Study: 'Industry-Wide Effect' of Stupak Amendment Will Eliminate Abortion Coverage

(Flickr/Brian Rendel)

Via TPMDC, a George Washington University School of Public Health study of public health shows that the Stupak-Pitts amendment would eventually eliminate all abortion coverage. "We conclude that treatment exclusions required under the Stupak-Pitts Amendment will have an industry-wide effect, eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange," the study says.

The study also calls out the rider alternative, an add-on women could purchase separately to cover abortion (incidentally, this is how many insurance providers handle coverage for pregnancy now), as bullshit:

In our view, the terms and impact of the Amendment will work to defeat the development of a supplemental coverage market for medically indicated abortions. In any supplemental coverage arrangement, it is essential that the supplemental coverage be administered in conjunction with basic coverage. This intertwined administration approach is barred under Stupak/Pitts because of the prohibition against financial comingling. This bar is in addition to the challenges inherent in administering any supplemental policy. These challenges would be magnified in the case of medically indicated abortions because, given the relatively low number of medically indicated abortions, the coverage supplement would apply to only a handful of procedures for a handful of conditions. Furthermore, the House legislation contains no direct economic incentive to create such a market. Indeed, it is not clear how such a market even would be regulated or whether it would be subject to the requirements that apply to all products offered inside the exchange. Finally, because supplemental coverage must of necessity commingle funds with basic coverage, the impact of Stupak/Pitts on states’ ability to offer supplemental Medicaid coverage to women insured through a subsidized exchange plan is in doubt.

In other words, the Stupak/Pitts amendment is just as bad as feminists have been saying all along.

Cross posted.

Understanding Stupak

The Stupak amendment, an amendment that would essentially create incentives for private insurance plans to drop abortion coverage, has whipped the reproductive rights community into a frenzy. But there's been some confusion about the details of the Stupak amendment. But there's been some great work published in the last couple of days. Here are some great resources for understanding the amendment:

• Planned Parenthood's "real life" analysis of the whole House health care reform bill. [RH Reality Check]
• Ruth Marcus says that the health care reform bill is supposed to increase choice, but apparently not for women. [Washington Post]
• A New York Times editorial calls the amendment a "sharp departure from current practice." [NYTimes]
• Robert Pear reports what's next for the Stupak amendment, and what Obama's position is on it. [NYTimes]
• Robin Marty, the director of special projects at the Center for Independent Media, asks the essential question of how the Stupak amendment will affect women who miscarry. [RH Reality Check]
• Former Campus Progress associate editor Dana Goldstein reports on the activists fallout from the amendment's passage. [Daily Beast]
• Emily Douglas does an analysis of how the bill will affect women. [The Nation]
• And finally, the director of CAPAF's Women's Health and Rights program, Jessica Arons lays out why the Stupak amendment is a "monumental setback" for women's rights. [Wonk Room]

Cross posted.