GAO: Many insurers flout health law's abortion rule

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A report by the Government Accountability Office found many examples of insurance plans not complying with the health law's requirement that they separately itemize a charge for coverage of elective abortion on enrollees' bills. The agreement that no federal funds go to pay for elective abortions was the basis of a political compromise that allowed the health law to pass in 2010.

The Associated Press: New Questions Over Abortion Coverage In Health Law
A nonpartisan congressional agency is raising new questions about compliance with a key compromise on abortion that allowed the federal health care law to pass in 2010. The Government Accountability Office said in a report released late Monday that only 1 of 18 insurers it reviewed was separately itemizing a charge for coverage of elective abortions on enrollees' bills. That detail is important because the original compromise that President Barack Obama sealed with anti-abortion Democrats stipulated that no federal funds would be used to pay for elective abortions. Instead, private health plans covering the procedure would collect a separate premium, which would be segregated from federal subsidies for other medical services (Alonso-Zaldivar, 9/16).

Politico: GAO: Obamacare Abortion Rules Widely Ignored
There are widespread instances of Obamacare insurance plans violating the rigid rules surrounding whether customers can use federal health care subsidies on insurance policies that cover abortion procedures, according to a Government Accountability Office investigation. The report, commissioned by House Republican leadership and obtained by POLITICO on Monday night, found that 15 insurers in a sample of 18 are selling Obamacare plans that do not segregate funds to cover abortion (except in cases of rape, incest or the mother's life) from their Obamacare subsidies (Haberkorn and Everett, 9/15).

Fox News: Insurance Providers Widely Ignoring Obamacare Abortion Provision, Watchdog Report Says
An ObamaCare provision that requires individuals to pay separately for abortion coverage to ensure abortions are not funded by taxpayers is being widely ignored by insurance providers, according to a government watchdog report released Monday. Republican lawmakers say the "bombshell" findings by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) show the Obama administration misled the American public when it insisted abortions would not be paid for by federal funds under the health care law (9/15).


http://www.kaiserhealthnews.orgThis article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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