These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: States, Congress confront abortion services under Medicaid, health care plan.
    Journal: Wash Memo Alan Guttmacher Inst; 1994 Jan 13; (1):3-4. PubMed ID: 12345518.
    Abstract:
    Abortion coverage under various health care reform proposals has dominated the political reproductive rights debate, while poor women's access to abortion under Medicaid presents a current practical concern. Under the Clinton administration's proposed Health Security Act, abortion would be covered under "services for pregnant women," and Medicaid would eventually be incorporated into the national health plan. A final version is a long way off. For now, the Hyde amendment, limiting Medicaid coverage of abortion, controls the issue. Congress has made only negligible progress in freeing federal funds for Medicaid abortions: only in situations of life endangerment, rape, or incest. States are required to cover abortions that are medically necessary under the new guidelines, which now include pregnancy arising from rape and incest. The federal policy defers to state law on the definition of rape and incest, allowing for reasonable reporting or documentation requirements, while disallowing unduly burdensome regulations by allowing the treating physician reimbursement when the physician certifies that the patient was unable for physical or psychological reasons to comply with the requirement. States disagreeing with the new abortion policy immediately registered their opposition. Utah's health department, which has a "life only" law, has pledged not to implement the new federal policy until there is further clarification. The Health Care Financing Administrator responded by writing that "the decision to implement this policy nationwide was not discretionary." Congress chose not to add statutory language deferring to the states, and under U.S. Constitutional law, where state law or policy conflicts with federal law, federal law takes precedence. The next battle will certainly center on attempts to amend the Hyde amendment itself as well as health care legislation along the "states' option" lines.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]