Delaware could join other states in requiring health insurance carriers to cover abortion

Delaware could become the 18th state to direct Medicaid to pay for abortion services and the 5th state to require state-regulated private health plans to do the same.

In April, House Majority Leader Melissa Minor Brown’s (D-New Castle) legislation requiring Medicaid to cover termination of pregnancies cleared the House Appropriations Committee.

She has since substituted that bill with a new version requiring all health benefit plans delivered or issued for Medicaid, private health insurance plans and state employee insurance plans to cover abortion in Delaware.

The bill requires that patients seeking pregnancy termination are not subject to any deductible, copayment or coinsurance up to the $750 coverage maximum.

The bill outlines an exception for religious employers if the coverage requirement “conflicts with the religious organization’s bona fide religious beliefs and practices,” but exclusions are not applicable for termination of pregnancies that are necessary to preserve the life or health of a covered individual.

House Minority Whip Lyndon Yearick (R-Magnolia) joined several of his colleagues in arguing the state does not mandate insurance providers to cover or provide the same cost-share exemptions to other elected health services.

“The requirement to mandate that every entity must provide this elective service and no questions asked unless they’re a faith based institution — I’m disappointed in that. I’m sure there’s very few elective services that we require other companies through their healthcare to provide,” Yearick said.

“I think that it is unfair to force taxpayers who are opposed to this procedure to have to pay for that procedure,” State Rep. Charles Postles (R-Milford) added.

Republicans went on to argue this requirement would only add to the state’s ballooning healthcare spending, noting the bill carries roughly a $500,000 annual fiscal note.

But Minor Brown said there will be back-end cost saving measures, saying women denied abortion services often lacked the means to cover basic living expenses years following the denial and saw lowered credit scores, increased debt and negative public financial records.

“When you deny a person access to essential healthcare — look at the impact after that. So the woman who’s utilizing Medicaid, and now you’re not allowing her that right to choose because you don’t want to pay for it. But you’d rather her stay on Medicaid, continue utilizing state resources and maybe even with the extra person or two, which — to me — costs more. So just make it make sense,” Minor Brown said.

State Rep. Valerie Jones Giltner (R-Georgetown) argued the state doesn’t have the resources to provide this type of coverage, especially by eliminating any cost-share mechanisms.

“We make tough decisions as legislators as far as making sure that Medicaid is available to many throughout the state. And we’re not blocking access to an abortion — that’s already widely available. We’re not even blocking partial payment of it,” Jones Giltner said. “What we’re saying is that to say that there should be no deductible, no copayment, no anything for anybody that gets an abortion, even if they have private insurance — a private payer — is not sound judgement.”

Minor Brown stuck firm in saying providing for preventative measures would ultimately save the state more money.

“We don’t have the money to pay for the after effects when we don’t provide care to people and access to healthcare to people. It’s more expensive on the other end,” Minor Brown responded.

The bill passed with only two Republican representatives defecting and now heads to the Senate for consideration.