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.