As if we needed it, here’s yet another reason why the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill would be a disaster should it become law: it would restrict women’s rights to obtain an abortion paid for by their insurance, beginning in just a few months.
Starting in 2018, the bill would bar the use of Obamacare’s premium tax credits to pay for plans that include coverage for abortion except in the cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the mother’s life, as health care analyst Charles Gaba notes at ACASignups.net. This would mean no plan offered on the exchanges could cover abortion. This is a problem in itself, as a lack of insurance coverage for abortion can cause a number of problems for patients, such as forcing them to choose between paying for the procedure and paying rent.
This in itself is horrific. But the timing couldn’t be worse. Insurance companies are required to sign up for participation in the 2018 exchanges in less than a week. This means that if this awful healthcare bill were to pass, plans that previously covered abortions would suddenly become illegal prior to the period of enrollment. Who knows exactly what these insurers are supposed to do with a bunch of plans that are no longer legal. This is a recipe for disaster. Republicans don’t care though—as long as it fits their religious agenda to stop women’s access to abortions.
[Currently 25 states have plans that cover abortion] and it’s not at all clear how insurers will respond if their plans suddenly violate federal law.
What’s more, California and New York require that all plans on the exchanges offer abortion coverage. So under Graham-Cassidy, all the plans in those state exchanges would become illegal. It’s unclear what the states would do to make sure their residents could get coverage, but as Gaba points out, they might decide to sue the federal government.
Leave it to the Republicans to come up with a last-ditch attempt to replace Obamacare with a plan that is not only more costly, considerably worse and will hurt millions of people but that also intentionally punishes women for their reproductive choices. This is dangerous and criminal.