As a part of preparation for a potential U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could overturn Roe v. Wade, California eliminated out-of-pocket expenses for abortions to make them more “affordable” and “accessible.”
On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Abortion Accessibility Act (SB 245), which that will stop health insurers from imposing co-pays and deductibles for abortions.
Announcing the move, Newsom said,
As states across the country attempt to move us backwards by restricting fundamental reproductive rights, California continues to protect and advance reproductive freedom for all.
The governor believes that the law will make access to abortions more affordable, “so that out-of-pocket costs don’t stand in the way of receiving care.”
According to the announcement,
SB 245 prohibits health plans and insurers from imposing a co-pay, deductible, or other cost-sharing requirement for abortion and abortion-related services. The legislation also prohibits health plans and insurers from imposing utilization management practices on covered abortion, and abortion-related services.
The nation’s biggest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, praised the California lawmakers and the governor for this legislation.
“Eliminating out-of-pocket costs for abortion for people with private insurance is a major step in California’s commitment to being a Reproductive Freedom state, making abortion services more accessible and affordable for all people in California,” the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, Jodi Hicks, said in a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“SB 245 becoming law means that more Californians will be able to access the care they want, when they want,” Hicks added.
California recognizes abortion as a “basic health care,” and requires health insurance companies to cover it.
Yet, insurance companies often charge “things like co-pays and deductibles that can add an average of $543 to the cost of a medication abortion and $887 to the cost of a procedural abortion, according to an analysis by the California Health Benefits Review Program,” reported the San Diego affiliate of Fox News.
The report noted that while the new law will make abortions cheaper, it will “slightly” increase monthly premiums for patients and their employers.
This makes California a fourth state to eliminate out-of-pocket abortion fees, joining Illinois, Oregon, and New York.
This piece is the latest in a string of legislation that seeks to expand abortion coverage passed under Newsom’s tenure as California governor.
In 2019, the governor signed a bill to allow Planned Parenthood access to college campuses among the young women, who are the “target consumers” for the abortion industry.
Two years later, Newsom harshened restrictions on pro-life protesting outside abortion clinics.
Together with Newsom, the Democrat lawmakers in the Golden State are seeking to make California “the abortion state.”
In October 2021, Newsom authorized the “California Future of Abortion Council” (CA FAB Council), comprised of powerful pro-abortion organizations and advocacy groups. The council is supported by the university departments and the office of Newsom himself. The members and supporters include numerous Planned Parenthood affiliates in California, ACLU California affiliates, UC Davis Health, Hollywood NOW, Women’s Foundation of California, and others.
On December 8, 2021, the council published a blueprint outlining 45 policy recommendations for policymakers “to better prepare California as the threat to abortion rights and access continues to grow.” The proposals include spending money to help abortion clinics hire more staff and funding to reimburse abortion providers for patients who can’t afford to pay, including those who travel to California from other states to get their abortions.
The council is specifically threatened by the possibility that Roe v Wade could be overturned. The council, demonstrating shocking ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, claimed that if that happened, “the constitutional right to abortion [would] be taken from millions of people across the country.”
To prepare for the “abortion tourists” coming to the state, Newsom, among other measures, earmarked as much as $20 million for incentivizing medical students to become practicing abortionists.
In one of the last attempts to turn California into the “abortion sanctuary state,” as Newsom put it in October 2021, California State Senator Nancy Skinner proposed a bill last week that would create a fund to help women pay the expenses of traveling to California to abort their children.
According to Skinner’s announcement, her bill, SB 1142, “would establish a first-of-its-kind fund composed of state and philanthropic dollars that would significantly increase funding for abortion services for low-income Californians and for out-of-state residents who may come here for an abortion.”
California lawmakers introduced as many as 11 bills aimed at expanding abortion coverage, as of February 2022.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on a 15-week abortion ban in Mississippi. If the nation’s highest court decides in favor of the case, it will effectively overturn both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and outlaw abortion performed after 15 weeks of gestation. States such as Florida and Arizona have already drafted similar pieces of legislation. Missouri’s bill would outlaw out-of-state abortions in the fashion in which Texas did it.
As reported by The New American, “at least 12 states have already enacted so-called trigger bans that will instantly prohibit abortion if the high court does indeed overturn Roe and/or returns the issue to the states to resolve” in preparation for a post-Roe America.
