exchanges across 34 states, more than a dozen states setting up their own state-based exchanges before October plan to spend tens of millions in taxpayer dollars funding community group “assisters” to promote their marketplaces. Many of those “assisters” could also include local Planned Parenthood affiliates, providing additional streams of Obamacare funding to the largest abortion provider in the U.S.
Rep. Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican, blasted the grants to Planned Parenthood groups “despite assurances from the President when the law was passed that Obamacare would not give federal funding to abortion providers.”
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, in Iowa, will receive $214,427. The Intermountain Planned Parenthood Inc. of Montana will receive $295,604, allowing it to provide assistance at its health centers or via phone, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, in New Hampshire, will receive $145,161 to “assist patients and other consumers with understanding new programs, taking advantage of consumer protections, and navigating the health insurance system to find the most affordable coverage that meets their needs.”
HHS originally allotted $54 million for navigators in these states. The additional $13 million came from the department’s Prevention and Public Health Fund.
Once again the president is ignoring the law. He is undermining American society and promoting immorality.
