Seattle Abortion Providers Weigh in on Reproductive Parity Act
In 2014, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund (NWAAF), previously The CAIR Project, received a phone call to its hotline from a Washington woman requesting financial assistance to terminate her complicated pregnancy. Her doctor had informed her that she would lose a kidney if she carried the pregnancy to full term. Yet, her insurance company refused to cover the abortion, because kidney loss failed to meet the insurance policy’s life-threatening qualifications for coverage. NWAAF provided funding for the woman to get the abortion, but the severity of the situation stuck with NWAAF’s Policy and Advocacy Committee volunteer Jessi Murray.
“When a health plan covers the costs of all reproductive health care, including abortion, it means people can make decisions based on what is best for their circumstances. When politicians deny coverage, the harm falls hardest on low-income women, women of color, and young women,” Murray wrote in an email to Seattle Weekly.
The women’s predicament was a common one for adults throughout Washington whose reproductive healthcare isn’t fully covered by their insurance. Murray added that about 25 percent of clients who call the NWAAF hotline have private insurance, but still need financial help when their insurance denies coverage or their high deductible plans cover little of the procedure. In Washington, Medicaid recipients can get funding through the state, but those who have private or military insurance don’t have access to that coverage.
The same barriers to coverage applies to birth control. In fact, only 35 percent of privately insured Washington women reported that their insurance fully covered their contraception in 2013, according to Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest and Hawaii. But that will soon be changing following the State Senate’s March 3 passage of the Reproductive Parity Act (Senate Bill 6219), which requires health plans that offer maternity coverage to also cover abortion and contraceptive costs.
Read more: http://www.seattleweekly.com/news/seattle-abortion-providers-weigh-in-on-reproductive-parity-act/
