Whether buying your insurance from a state exchange or from the government health care website, it's almost impossible to find out whether you're paying for abortion coverage.
The Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, released a report showing a lack of information available to consumers – albeit from the other side of the issue.
Guttmacher examined the online plan descriptions of 12 state exchanges that allow abortion coverage. Researchers reviewed the "summary of benefits and coverage" that the Affordable Care Act requires all plans to include. However, the template for the summary provided to states by the federal government does not include any place to disclose abortion coverage.
"It's not in the template, and plans are just following that," said Gretchen Borchelt with the National Women's Law Center, a pro-abortion organization. "It's a lack of awareness on their part, a lack of familiarity with what should be included."
Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia allow abortion coverage; 24 states do not. Guttmacher found that in only four states that permit abortion coverage, just a handful of the plans spell it out.
Chuck Donovan, president of the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, recalls an article he wrote for The Heritage Foundation in 2010.
"Polls taken in the U.S. have routinely showed majority support for limits on taxpayer funding of abortion," he said, "Since 1976, restrictions on such funding have grown to span numerous public programs, including Medicaid, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, the Indian Health Service, appropriations for the District of Columbia, and many more. Nearly two dozen federal programs or agencies are covered by such policies, which include measures to protect the right of medical personnel and health care researchers not to participate in abortions."
Even as the administration was pushing for Obamacare, President Barack Obama told Congress, "One more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."
Donovan said the Guttmacher report flies in the face of that assertion – and consumers are not happy.
"The people we communicate with are looking for the information," he said. "We're hearing complaints about it."
Source: CitizenLink
