Tuesday 17 December 2013

Abortion insurance ban to affect 33% of policyholders

Gary Heinlein and Chad Livengood
One in three individuals with group or government-sponsored health plans in Michigan may be affected by an upcoming ban on insurance coverage for abortions that is creating confusion about how widely it may apply.

The new law requiring women to purchase additional insurance to cover elective abortions should not apply to the 2 million individuals with employer-sponsored self-insured health care coverage, state and health care industry officials said Monday. It wasn’t immediately clear how many women the law would affect.

Confusion reigns about the law, said Rick Murdock, executive director of the Michigan Association of Health Plans, an industry group representing 16 health plans in the state except Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Self-insured employers, who pay directly for medical care for employees, are regulated by the U.S. Department of Labor and not subject to state rules, said Murdock, the office of Michigan House Speaker Jase Bolger and some state officials.

Murdock said smaller firms — usually those with less than 150 to 200 workers — as well as companies that don’t self-fund their coverage and people buying private health insurance on their own are "fully exposed" to the law. He said that’s about 3 million of roughly 9 million Michiganians with coverage.

"We’re trying, like everyone else, to get some more information," said Murdock, who noted half of the commercial insurance population is self-insured. "The one thing nobody wanted was to get in the middle of a political football field on (the abortion issue)."

Last week, the Republican-controlled Legislature adopted the law drafted by Right to Life of Michigan after it collected more than 300,000 valid voter signatures, bypassing a veto by Gov. Rick Snyder, who nixed similar legislation a year ago.

But the law’s sweeping language has raised questions about whether all self-funded insurance plans can still pay doctors for ending a pregnancy.

"Doctors in this state will be pausing and saying: What is legal and what is not? Or, how do I bill for this?" said state Rep. Kate Segal, D-Battle Creek. "This will be litigated — that’s the bottom line."

The 2 million self-insured Michiganians include just under half of the 47,800 state government workers and thousands of employees at the state’s 15 public universities. The law takes effect March 13 and will likely affect 2015 insurance policies.

Source: The Detroit News

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