Corbett will sign anti-abortion coverage bill
HARRISBURG – Gov. Tom Corbett is expected to sign a bill to prevent coverage of most abortions under policies offered in a federally run insurance marketplace starting next year in Pennsylvania after the Senate passed it Wednesday by a comfortable margin.
A spokeswoman for the Republican governor, an opponent of abortion rights, said he will sign the bill. It passed the Senate, 31-19, and the House approved it in April, 144-53, but only after divisive debates.
Critics said the bill expands restrictions on abortion rights and discriminates against poor women.
“What we’re doing here is really a backdoor attempt to deprive women of their legal right to an abortion,” said Sen. Larry Farnese, D-Philadelphia. “I know that’s not comfortable to speak about in this place, but that’s what this is.”
Senate Banking and Insurance Committee Chairman Don White, R-Indiana, said he regretted the divisions sparked by the bill. But he insisted that the 2010 federal health care law that created the insurance marketplaces also allows the prohibition on abortion coverage in health insurance policies offered through them.
He and other proponents say it is in line with Pennsylvania’s longstanding ban on taxpayer-funded elective abortions because the insurance marketplace will be run with taxpayer money. It would allow policies covering abortions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger.
The Corbett administration says the bill would not place any greater restrictions on access than already exist.
Twenty other states, including Florida and Ohio, restrict abortion coverage in insurance plans that will be offered through the marketplaces, according to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which tracks restrictions on abortion rights.
On Tuesday, backers of the bill defeated attempts by abortion rights proponents to expand its exceptions to include instances when the health of the mother is at risk and to allow policies in the marketplace to include abortion coverage as long as a person used their own money to buy them.
The new insurance marketplaces will allow households and small businesses to buy a private health plan, and many will get help from the government to pay their premiums. Under the law, states that can’t or won’t set up marketplaces – including Pennsylvania – will have theirs run by Washington.
Under the federal law, plans in the new marketplaces will have to cover a set of “essential” benefits, including hospitalization, doctor visits, prescriptions, prevention and care for pregnant women and young children. Coverage through marketplace plans will begin Jan. 1.