07.29.21

Hoeven Urges HHS to Withdraw Proposed Obamacare Abortion Rule

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven this week joined Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) in urging Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to withdraw the Biden administration’s proposed rule that would allow combined payments for abortion coverage in taxpayer-funded health plans purchased on the Obamacare exchanges. The letter mentions the separate payment and separate accounting requirements in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Obama administration’s refusal to enforce the provisions and the Trump administration’s efforts to follow the law by issuing the 2019 rule that would be overridden by the Biden administration’s proposal. 

“Abortion is not health care, and American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize it,” the Senators wrote. “The purpose and effect of the Proposed Rule, in tandem with partisan legislative efforts to expand the ACA, will be to increase taxpayer funding for abortion on demand, to the financial benefit of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.”

In addition to Hoeven, Hyde-Smith and Daines, the letter was signed by Senators Michael Rounds (R-S.D.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas), James Risch (R-Idaho), John Thune (R-S.D.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).

In July 2019, Hoeven joined 24 senate colleagues in sending a letter to then-HHS Secretary Azar in support of the Trump administration’s Exchange Program Integrity Rule and asking for its implementation.   

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