No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert my
statement in the Record that the House should vote for bigger paychecks
and better infrastructure instead of attacking women's access to health
care.

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Mr. NADLER. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I will comment on the demerits of this terrible bill
in the debate on the bill. I want to comment now on how this bill got
before us.

This is, I think, the fifth bill we have considered in this Congress.
Not one of those bills went through committee. Not one of those bills
had a markup, a hearing, an opportunity for people to amend the bills
in committee, and now the bills come to the floor for an hour

of debate with no opportunity to offer amendments. This is hardly the
transparency and the due process that the GOP leaders promised us.

This bill is even worse because this bill was not on the calendar
until late last night. Yesterday, when the Republican anti-choice women
rebelled at the terrible rape provisions of the bill we were supposed
to debate today and when they found they couldn't pass a bill today on
the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, they brought another off-the-shelf
bill, which is a terrible bill, with no hearing in committee, no debate
in committee, no markup, no opportunity to offer amendments, no vote in
committee, no opportunity to offer amendments on the floor.

This is not the way you run or should run the House of
Representatives of the United States. It is a shameful procedure for a
shameful bill.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 7, the so-called No
Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

The name of the bill is a lie. There is now no taxpayer funding for
abortions. I wish there were. The right of a woman to decide whether to
become pregnant, to decide to continue her pregnancy, or even to make
the difficult decision to terminate her pregnancy is protected by the
Constitution.

The Supreme Court has determined that neither Congress nor a State
may place an undue burden on that right. Denial of Medicaid or other
government funding that would be available for other medical procedures
should be considered an undue burden, but that is not the law,
unfortunately. Taxpayer funding of abortion is prohibited by the Hyde
amendment.

This bill goes far beyond that. This bill for the first time ever
denies tax deductions and credits for women who use their own money to
pay for abortions or to purchase insurance that covers abortions. In so
doing, the Republican majority increases taxes for women and families.

This bill for the first time denies the itemized medical tax
deduction that is otherwise available for medical expenses if the
medical expense is for an abortion.

This bill for the first time treats as taxable income any
distribution from a flexible spending account or health savings account
that is used to pay for abortion expenses.

This bill for the first time denies small employers the ability to
use tax credits to help them to provide health coverage for their
employees if that coverage includes abortion.

This bill also denies income-eligible women the use of premium tax
credits available under the Affordable Care Act if the insurance
coverage they select includes abortion coverage.

In first opposing and then voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act
50 times, my Republican colleagues have complained that government
should not meddle in the private insurance market or in private health
care choices, but this legislation obviously is designed to do just
that.

It seems that many Republicans believe in freedom, provided no one
uses that freedom in the way they do not approve. That is a strange
understanding of freedom.

Even more stunning, this bill increases taxes on families,
businesses, and the self-employed if they spend their own money--let me
repeat that--their own money on abortion coverage or services, and this
tax increase is being championed by Republicans, all of whom have taken
a pledge not to raise taxes on individuals or businesses.

The intent of the bill is clear. It is to end insurance coverage for
abortions for all women, whether or not they obtain their insurance on
an exchange, and even if they use their own money to purchase the
insurance.

My colleagues in the majority believe that, if you like your
insurance coverage, you should get to keep it unless it is for choices
that they don't like. Then they have no qualms about taking your
insurance coverage away. That is the intended and likely result of this
bill.

Currently, the vast majority of insurance policies cover abortion
services, but insurance companies will likely respond to the tax
penalties this bill imposes by dropping the coverage of abortions from
all of their plans. This will have a significant effect on all women,
not just on lower income women, who have long felt the brunt of Federal
restrictions on their health care choices.

H.R. 7 is a radical departure from the current tax treatment of
medical expenses and insurance coverage, and it is neither justifiable
nor necessary to prevent the Federal funding of abortion. It is a
frontal assault on the liberty and dignity of all American women. It
should be roundly rejected.

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