PROVIDENCE — Fresh off last year’s winning campaign to protect the right to an abortion in state law, advocates are now pushing to make state employee health insurance and Medicaid cover abortion.
They celebrated the 47th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision Wednesday with a rally in the State House rotunda backing in-the-works legislation to reverse a state-employee insurance abortion ban and cover the cost of adding the procedure to the state’s Medicaid program. The federal government, which pays about half of the cost of Medicaid, is barred from funding abortions under the Hyde Amendment.
“Right now, there are people for whom there is a barrier to access to abortion solely as a result of their insurance coverage,” said state Rep. Liana Cassar, D-Barrington, who intends to introduce the House bill. “Access to safe, legal abortion includes economic access. Disproportionately, this economic barrier to access impacts poor women and women of color.”
Cassar said the bill is likely to be introduced next week.
No cost estimate of either adding abortion to Medicaid or state employee insurance was provided Wednesday, but Cassar said the Senate fiscal office was working on some projections.
More than 300,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid in Rhode Island.
Around 35,000 people are covered under the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island state employee health plan, including 12,800 state employees and 1,700 non-Medicare-eligible retirees, according to David Levesque, spokesman for the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services. Blue Cross won the $560-million contract last summer.
State Sen. Bridget Valverde, D-East Greenwich, who intends to introduce the Senate version of the bill, said one in four Rhode Islanders has insurance that doesn’t cover an abortion and many don’t know that “until they find themselves in need of care.”
“Right now, we have an unfair, discriminatory system in place here in Rhode Island. If you are a state employee, or a dependent covered by our state health plan, you do not have abortion coverage,” Valverde said. “If you are a disabled adult or former foster youth covered under Medicaid, you don’t have abortion coverage.”
Sixteen states — including Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont — cover abortion under their Medicaid programs, according to a General Assembly news release.
The rally in the rotunda was organized by The Womxn Project, a major player of the months-long campaign to pass last year’s abortion-rights bill.
Raimondo supported codifying Roe v. Wade in state law, but it’s unclear whether she supports having either state employee insurance or Medicaid cover abortions. She did not mention it in her State of the State speech last week or her proposed budget for next year.
Raimondo spokesman Josh Block had offered this email response to the proposals touted Wednesday:
“The governor is open to reviewing any legislation designed to protect Rhode Islanders’ access to safe and affordable health care.”
“For many people pushed to the margins — women of color, low-income people, young women and immigrant women — the right we worked so hard to protect has been pushed out of reach,” said Womxn Project policy analyst Yojaida Heredia.