Banning Abortions in High Risk Pools, Obama Administration Succumbs to Hyde

Last week, the Obama administration issued a ban on all abortion coverage for women participating in the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plans (also known as “high risk pools”) that are to be enacted in March 2011. The pools exist for those who have been denied insurance due to previous illnesses, and have been uninsured for six months or more. They receive some funding from the federal government, and will expire in 2014, at which point enrollees will be eligible for health insurance exchanges.

The White House ban comes after a flap over whether high risk pools in Pennsylvania would cover elective abortion. The short answer is that they don’t. But the appearance of a breach of the past-its-prime Hyde Amendment seems to be enough to make the Obama administration go further than necessary. Hyde, which was instituted in 1976 and has hitched a ride on federal bills ever since, states that certain types of federal funding for healthcare cannot go toward elective abortion. Obama’s March executive order on abortion funding and the health insurance bill reaffirmed Hyde and helped win the votes to pass the health care bill.

But anti-choice advocates in Pennsylvania claim that Obama is breaking his promise. They insist that the federal money going toward the high risk pools also covers elective abortion, because Pennsylvania law states that doctors can perform abortions if they deem them necessary “based on 'all factors (physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's age) relevant to the well-being of the woman.'” The anti-choice interpretation is wrong, according to both the Obama administration and Pennsylvania state government.

Despite this, the administration decided to institute a ban that’s in the spirit of the Stupak amendment, if not the name. As Jessica Arons explains, under this ban, “non-federal money cannot be used to supplement premiums in order to purchase a plan that includes abortion coverage.” That means that any insurance plan even partially funded by the government cannot offer abortion – whether or not the woman uses her own money to pay the rest of the plan’s premium. And who are these women? Arons:

Women entering these plans are, by definition, those who have experienced serious medical conditions — so serious that insurers are unwilling to sell them insurance. In other words, those who get pregnant are already at a heightened risk for needing an abortion for health reasons when compared to the general population

And in addition to being more likely to need an abortion, Michelle Chen points out that the women are also more likely to be poor and women of color:

Because the women who match this profile currently suffer a debilitating health condition, they are also, by definition, far more likely to be of color. The plague of racial health disparities — including both poor health and a lack of insurance — has found a new breeding ground, ironically in a federal program designed to remedy those very inequalities.

With the Obama administration bending over backward to appease critics who are simply incorrect, it’s little wonder that progressives are “falling out of love.” And frankly, Hyde should have been dropped decades ago. Poor women, young women, and women of color – the very women affected most by Hyde – still see higher rates of abortion than other groups of women in the U.S. Hyde has done little to prevent abortion, and has done nothing to prevent unintended pregnancies. All it does is place an undue burden on the women who can least afford it.

Shani is the associate editor of CampusProgress.org. You can reach her at shilton@americanprogress.org.