St. Cloud Times: “Bachmann’s health care claims falter”

The St. Cloud Times is the latest in a string of major local and national media outlets that have taken issue with Rep. Michele Bachmann’s public statements about health care reform. Each of the nonpartisan groups the newspaper contacted said that Bachmann’s claim that abortions will rise 30 percent because of health reform is not supported by evidence. Other media in recent weeks to call attention to Bachmann’s “misstatements” include CBS News, WCCO, the Star Tribune, the Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio.

Bachmann said recently that, “Now for the first time in the history of the United States, all Americans will be forced to have to pay for federal funding of abortion,” and “We do have and will have federal funding of abortion for the first time, which means we’ll have 30 percent more abortions than we’ve had in the past.”

The Times ran those statements past academic experts who said those statement have little grounding in reality.

Over the last three weeks, Bachmann has said the new health care act will unleash a wave of new federal funding for abortion and increase the number of abortions performed in the U.S. by 30 percent.

Yet contrary to Bachmann’s claims, the law doesn’t fundamentally change federal policy on abortion funding, says a group of nonpartisan health care policy experts surveyed by the Times.

And a Bachmann spokesman has backed off her prediction last month that the act will boost abortions in the U.S. by 30 percent.