Gov. Bob McDonnell
Gov. Bob McDonnell has decided the Virginia will forego setting up its own health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, but will instead leave it to the federal government, but with
conditions. He wants the state to retain all of its regulatory control over the providers who participate in the exchange. Now we're seeing one of the reasons why he's pushing that condition. It's not going to be a state-established exchange, but he still wants to prohibit insurers on that exchange from providing policies that cover abortion.
State Sen. Mark Herring writes this op-ed in the Virginia Pilot.
This extreme measure not only fails to improve women's health care coverage but will also rob women of the benefits they are currently able to purchase and possess through their private health care plans. [...]
Also troubling is the governor's interference in the private insurance industry. His extreme measure deals with private health care plans and has nothing to do with eliminating public funding for abortion.
The governor's amendment would restrict Virginians from purchasing a comprehensive insurance policy with their own private dollars—an unprecedented instance of government interference in the free market.
Obamacare was bad enough on abortion coverage, creating a burdensome administrative process for both insurers and consumers in which all money that might go toward abortion coverage has to be segregated, the insurers segregate the money used for abortion services from all other funds, and insurance purchaser having to make separate premium payments for the abortion coverage. Obviously, that compromise (to get then-Sen. Ben Nelson on board) did a whole hell of a lot to mitigate the issue and to prevent anti-choice governors from pushing their agenda.