Next week, an independent agency and a team of "experts" will meet to discuss the issue of contraception and will advise the government about whether contraception should be considered preventive health care. Should this group determine that it is, millions of women could be receiving abortifacients at taxpayers' expense.
Unless there is a loud outcry from the American people, all prescription birth control will very likely be listed as preventive health care under the Obama administration's health care reform act by August of next year—leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill for billions more dollars that will flow into Planned Parenthood's bottomless money pit to pay for deadly concoctions that are neither "preventive" nor "health care."
And, according to the philosophy of the leader of the Institute of Medicine, the non-governmental agency advising the government on this matter, it could result in health care incentives being given to those who use birth control -- incentives that are not available to those who spurn it.
In an e-mail from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in March following the adoption of Obamacare, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards wrote, "Anti-family-planning groups will no doubt try to keep the Women's Health Amendment from covering family planning services. But family planning is preventive health care. … The administration must include all forms of contraception as part of the preventive health care covered under the new law—and it's up to us to make it happen."
To facilitate forcing its agenda down our throats, Planned Parenthood has launched its "Birth Control Matters" campaign, seeking one million signatures on a petition being circulated on college campuses and elsewhere to "make prescription birth control available to every woman without co-pays or other out-of-pocket costs…"
Despite all its empty, deceptive rhetoric about expanding health coverage to the poor, Planned Parenthood, in all its diabolic wisdom, realizes something most Americans don't: If it succeeds in getting birth control on the list of preventive services in the health care reform law, not only will new health insurance plans be required to fully cover the cost, but state Medicaid programs will be required de facto to cover the full cost of even the most expensive, invasive forms of birth control, such as implants and IUDs, to millions of women with incomes well above poverty level, providing an instant pot of gold for the abortion and birth control mogul.
For years, Planned Parenthood has been trying to force all health care plans to pay for birth control, to force pharmacists to dispense abortifacient birth control despite conscientious objection, and to force all emergency rooms, including those operated by Catholic hospitals, to dispense abortifacient "emergency contraception."
In 2007, Planned Parenthood touted its Prevention First campaign, also known as the Medicaid Family Planning Option, to try to force its will on those who objected. But when it was dropped from President Obama's stimulus package, Planned Parenthood responded, "We are working with members of Congress and the Obama administration to ensure that the provision is sent to the president in the next possible vehicle."
The abortion mammoth soon found that vehicle with the help of Senator Barbara Mikulski who succeeded in incorporating the so-called "Women's Health Amendment" into the Obama administration's health care takeover. While Mikulski managed to keep the focus of discussion about the amendment on free mammograms, she cleared the way for the listing of anything that HHS, headed by notorious abortion supporter Kathleen Sebelius, decided to list as preventive care.
A "panel of experts" will be convened this month to advise Sebelius on what should be considered preventive care.
That panel will be convened by the Institute of Medicine, whose president, Harvey Fineberg, stated in his October 2009 annual address, Health Reform Beyond Health Insurance, that a great way to remedy the current crisis in health care coverage is to require employees to pay tax on the value of employer-provided health insurance—not suddenly, so as to rile the peasants, but gradually, over a period of years.
According to Fineberg, this would "generate hundreds of billions of dollars in tax revenues to ease the public burden of health costs."
This gradual taxing is akin to placing a frog in warm water and slowly turning up the heat so he never notices he's being boiled to death. The American taxpayer must be alert so he does not become that frog.
And on the subject of preventive care Fineberg stated, "I want prevention to be cheaper than free," insinuating that incentives will also be provided. "We should reward individuals with insurance reductions, with access to additional services, and with outright bonuses for doing the right thing for their health," he said.
Taking that to the next logical step, it is easy to foresee that those who use free birth control will receive reductions in the cost of health insurance, access to services those who choose not to contracept cannot access, and other "bonuses" not afforded those who spurn birth control.
The National Academies, which encompasses the Institute of Medicine, was set up by President Lincoln as a non-governmental agency to advise the government on matters of science and technology, and is funded almost entirely by tax dollars. We must send a loud, clear, message to the Institute of Medicine and to our members of Congress that we will not tolerate paying billions of tax-generated dollars to provide free prescription birth control.
The first meeting of the "panel of experts" convened by the National Institute of Medicine will take place on Nov. 16. Please act today to insist that the American taxpayer is not forced to pay the enormous bill and suffer the consequences of "free" or—God forbid—"cheaper than free" birth control.
Contact: Judie Brown
Source: CNSNews.com
Publish Date: November 12, 2010
