Obama on abortion vs. the truth

This weekend, President Obama spent another weekly radio address talking about health care reform. He said he wanted to spend some time, quote, "debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country." He said the debate is dominated by what he called "willful misrepresentations and outright distortions." One of the so-called misrepresentations he said was the idea that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform.

Meanwhile, across town, the independent, non-partisan, FactCheck.org, affiliated with the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was releasing its analysis of the issue of abortion in the health care reform bills. FactCheck.org has now issued its analysis, entitled, "Abortion: Which Side is Fabricating?" It says, in part, quote “ it’s likely that any new federal insurance plan would cover abortion unless Congress expressly prohibits that. Low- and moderate-income persons who would choose the ‘public plan’ would qualify for federal subsidies to purchase it. Private plans that cover abortion also could be purchased with the help of federal subsidies. Therefore, we judge that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions ‘fabrications.’ . . . The NRLC’s Douglas Johnson said ‘the bill backed by the White House (H.R. 3200) explicitly authorizes the government plan to cover all elective abortions.’ And our analysis shows that Johnson’s statement is correct.”

Hmmmmmm.