CAP Christian Taliban to oppose Gov. Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Mullah Cathi Herrod and the Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) are injecting their hysterical anti-abortion crusade against Planned Parenthood into the debate over Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan. . . because more ignorance and hysteria over "ObamaCare" is what is needed in this debate. This is a grand distraction straw-man for Tea-Publican extremists to oppose the Governor's plan.

The Arizona Republic reports Abortion enters Arizona debate on Medicaid expansion:

One of the Legislature’s most powerful lobbying groups says Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid-expansion plan would subsidize abortions and is pushing for an amendment that complicates negotiations and threatens the proposal.

The Center for Arizona Policy is using an opinion from the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal-defense organization, to argue that the draft Medicaid legislation should be amended to disqualify the non-profit women’s health provider Planned Parenthood from receiving public money.

It’s the first in what is expected to be a long line of suggested changes to Brewer’s proposal to broaden eligibility for the state-federal health-insurance program for the poor and disabled, each with the potential to gain or lose votes for the governor’s top legislative priority with thousands of lives and billions of dollars at stake.

Democrats warn that piling on unrelated amendments could cost Brewer their support, and the governor still must find ways to win over Republicans.

The amendment suggested in a letter this week to Brewer from Cathi Herrod, the center’s president, is similar to a law signed by the governor last year to defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.

Planned Parenthood and the ACLU filed suit, and a federal judge put House Bill 2800 on hold in February. [Because Planned Parenthood is likely to succeed on the merits of its case in overturning the law.]

Herrod said her organization, a conservative Christian-based group that wields influence with GOP lawmakers, is not taking a position on Medicaid expansion and wouldn’t comment on the possibility that such an amendment could sink the plan.

[Note: When CAP injects a straw-man (Planned Parenthood) into the debate and proposes poison pill amendments to the Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration bill, they have in fact taken a position on the bill. Cathi Herrod is a shameless liar.]

Planned Parenthood gets a fraction of its funding from Medicaid but could pick up more patients if the state broadens eligibility. Although Herrod argues that funding to the clinics indirectly supports abortion, Planned Parenthood officials say they lose money on every Medicaid patient because of reimbursement levels.

Federal and state laws prohibit public funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk. But Medicaid expansion would have no impact on pregnant women, who are covered under a separate category within the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state’s Medicaid program.

Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said the governor must weigh the lives of all Arizonans, including the estimated 50,000 childless adults who would lose AHCCCS coverage when a federal waiver expires Dec. 31 unless lawmakers OK Medicaid expansion and the additional federal funding that comes with it.

Cathi Herrod and her "fetus fetish" Christian Taliban would rather see some of these patients die than imagine the possibility in their fevered minds that one red-cent might somehow indirectly be spent on abortion services (which it can not). That says "pro-life," now doesn't it?

“The state has done everything it can to keep public dollars out of the hands of abortion providers,” Benson said. “When the governor says she’s pro-life, that’s not just for the pre-born. She supports life for young people, the middle-aged and the elderly.”

* * *

The governor first couched Medicaid expansion as a “pro-life” issue at a Capitol rally this month.

Ron Johnson, executive director of the Arizona Catholic Conference, which represents the Phoenix Diocese and more than 1 million Arizona Catholics, said Herrod’s suggested amendment could pick up votes from GOP lawmakers who remain undecided on Medicaid expansion.

“There’s a case to be made that it actually picks up votes by having that kind of language,” Johnson said. “For us, it’s not one versus the other. We’re supportive of the governor’s Medicaid expansion and have been basically from the beginning. But before that, we were supportive of HB 2800.”

Brewer’s proposal has enough Democratic and GOP votes in the Senate to pass with a simple majority and appears close in the House. But House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said that an abortion amendment “certainly doesn’t help” bring that coalition of lawmakers together and that other substantive amendments could cause additional problems.

“We’re not going to just vote for Medicaid if the governor and the GOP are also hurting us and hurting the future of the state with other policy measures,” Campbell said. “There are going to be things that could probably cause us to reconsider our position. The bottom line is (Medicaid) shouldn’t be used as a political football. Let’s just vote on this.”

Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood Arizona, slammed Herrod and the Center for Arizona Policy for jeopardizing Medicaid expansion in favor of a “failed legislative strategy.”

“She has to know that she is putting health-care access for 400,000 people at risk,” he said.

Yes, she does. But she and the CAP only profit from pursuing their anti-abortion crusade. How much does the Mullah get paid? It's all about the money and their reason to exist.