OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
— In the clearest sign yet that the federal health insurance website has improved, about 29,000 people enrolled in insurance plans in the first two days of this week, exceeding the number of enrollments on the site in all of October, according to a source familiar with the data. The data represent the number of people who have selected a plan, not necessarily those who have completed the process by paying insurers. That last step remains a challenge for the Obama administration.
— Members of the millennial generation, who have strongly supported President Barack Obama in the past, take a skeptical view of his health care law, according to a poll from Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Most 18- to 29-year-olds do not expect to benefit from the law. About 1 in 5 in the group said they lack health insurance. Asked if they think they will enroll for health benefits under the new law, roughly 3 in 10 said they are likely to, with a similar number saying they would not.
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More than 90 percent of health insurance plans offered to lawmakers and congressional staff cover abortion, an unforeseen consequence of a Republican amendment to President Barack Obama’s health law.
The disclosure Wednesday by abortion opponent Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., also highlights an emerging issue nationally: It may be hard for individual consumers to determine whether abortion is a covered benefit in plans offered through the new online insurance markets.
For government insiders, there’s another twist: Lawmakers and their staffs now appear to be the only federal employees with access to abortion coverage through their government-supported health insurance plans.
Smith said only nine of the 112 insurance plans offered to members of Congress and their staffs through the Washington, D.C., insurance market exclude abortion as a covered benefit.
“It was incredibly confusing, if not impossible, to find out,” said Smith. “That is what’s happening in state after state. People cannot find out if plans on the exchange include abortion.”
Although the Washington insurance market has been recognized for making information on abortion coverage relatively easy to find for consumers, Smith says he suspects some abortion opponents on Capitol Hill may have unwittingly signed up in plans that do cover the procedure. Lawmakers and staffers have until Monday to finalize their enrollments, while the rest of the country has until Mar. 31.
Abortion remains a legal medical procedure in most cases, but it’s subject to increasing restrictions in many states.
Under Obama’s health care law, every state must have at least one plan that does not cover abortion. And states can also bar or restrict abortion coverage by the new plans. At least 23 states have done so. But a majority have not, along with Washington, where lawmakers and staff must shop.
A longstanding federal law known as the Hyde amendment prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. A similar law applies to the federal employee health plan.
However, lawmakers and many staffers are no longer in that plan. That’s due to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who opposes the new health care program and abortion. When Obama’s law was being debated, he pushed through an amendment that requires lawmakers and their personal staffs to get private coverage through the same markets that uninsured Americans will be using.
And those plans can cover abortion, provided that they do not use federal funds to pay for it. Federal tax credits to help people afford coverage must be kept apart from funds used to pay for elective abortions. The money will come from the portion of premiums directly paid by enrollees.
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