Minn. House Passes Health Exchange Bill Without Additional Abortion-Coverage Restrictions
March 18, 2013 — The Minnesota House on Friday approved a bill (HF 5) for establishing its health insurance exchange that does not include a provision barring health plans from offering abortion coverage, Kaiser Health News' "Capsules" reports (Stawicki, "Capsules," Kaiser Health News, 3/15).
The bill outlines how the state will create an online marketplace to help residents purchase private health plans (Stawicki, MPR News, 3/14). The original House version would have prohibited the plans from providing abortion coverage, except in cases of rape, incest or to save a woman's life ("Capsules," Kaiser Health News, 3/15).
On Wednesday, a House-Senate conference committee dropped the abortion coverage provision from the bill (MPR News, 3/14). Antiabortion-rights House lawmakers tried unsuccessfully to revive the provision as an amendment.
The bill now heads to the Senate ("Capsules," Kaiser Health News, 3/15).
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Repro Health Watch — an exciting new edition of the Women’s Health Policy Report — compiles and distributes media coverage of proposed and enacted state laws and ballot initiatives affecting women's access to comprehensive reproductive health care, as well as litigation in response to those provisions.
