Quite simply … wow [1]:
The Office of Personnel Management ruled Monday that members of Congress and their staffs will be able to buy health care plans that pay for abortions, even though the premiums are funded largely by taxpayer money — a move that conservatives say breaks federal law on abortion funding.
Under the terms of Obamacare, lawmakers and their aides are required to ditch their government-sponsored plans and buy insurance on state-based health care exchanges, though unlike most people on the exchanges, the staffers and members will have most of the costs of their premiums paid by their employer — in this case, taxpayers.
Federal law generally prevents taxpayer money from being used to pay for abortions, but OPM said the health care plans offered through the exchange were private. The agency also said it will make sure the money is segregated so that the portion that pays for abortions comes out of the employees’ own contributions, which amounts to about a quarter of the premiums.
“While plans with such coverage may be offered on an Exchange, OPM can and will take appropriate administrative steps to ensure that the cost of any such coverage purchased by a member of Congress or a congressional staffer from a designated [exchange] is accounted for and paid by the individual rather than from the government contribution, consistent with the general prohibition on federal funds being used for this purpose,” OPM said in its ruling.
Rep. Christopher H. Smith, New Jersey Republican, said OPM is violating a law he wrote in 1983 that prohibits OPM from paying any expenses to administer plans that cover abortion, except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.
“You can’t break the law, Mr. President, and just issue a final rule as if somehow you’re comporting with the law,” Mr. Smith told The Washington Times. “We don’t want to subsidize abortion on demand, and the public is absolutely with us.”
Freaking amazing how often this administration gets to pick and choose (and gets away with it!) what laws it wants itself and Congress to abide by and which ones they’ll ignore, while the rest of us peons have to follow the letter of the law and foot the bill as well, regardless of moral and/or religious objections. Lonely Conservative writes in response [2] (via [3]):
President Obama had a press conference late this afternoon and again blabbered about how Obamacare is the law of the land and Congress should abide by it. That’s funny, because he’s constantly ignoring or scrapping the parts of the law that are politically inconvenient to him. (Not to mention all of the other laws he routinely ignores.)
[…]
The lawbreaking continues. Just today it was announced that lawmakers and their staffs can get abortion coverage [1] under their Obamacare plans, which will be funded by the taxpayers. They say that the abortion coverage will only be funded by the share the employees pay, but how will they even separate that out?
In other news, the media continues to ignore his ongoing claim [4] that there is no “widespread evidence” that Obamacare is hurting employment. So expect them to continue ignoring his lawlessness. By now it’s patently obvious that most of them are nothing more than another arm of the White House press office.
Move along here, nothing to see. 