During the whole Obamacare debate, many of us progressives fought tooth and nail to keep
abortion coverage out of the mix, to no avail. We didn't foresee this exact result, but knew that opening up the law to include any kind of abortion restriction would be an opening that anti-choice Republicans would figure out how to blow apart. And
they have.
The Georgia state legislature passed a bill on Tuesday to prohibit abortion coverage from being included in insurance sold under Obamacare within its borders. It is now the 22nd state, almost all of them with statehouses controlled by Republicans, to pass such a bill since the federal law took effect in March 2010.
As of February,
24 states have enacted laws preventing insurance plans that provide abortion coverage from being sold on the exchanges. As it stands, according to a 2008 Guttmacher study, just 30 percent of abortion patients had private insurance, but among those 63 percent paid out of pocket. That's likely to become an even higher percentage as these restrictions kick in.
Experts warned that insurance companies would not be likely to continue to offer abortion coverage or even to provide separate policy riders that cover the procedure for people to pay for entirely out of pocket. It's too much of an administrative hassle. The danger for women now is that, as insurance companies try to streamline practices and cut administrative costs, abortion coverage will be sacrificed as the companies standardize their plans.