^{The federal government is currently in shutdown mode after Democrats pushed to continue taxpayer support for health care plans that cover abortions and transgender medical procedures.} 

^{In the legislative finagling prior to the shutdown on Wednesday, Democrats pushed to extend the Obamacare enhanced subsidies, which are set to expire on Dec. 31, and use taxpayer dollars to subsidize plans that cover medical procedures many Americans find morally objectionable.}

^{The Daily Signal spoke with Chris Jacobs, the founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, a policy shop located in Washington, about the specifics of a continuing resolution supported by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Jacobs elaborated on how the Obamacare subsidies affect health care coverage.}

^{“Obamacare subsidies are subsidies that pay for a portion of the premiums. The subsidies reduce the monthly premium costs for most enrollees. Most enrollees on the exchanges have some, at least some, and in many cases, all of their premium subsidies, subsidized such that they pay $0 out of pocket,” he said.}

“^{This is one of the reasons why the enrollment has increased in the past few years, when the enhanced subsidies have been in place, because they are, quote-unquote ‘free’ to the enrollees, and therefore the enrollees sign up and remain signed up, even if they have other other forms of health coverage.}”

^{When it comes to the firewall separating taxpayer funding from abortion, Jacobs describes the ostensible separation of federal funds as a sham segregation mechanism.}

^{“[T]he problem is, money is fungible. If you are making health insurance. If you are funding the non-abortion portion of health insurance, that, by its very nature, is making the abortion portion of the policy more affordable. So, the pro-life community has consistently. since Obamacare passed in 2010, said that the only real solution is to prohibit federal funding from going to any plans that cover abortion,” Jacobs said.} 

^{During the debate over Obamacare back in 2009, a bipartisan legislative proposal, known as the Stupak-Pitts Amendment—named after its sponsors, then-Reps. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and Joseph Pitts, R-Pa.—would have explicitly prohibited federal funds from going to pay for any part of a health plan that includes coverage of an abortion. The measure was initially adopted by the House of Representatives, receiving votes by dozens of Democrat members. But it was left out of the final version of the legislation that was signed into law by President Barack Obama after he agreed to sign an executive order ostensibly limiting abortion.} 

^{According to Jacobs, the federal dollars are also going to support transgender procedures in some states.}

^{“There are 24 states that require they have quote-unquote, ‘nondiscrimination provisions’ in their law. And in most states, the insurance commissioners just impose these requirements on carriers, such that, for instance, if they cover a mastectomy as treatment for breast cancer, then they also need to cover a mastectomy as, quote, ‘gender-affirmative care,’ and because otherwise they would be discriminating based on gender identity,” he explained.}

“^{So, 24 states have that. And then of those 24, five have them, have the benefits, have transgender procedures included in their essential health benefits, which is the benchmark for determining coverage that all the states have as part of determining, you know, kind of the standard quote-unquote ‘benchmark’ coverage in that particular state, and five states have those included, such that they’re required in all plans,” Jacobs told The Daily Signal.}

^{The policy expert explained how the state of Colorado’s Division of Insurance webpage lists transgender surgeries that are covered by insurance plans in the state, including such procedures as genital surgeries and facial feminization interventions. Jacobs noted that the Trump administration has issued a final rule in June that would attempt to prevent taxpayer dollars going to cover transgender procedures. That rule would be subject to both legal challenges and a future presidential administration repealing it.}

^{Jacobs contended that what was needed to address those issues was a legislative fix. “[T]he Trump administration is trying to take executive action, and they’re doing what they can within the bounds of the law. But ultimately, a legislative fix is really what you need here, because any administrative fix will, by definition, be incomplete,” he said.} 

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