“We’re taking a look at 26 states that may introduce some form of ban and restriction on abortion, so you’ve the opposite half of the nation that might want to put together for a way we handle these sufferers,” mentioned Jodi Hicks, CEO and president of Deliberate Parenthood Associates of California. “We’re all imagining and attempting to organize appropriately for what that impression shall be.”
California already requires medical insurance firms to cowl abortions. However insurers typically cost issues like co-pays and deductibles that may add a mean of $543 to the price of a drugs abortion and $887 to the price of a procedural abortion, in response to an evaluation by the California Well being Advantages Evaluation Program.
The legislation Newsom signed on Tuesday eliminates these charges. Whereas the legislation will make abortions cheaper, it additionally will barely enhance month-to-month premiums for sufferers and their employers.
However the financial savings from eliminating the charges shall be higher than the elevated premiums, additionally in response to an evaluation by the California Well being Advantages Evaluation Program.
The legislation, authored by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, makes California the fourth state to ban the charges, becoming a member of Illinois, New York and Oregon.
“As states throughout the nation try to maneuver us backwards by proscribing basic reproductive rights, California continues to guard and advance reproductive freedom for all,” Newsom mentioned.
The U.S. Supreme Courtroom is predicted to resolve this summer season whether or not to uphold a legislation in Mississippi that bans abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant. Throughout a public listening to on the case final yr, a majority of justices indicated they have been prepared to uphold the legislation and even overturn Roe v. Wade.
That case prompted swift motion in state legislatures throughout the nation. Final week, lawmakers in Idaho despatched a invoice to the governor that will ban abortions after six weeks of being pregnant. In Missouri, lawmakers launched a invoice that will make it unlawful for the state’s residents to get abortions in different states.
States like California, nonetheless, are drafting proposals to counter these measures. They embody payments to ban disclosing abortion medical data to police or different out-of-state entities and shield sufferers and suppliers from civil legal responsibility.