Obama prevaricates to Stupak about Abortion Funding in Health Care Bill

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) is leading a coalition of pro-life Democrats to insert abortion funding restrictions into the proposed health care reform legislation. Recently, President Obama had an interesting telephone conversation with Mr. Stupak.

From CNS News:

Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.

“I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what,” Stupak said of Obama’s nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.

Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care bill permit federal funds to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions. In his speech to the joint session of Congress, Obama directly rebutted the claim that the plan would fund abortions, calling it a “misunderstanding.” But in his later telephone conversation with Stupak, according to the congressman, Obama said that when he claimed in the speech that the plan would not fund abortions he was not talking about the House plan, he was talking about his own plan.

CNSNews.com read Stupak the verbatim transcript of President Obama’s joint-session-speech statement about abortion funding:

“And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up: Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."

CNSNews.com asked Stupak: “Is that a true or false statement?”...

“I called him,” said Stupak. “I called the president--had a discussion with the president. And I read exactly what you just said. And he said: ‘What it says is “under my plan”’—meaning the president’s plan. And I said: ‘With all due respect, sir, you do not have a plan. The only plan we have out is the House plan.’ So, I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what.”.....

I wonder what Joe Wilson would have told the president, had he been on the other end of the line. Hmmm.....