by Paul Chesser
RALEIGH, NC (AgapePress) – The state of North Carolina faces a nearly $800-million shortfall, but it is still paying for abortions for state employees. But a new bill introduced to the NC General Assembly could bring the controversial funding of abortions to an end.
In an attempt to curb abortions and cut government spending in North Carolina, Republican State Senator Austin Allran introduced a bill to end funding abortions through the state employees medical insurance plan. The proposed legislation limits insurance coverage regarding pregnancy care to “childbirth and miscarriage,” and eliminates the word “abortion.” The law further adds “no benefits are provided for medical or surgical abortion procedures.”
“Generally it’s consistent with other state policies that restrict state taxpayer funding of abortions,” said John Rustin, director of government relations for the North Carolina Family Policy Council. “The state employees health fund is one of the fastest growing expenditures in the state. This is certainly one area they should consider.”
The state faces an estimated $791 million budget shortfall this year.
Allran’s bill targets the Teachers and State Employees’ Major Medical Plan, which from 1997 to 1999 allowed charges of $2,749,567 and paid claims of $2,010,198 for abortion procedures. “Allowed charges” are equivalent to what the abortion provider received from the insurance plan and patient co-payments and deductibles. “Paid claims” are what is sent to the provider by the health plan.
Abortion classifications included procedures that result from pregnancy complications such as hemorrhaging and miscarriage. Coding methods do not provide information as to which abortion procedures were elective.
“The point is we’re using the state health plan to pay for abortions,” said Allran. “It’s not being done privately, it’s being done through the state.”
State employees have the option of forgoing the state’s self-insured plan in favor of HMO options. The HMOs do not provide claims data to the state plan because the plan does not oversee the HMO programs. Numbers of abortions paid through the HMOs remains unknown.
The state, as of last year, paid $188 monthly for each employee’s medical benefit premiums, and the employee is responsible for paying any dependents’ coverage. The abortion figures cited are for all employees and their dependents. For example, in 1999 insurance paid for 358 abortion procedures for employees and 73 for their spouses.
The overall issue is comparable to the $1.3-million state abortion fund for low-income citizens that existed up until 1994, when over 4,500 abortions were paid for. The legislature limited that fund to cases of rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother in 1995, and only one abortion has been paid for from that fund since then.
“[Allran’s bill] is the kind of thing that will make a difference,” said Republican Senator Hamilton Horton. “It doesn’t require any interpretation.”
The bill has been referred to the Committee on Children and Human Resources, chaired by Democratic Senator Eleanor Kinnaird, and likely faces a tough road with the Democrat-dominated Senate.
“I think it may be difficult from a political standpoint because the abortion issue is politicized,” said Allran. “Huge numbers of people have moral and ethical problems with abortion, and I don’t think it should be something the state should be involved in.”
(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)
