Who isn’t skeptical of Obama’s health-care promises?

Mike Riggs Contributor
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Christians are miffed at Stupak and understandably suspicious of the strange deal he struck with Obama. From the Christian Post story:

“[A] flimsy promise of an executive order from the President may make it more comfortable for ‘pro-life’ Democrats like Rep. Bart Stupak to vote for the bill, but in the end, such an illusory promise is not even worth the paper on which it’s written,” said Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance.

A legal team at Americans United for Life Action concluded that an executive order “is not an adequate fix to mitigate this legislation’s establishment of taxpayer-funded abortion.”

“An executive order, for example, cannot prevent insurance companies that pay for abortions in the exchanges from receiving federal subsidies,” said Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of AUL.

Over at the Corner, Yuval Levin explains that if executive orders could be used how Obama intends to use ’em, Bush would have done it years ago:

[W]hat could the White House possibly give Stupak that would not be thrown out by any federal judge in a second?

Looking at the executive order (which you can read here), the answer is clearly nothing. The executive order quite literally does nothing that the Senate bill does not already do, and it is careful to say as much. It offers a kind of narrative of what champions of the bill claim it does with regard to abortion (claims that Rep. Stupak among others has disputed for months), and then says the executive branch will make various people aware of this understanding of what the law says. It orders no action (only the usual promulgation of regulations the law requires anyway) and offers no interpretation beyond that.