Under the 1849 Wisconsin abortion ban, Bennett, an associate clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, needed two other physicians to attest that Ashley was facing death.
But even with an arsenal of medical documentation, Ashley’s health insurer, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, did not cover the abortion procedure. Months later, Ashley logged in to her medical billing portal and was surprised to see that the insurer had paid for her three-night hospital stay but not the abortion.
“Every time I called insurance about my bill, I was sobbing on the phone because it was so frustrating to have to explain the situation and why I think it should be covered,” she said. “It’s making me feel like it was my fault, and I should be ashamed of it.”
Eventually, Ashley talked to a woman in the hospital billing department who relayed what the insurance company had said.
“She told me,” Ashley said, “quote, ‘FEP Blue does not cover any abortions whatsoever. Period. Doesn’t matter what it is. We don’t cover abortions.’”
…
In response to an interview request, FEP Blue emailed a statement saying it “is required to comply with federal legislation which prohibits Federal Employees Health Benefits Plans from covering procedures, services, drugs, and supplies related to abortions except when the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or when the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”
Those restrictions, known as the Hyde Amendment, have been passed each year since 1976 by Congress and prohibit federal funds from covering abortion services. But the Hyde Amendment has exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, as the health insurer noted in response to questions from KFF Health News and NPR.
…
What tripped up Ashley’s bill was the word “abortion” and a billing code that is insurance kryptonite, said Salganicoff.
“Right now, we’re in a situation where there is really heightened sensitivity about what is a life-threatening emergency, and when is it a life-threatening emergency,” Salganicoff said.
The same chilling effect that has spooked doctors and hospitals from providing legal abortion care, she said, may also be affecting insurance coverage.
…
Recently, the bill for $1,700 disappeared from Ashley’s online bill portal. The hospital confirmed that eight months later, after multiple appeals, the insurer paid the claim. When contacted again on Aug. 7, FEP Blue responded that it would “not comment on the specifics of the health care received by individual members.”
People on here sometimes ask “how can progressives support Harris” and one of the reasons for me is because women will literally be murdered by the Trump administration in situations like this. We must reinstate sane abortion laws.
He will definitely make it worse but it is already happening. States that restrict abortion see significant increases in their maternal and infant mortality rates. Texas, which already had one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the country, saw it get worse by 20% after they restricted abortion.
They’re being murdered under the Biden administration in situations like this.
Democrats campaign on these positions, but we’re not seeing a serious effort to advance any legislation or replace any of these shitty judges.
The red states have free reign to terrorize their populations, while blue state leaders simply shrug and say “Guess you should have voted harder if you didn’t want to die”.
Go ahead and cheerlead Harris through November, but stop treating her as a panacea and heckling actual pro-choice activists for caring about the actual policies.
Democrats have always granted majority support to the Hyde Amendment, straight back to '76 when it was passed. They had repeated majority Congressional opportunities to pull it out - in '93 and '09 and '17 - and they didn’t do it then. Wtf, does anyone think the moldy reminants in the Senate are changing their tune now?
I don’t disagree w.r.t. them dropping the fucking ball under Obama… but Democrats couldn’t solve it during Biden’s term, they haven’t had the power to actually get shit done… and it’s important to remember that if Harris is elected but Dems fail to capture the House and Senate they still can’t do shit outside of packing the Supreme Court. The GOP is a fucking wall on abortion and an ammendment is basically impossible - the best we could hope for in the short term is a federal law that restricts what states can do.
People will lose their fucking minds at the idea of a second Trump Presidency, because they fundamentally understand the powers of the executive branch are vast and nearly impossible to oppose. Many still remember the “Unitary Executive” Bush Era. More remember the police brutality and financial shenanigans unleashed under Trump.
But as soon as a Democrat gets into office, it seems like they forget all about how these powers exist. Hell - how these powers were granted by Democrats themselves under those Republican administrations. The Patriot Act, the FISA reauthorizations, the broad powers afforded to the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA to pursue enemies of the state, the ability to nationalize whole sectors of the economy with a swipe of the pen, the ability to prosecute through the dozens of federal attorney offices, the ability to set all sorts of regulatory standards on everything from Education to Health Care to Environmental Protection, the ability to spend money already allocated to these agencies and to hire and fire millions of federal employees…
Any hospital or clinic that accepts federal money for Medicare and Medicaid is subject to a litany of regulations via HHS. Biden’s secretaries can write up an absolute briar patch of rules and regulations that limit how these clinics report information to the state and lay down a host of liabilities for women in their care who suffer while pregnant.
If he really wants to go whole hog, he can send the national guard down to every Planned Parenthood in America and proclaim them open for business under the aegis of federal law. In the same way Eisenhower enforced de-segregation, Biden can enforce the right to an abortion.
These are the same tools that prior Republican administrations have used to restrict access to abortion. They’re comparable to techniques Republican state governors and legislators have used to limit legal access to private abortion clinics. They’re heavy handed, authoritarian, and they’re certainly going to create a slew of eye-popping headlines in the national media.
But that’s why Biden (and now Harris) won’t pull the trigger. Doing things means putting your political future on the line. Just saying “Maybe try voting harder next time” moves the onus to the people getting trampled by their state and local governments.