XPost: alt.culture.oregon, sac.csus, alt.politics.usa.obama
XPost: alt.feminism
It is easy to feel gloomy about the state of reproductive health
care access in the United States right now. Anti-choice state
legislatures are chipping away at abortion access from all
angles, and the Senate is trying to push through a health care
repeal bill that would gut Medicaid and penalize people for
buying insurance plans that cover abortion.
But it’s not all bad news.
On Wednesday, Oregon’s Senate passed a bill requiring insurers
to cover a wide range of reproductive health services ?
including abortion ? at zero cost to patients.
House Bill 3391, or the “Reproductive Health Equity Act Of 2017”
as it is being called, also extends insurance coverage for
reproductive health care to undocumented immigrants and codifies
the right to abortion care, even if Roe v. Wade is ever
overturned. It also requires that insurers cover vasectomies at
no-cost. (The bill does exempt insurers with religious
objections to covering abortion or contraception from doing so,
but specifies that the state will then step in to help provide
coverage.)
“As states across the country are stripping women of
reproductive health services and coverage, Oregon is leading the
way in not only protecting the right to legal abortion but in
expanding coverage to ensure that no one is denied access to
vital reproductive health services, from contraception to
postpartum care,” Grayson Dempsey, executive director of the
advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon said in a press release
on Wednesday.
If Oregon Gov. Kate Brown signs the bill ? as she is expected to
? Oregon will become the first to codify abortion coverage at no
cost in a state statute, though California already requires all
insurance policies in its small group and individual markets to
cover abortion. Massachusetts specifies that insurers must cover
abortions that are medically necessary, while New York has tried
to nudge insurers into covering the procedure by adding it to
its model plan of what they should cover.
On the other end of the spectrum, the ACLU says that 11 states
prohibit insurers from including abortion coverage in their
policies, except in cases of rape, incest or when a woman’s life
is in danger.
Oregon is already considered to be one of the country’s best
states for reproductive rights. It does not have any major
restrictions on women’s ability to access care, such as
mandatory waiting periods or laws requiring parental consent.
Carry on, Oregon. Carry on.
Yes! Carry on. As MOST ABORTION CLINICS are in poor socially
condensed areas, it will help keep the populations of hispanics,
niggers and queers down.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oregon-lawmakers-pass-bill- requiring-that-insurers-cover-
abortion_us_595e44b0e4b0d5b458e888b6?p3
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