Wash. state lawmakers weigh new abortion rules
(AP) OLYMPIA, Wash. — Washington state lawmakers considered proposed legislation Thursday that will require most health insurers offering maternity care to also cover elective abortions.In a public hearing, the state House's Health Care and Wellness Committee heard arguments from both sides of the abortion debate.
Supporters said the bill will preserve current abortion coverage once federal health insurance rules come into effect under the Affordable Care Act in 2014.
"This is to make sure that Washington women don't wake up in 2014 and discover what they had on December 31, 2013, is gone," said Elaine Rose, Chief Executive Officer of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest. "It's our way of preserving Washington state's history and values."
Opponents, badly outnumbered on a day when bad road conditions prevented many from making the trip to the Capitol, said the bill would force insurers and business owners to offer abortion coverage even if they oppose it on moral grounds.
"Abortion is an elective procedure," said John Geis, director of governmental affairs for the Family Policy Institute of Washington. "It's not necessary for health care, to make a person well or whole."
Most individual and small group health care plans will face a federal requirement to provide maternity coverage starting in 2014.
The proposed legislation would make Washington the first state to link requiring abortion coverage to maternity care, according to the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice Washington.
By contrast, abortion coverage is restricted or severely limited in insurance plans that will be offered through government exchanges in 15 states.
Representative Joe Schmick, R-Colfax, said he opposed the bill because it would expand abortion coverage, which he opposes, and because it would be expensive.
A federal provision known as the Hyde Amendment bars federal Medicaid funds from being used for abortions.
Northwest State Health Insurance - News
In a public hearing, the state House's Health Care and Wellness Committee heard arguments from both sides of the abortion debate. Supporters said the bill will preserve current abortion coverage once federal health insurance rules come into effect
In San Juan County, 30.2 percent of county adults lack health insurance, which is higher than the state rate of 26.7 and the national rate of 17.1, according to New Mexico Department of Health statistics. The cost of treating people without health
But the free market hasn't been much help to the children of Florida, where an incredible 26 percent of them do not have any kind of health insurance, tops in the nation. That's not just a drag on our state's economy, but a bruise on its conscience.
“The higher deaths, and probably abuse, too, I believe has to do with higher supply or availability,” said Jennifer Sabel, an epidemiologist with the state Department of Health. Even more disturbing, more than half of all prescription-drug-related
Other facilities completely merge with larger health systems. In Northwest Ohio, ProMedica and Catholic Health Partners are the largest systems, Yost said. "There are a dozen or more good-sized systems across the state," she said.
Health care a sleeper issue for OR-1 candidates - Northwest Public ...
Posted: Thursday, January 19, 2012
Ballots are popping up in mailboxes all over the five counties of Oregon's First Congressional District. The district has some unique attributes. And its demographics reflect many of Oregon's health care challenges. From Oregon Public Broadcasting, April Baer has this report on health care - as it's been talked about and experienced in the First Congressional District.
The First Congressional District actually isn't very different from the rest of the state in its health care needs. Health statistics show its residents die from almost the same conditions to which others in the state succumb: cancer and heart disease, with stroke and emphysema as third and fourth leading causes of death. And the First District is home to 35 percent of those statewide who are enrolled in some kind of publicly-support health care plan - including Medicaid, Healthy Kids, and a variety of other programs.
Also here you'll find a lot of consumers trying to navigate a changing market for private health care.
Shana Larsen is in front of her laptop in the dining room of her Beaverton townhouse. She's been shopping for her own health insurance, armed with hard-won knowledge. Her husband, Greg fought a four year battle with cancer.
Larsen: "He was diagnosed in 2006, when he was 29. The big thing that tipped me off is we were training for Hood to Coast, and he was very athletic, and he couldn't run a mile without running out of breath."
As the illness took its course, Shana became more deeply immersed in dealing with the bills for Greg's treatments, which she estimates at well over a million dollars.
Larsen: "It was more confusing than anything, because you don't think about where all the money's going to come from at first. We ended up keeping an Excel spreadsheet of all of the bills, trying to keep track of them that way."
Greg died in April. Now, Shana Larsen is re-entering the health care universe as a consumer and a voter.