Pennsylvania State Senate Passes Bill Banning Insurance Coverage for Abortion

The Pennsylvania legislature has its priorities mixed up.

They could be focusing on jobs, education, or improving access to health care. Instead, yesterday, the Pennsylvania state senate passed a bill that would make it impossible for Pennsylvanian women to purchase insurance coverage for abortion in the new insurance marketplace — even women whose health may be seriously at risk because of their pregnancy. 

H.B. 818 passed the Senate with a 31-19 vote. On Tuesday, the Senate rejected the opportunity to amend the bill to mitigate the harm it poses to Pennsylvanian women, including rejecting an attempt to expand the exceptions in the bill so that women facing medical emergencies would have insurance coverage of abortion. H.B. 818 now heads to Governor Corbett's desk.

H.B. 818 allows the government to interfere in the private insurance market and prevent companies from selling plans that cover abortion. Banning abortion coverage will endanger women’s health, take away access to health benefits that women already have, and interfere with a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions. It is the lower income and middle income women in Pennsylvania who will be most burdened by this legislation. As State Rep. Erin Molchany (D-Mount Washington) said, it "creates separate and unequal health care for women in Pennsylvania."

Sadly, this is nothing new. Abortion insurance coverage bans have been introduced so far this year in at least 16 states, and 21 states already have such bans. Abortion opponents are doing everything they can to make abortion unaffordable and interfere with a woman’s ability to make her own health care decisions.

Pennsylvania politicians need to stop restricting women’s health. All health insurance plans should provide coverage for a full range of pregnancy-related care, including abortion.

State bans on insurance coverage of abortion hurt women and H.B. 818 is another attempt by anti-choice politicians to put their agenda ahead of women’s health.