The Senate on Sunday passed HR 5376, known as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, in a party-line vote of 51-50. The bill includes the expansion of taxpayer funding of abortion through the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The Act would further extend through 2025 the ACA premium tax credits expanded by the American Rescue Plan Act which had been set to expire at the end of 2022.
Andrew Guernsey, executive director of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, said, “These expansions further subsidize Obamacare exchange plans that cover abortion, giving millions of people taxpayer-funded plans that cover abortion on demand for as little as $1/month (i.e. the minimum abortion coverage surcharge under the ACA). This blatantly violates the principles of the Hyde Amendment. Many of the estimated 10 million people affected by expanded subsidies, including an estimated 3 million Americans who would drop out of, or be ineligible for, Obamacare exchange plans but for these expanded subsidies, have been driven into taxpayer-funded plans that cover elective abortion.”
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The Hyde Amendment, which has saved more than 2 million lives from abortion, is a rider added to an appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services. It prohibits the use of federal taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions. It has been renewed yearly since 1976, but now pro-abortion legislators want to see it end despite Americans’ widespread support for it.
In addition to funding abortion, the Inflation Reduction Act includes $80 billion for IRS enforcement, which is expected to be used to target religious institutions as well as pro-life organizations and donors. “This is just yet another attack on faith-based organizations and religious freedom,” Ways and Means Republican Leader Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) told Washington Watch. He explained that a more powerful IRS will target Americans based on their beliefs both politically and religiously.
“Every American should worry about an IRS who has the power to destroy through taxation and its actions that any IRS from any government, any administration, would be able to target Americans based on their political or the biblical beliefs,” he said.
According to Guernsey, the ACA expansions come at a “true cost” of $248 billion over 2023-2032 if made permanent.
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