On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office, Congress's nonpartisan watchdog, released a report on abortion coverage in health plans sold on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

Republicans had asked for it. The request letter was signed by 18 Republican leaders and committee chairs, including 13 who have report cards on this site: Robert Aderholt, Chris Smith, Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, Lisa McClain, Andy Harris, Michelle Fischbach, Kat Cammack, Bob Onder, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Brett Guthrie and Jason Smith, according to Chris Smith's office.

Within hours, Aderholt and Smith were telling the country the report proved what they'd said all along: that "federal taxpayer dollars... are subsidizing plans that include elective abortion coverage for over 4.4 million people."

That's not what the report says.

What the report actually found

Here is what [GAO's own summary] says(https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108995):

"Based on federal law applicable in 2026, QHPs are prohibited from using federal funds, such as income-based tax credits, to help pay for abortion services except where the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or the life of the pregnant woman would be endangered unless an abortion is performed."

In plain English: the tax credits people get to afford marketplace insurance already can't be used to pay for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother's life. That is the same line the Hyde Amendment draws.

GAO also explains how that works. Federal law requires insurers to put a price on abortion coverage of at least $1 per person per month, and that money has to be kept separate from the rest of the premium. All 15 insurers GAO checked said the real cost was less than $1 a month, and they set the charge at $1 to follow the law.

The other numbers:

• 1,719 of 6,655 marketplace plans (26%) covered abortion beyond those exceptions in 2026. An estimated 4.4 million people were enrolled in them.
• 1,609 of those plans were in the 13 states whose laws generally require plans to cover abortion.
• In the 14 states that prohibit the coverage, and the 11 that allow it only in limited cases, zero plans covered it.

GAO did find room for improvement on disclosure: 11 of the 15 insurers it checked said they note the abortion charge on bills or plan materials. That's the gap Aderholt and Smith point to. But the core claim, that federal subsidies pay for abortion, is the opposite of what GAO wrote: states decide whether plans cover it, and federal law keeps the subsidies out.

What they're really after

The Aderholt–Smith statement gives it away. It calls for Congress to pass "legislation requiring full Hyde protections for all ACA plans," and, until then, for the Trump administration to bring back a 2019 rule that made insurers send a separate bill for the abortion part of the premium.

According to Yellowhammer News, cutting off premium tax credits entirely for plans that cover abortion was also on the table during last fall's failed talks over extending the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Think about who is in these plans: 4.4 million people, and almost all of the plans are in states whose own laws require abortion coverage. Cutting off tax credits for any plan that covers abortion would leave those people with a choice their state never asked them to make: lose the coverage, or lose the help paying for insurance.

"Baby poison pills"

The statement didn't stop at numbers. Aderholt and Smith wrote that taxpayers shouldn't subsidize plans that cover "the elective killing of an unborn child by dismemberment or baby poison pills."

"Baby poison pills" is how they describe abortion pills, the same pills Trump's Justice Department has talked about cutting off with an 1873 law. "Dismemberment" is the term behind Kat Cammack's bill to send doctors to prison for two years for the standard second-trimester procedure. Cammack signed the GAO request.

Who signed

Every one of these Republicans has a report card on this site, and every one is listed by Chris Smith's office as a signer of the letter requesting the GAO review:

• Alabama: Robert Aderholt, chairman of the House Values Action Team and of the Appropriations subcommittee that writes the Hyde Amendment into law every year
• Florida: Kat Cammack, House Pro-Life Caucus co-chair
• Kentucky: Brett Guthrie, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee
• Louisiana: Speaker Mike Johnson; Majority Leader Steve Scalise
• Maryland: Andy Harris, House Pro-Life Caucus co-chair
• Michigan: Lisa McClain, House Republican Conference chair
• Minnesota: Majority Whip Tom Emmer; Michelle Fischbach, House Pro-Life Caucus co-chair
• Mississippi: Cindy Hyde-Smith, Senate Pro-Life Caucus chair
• Missouri: Bob Onder, House Pro-Life Caucus co-chair; Jason Smith, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee
• New Jersey: Chris Smith, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus

What the report shows

Thirteen Republicans on our report cards, including the Speaker of the House, requested a GAO review of abortion coverage in Obamacare marketplace plans. Two of them, Robert Aderholt and Chris Smith, then said it proved taxpayers are subsidizing abortion. GAO's own summary says federal law bars tax credits from paying for abortion outside rape, incest or a threat to the mother's life, that enrollees are charged separately for that coverage, and that 1,609 of the 1,719 plans that cover it are in states whose laws require them to. Aderholt and Smith used the report to call for "full Hyde protections for all ACA plans," aimed at the plans 4.4 million people are enrolled in.

Source

• U.S. Government Accountability Office: Health Insurance Exchanges: Coverage of Non-Excepted Abortion Services by Qualified Health Plans in 2026 (GAO-26-108995)
• Yellowhammer News: Aderholt: Alabama taxpayers are bankrolling Obamacare abortion plans for 4.4 million people, GAO finds
• Office of Rep. Chris Smith: statement and list of signers

Photo: Rep. Robert Aderholt/YouTube, via Yellowhammer News.