Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Planned Parenthood funding at risk
Ryan says repeal of Obamacare will strip federal dollars
House speaker says federal subsidies to end with planned health care overhaul.
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that Republicans would strip federal dollars for Planned Parenthood as part of the GOP effort to repeal the health care law, prompting an outcry from the century-old organization and Democrats promising to fight the move.
Ryan, R-Wis., also said lawmakers will act this year on bills not simply repealing President Barack Obama’s health care law but replacing it as well.
The remarks by the House speaker suggested a faster schedule than some had expected on reshaping the nation’s health care system. While Republicans have said they plan to vote this year on dismantling Obama’s law, Ryan went a step further, saying they also would write legislation to replace it in 2017.
“The Planned Parenthood legislation would be in our (repeal) bill,” Ryan said.
Last year’s Obamacare repeal measure also contained the effort to defund the group, which receives government reimbursements from the Medicaid program for non-abortion health services to low-income women. It also receives payments for contraceptive services from a different government account.
Ryan’s comments sparked an outcry from Democrats
The defunding measure would take away roughly $400 million in Medicaid money from the group in the year after enactment, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and would result in roughly 400,000 women losing access to care.
Republicans would redirect the funding to community health centers, but supporters say women denied Medicaid services from Planned Parenthood may not be able to find replacement care.
Cutting off Planned Parenthood from taxpayer money is a long-sought dream of social conservatives, but it’s a loser in the minds of some GOP strategists. Planned Parenthood is loathed by anti-abortion activists who are the backbone of the GOP coalition. Polls, however, show that the group is favorably viewed by a sizable majority of Americans — 59 percent in a Gallup survey last year, including more than onethird of Republicans.
Some of the most conservative members of Congress have said they are ready to vote for a budget that would — at least on paper — balloon the deficit to more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade, all for the sake of eventually repealing the Affordable Care Act.
In a dramatic reversal, many members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus said Thursday that they are prepared later this month to support a budget measure that would explode the deficit and increase the public debt to more than $29.1 trillion by 2026, figures contained in the budget resolution itself.
As they left a meeting with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., on Thursday, some of the conservatives said that spending targets contained in the budget for fiscal year 2017 are symbolic. The real goal of the budget legislation, they argued, is to establish an opportunity to finally make good on GOP promises to repeal Obamacare.
The growing conservative consensus comes nearly one year after the approximately 40-member group announced it would rather torpedo the entire budget process than vote for a fiscal blueprint that increased spending without balancing the budget.
Meanwhile, top Senate Democrats said the House ethics office should investigate whether stock sales by a congressman who is now one of Trump’s Cabinet picks broke any laws.
The Democrats cited a Wall Street Journal report last month that Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., had traded over $300,000 worth of shares in health care companies over the past four years while pushing legislation that might affect those stocks’ values. Trump wants Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
In the House, lawmakers approved a bipartisan measure that rebukes the United Nations for criticizing Israeli settlements as Republicans used the debate to accuse Obama of turning his back on the Jewish state.
Lawmakers voted 34280 for the non-binding resolution that declares unwavering support for Israel and insists that the United States reject any future U.N. actions that are similarly “one-sided and anti-Israel.”
The measure divided Democrats. Nearly 80 opposed the measure because they said it contained inaccuracies and distorted the complexities of the Middle East peace process.