Report: 69% of Obamacare plans to cover elective abortions in 2021
According to a new report from a pro-life group, more than two-thirds of the healthcare plans on the Obamacare exchanges will cover elective abortion in 2021.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute, an arm of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, put together a fact sheet summarizing the inclusion of abortion funding in Obamacare exchanges for the 2021 enrollment period.
According to the fact sheet, “Obamacare exchange plan offerings for the 24 states and D.C. that legally permit elective abortion in Obamacare exchange plans went from an estimated total of 1,120 plans in 2020 to an estimated total of 1,296 plans in 2021, a 16% increase in total plans. For these same 25 areas, an estimated 69% (892 plans) cover elective abortion for the 2021 enrollment period — the same percentage as in 2020.”
The Charlotte Lozier Institute began producing the fact sheets in collaboration with the Family Research Council following the 2014 publication of a Government Accountability Office report which found that more than 1,000 taxpayer-subsidized Obamacare plans included coverage for elective abortions. 2021 is the seventh year in a row that the group produced such a fact sheet.
“Due to the former Obama administration’s severe lack of transparency regarding abortion coverage, the American people are being forced, often unknowingly, to fund abortion through their federal taxes,” said Charlotte Lozier Institute President Chuck Donovan in response to the latest fact sheet's release on Dec. 18. “This violates both the principles of the Hyde Amendment and the deeply held moral beliefs of pro-life Americans everywhere.”
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Obamacare, also known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, was passed in 2010 and went into effect in October 2013. The legislation required Americans who did not receive health insurance from their employers to purchase health insurance from a list of pre-approved plans covering several essential health benefits on a federal or state-based exchange.
Those who could not afford to buy health insurance and were not already covered under Medicaid received taxpayer-subsidized insurance. While the provision of the law requiring Americans who decided not to buy health insurance to pay a penalty has been abolished, most of Obamacare remains in effect today.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute collaborates with the Family Research Council to produce the Abortion in Obamacare database, which details the number of healthcare plans under the Obamacare exchange in each state and highlights which of those plans provide coverage for elective abortion.
While a majority of states do not have healthcare plans that cover elective abortion, people who live in those states are “still subsidizing abortion on demand in plans in other states” through federal tax payments, the fact sheet explained. In 2020, approximately 2.4 million people received $13 billion in taxpayer money in advanceable premium tax credits for healthcare plans that cover elective abortion in states that have not opted out of abortion coverage.
Currently, the states of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin each have a law on the books that ensures that abortion is not covered in any of the Obamacare exchanges. The remaining states do not have such a law.
Several additional states that do not have laws preventing abortion coverage in Obamacare exchanges still have abortion coverage excluded from all of their Obamacare plans: Delaware, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, West Virginia and Wyoming.
In the states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, New York and Vermont as well as the District of Columbia, 100% of healthcare plans on the Obamacare exchanges cover elective abortion. Additionally, the states of Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon and Washington have at least 80% of their healthcare plans on the Obamacare exchanges that cover elective abortion.
The remaining states have at least some percentage of their healthcare plans on the Obamacare exchange that cover elective abortions: 70% of Maryland’s Obamacare plans cover elective abortion, and slightly more than half of New Jersey’s do.
A majority of Obamacare plans in Rhode Island (60%) and Montana (67%) do not cover elective abortion. In Nevada, nearly all of the Obamacare plans do not include coverage of elective abortion, but the Charlotte Lozier Institute and the Family Research Council were unable to determine whether six of the state’s 53 plans on the exchange covered elective abortion.
