Follow The Money: Obama's Order Requiring Catholics To Fund Birth Control

As long as I’ve been following politics, one of the key phrases has been “Follow the money.” This is a good rule of thumb for tracking down the reasons for certain policies.

So, let’s follow the money trail for the order from the Obama Administration that requires Catholic and other faith-based institutions to provide health insurance coverage for birth control, which likely includes abortions, either now or through a later regulatory fiat.

Step 1: Who provides most of the birth control/abortion services in America? The birth control part is fairly hard to track down, but the abortion part isn’t. This probably won’t surprise you too much, but it’s Planned Parenthood.

Okay, so the coverage requirement is likely going to funnel even more business to Planned Parenthood. To a hard-line lefty like Obama, this probably looked like a heck of a deal for his political friends.

But wait, there’s more!

Step 2: Where does the money go after it gets into Planned Parenthood’s bank accounts? OpenSecrets.org has that answer, and it comes in two parts.

2A: Planned Parenthood’s Super-PAC has, so far in the 2012 election cycle, spent about $12,000 to support various candidates and about $35,000 to oppose various candidates. Would you like to bet which party they’re supporting and which they’re opposing? According to this chart, every dollar of that $12k went to support Democrats, and every dollar of that $35k went to oppose Republicans.

2B: Who, specifically, gets Planned Parenthood money? Well, here’s a quick list of those Congresspeople for whom Planned Parenthood is the top donor for 2012 (culled from this list):

• Planned Parenthood to Allyson Schwartz (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Barbara Boxer (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Barbara Lee (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Betty McCollum (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Chris Coons (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Claire McCaskill (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Danny K. Davis (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Emanuel Cleaver (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Gwen Moore (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Jackie Speier (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Jeanne Shaheen (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Jeff Merkley (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to John Lewis (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Kathleen Hochul (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Kathy Castor (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Keith Ellison (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Lois Capps (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Mark Begich (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Mark Udall (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Mike Quigley (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Nancy Pelosi (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Niki Tsongas (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Olympia J. Snowe (R) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Patty Murray (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Timothy J. Walz (D) in 2012
• Planned Parenthood to Tom Udall (D) in 2012

Aside from Olympia Snowe (lifetime American Conservative Union rating 48.39), you only see one party identifier on that list. Bear in mind, these are just those members of Congress for which Planned Parenthood was the top contributor… I am sure that there are lots more Democrats who received Planned Parenthood money but not enough for PP to be their #1 contributor.

So… thanks to the new — and unprecedented, and probably unconstitutional — order that just about every health plan in the nation provide “free” birth control/abortion coverage, Planned Parenthood will likely be making even more money than they already are, and they’re all but certain to funnel a big chunk of it to Democrats.

Was the whole thing a setup to help Democrats’ re-election bids this year? I’ll let you decide, but based on the above, I’d say that it’s plausible at the very least.