Bill moves a step closer
Senate OKs hurdle for women wanting abortion coverage
AUSTIN — Texas women are on the verge of having to buy additional insurance to cover abortions if they want it under a bill that likely will land on the governor’s desk early next week, dealing a win to conservative Republicans.
The Senate passed the bill on a 20-10 vote Saturday evening, leaving it one perfunctory vote away from heading to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign the legislation. It is one of 20 items he considered must-pass measures in the special session that ends Wednesday.
House Bill 214 mandates that standard health insurance plans offered both on the private market and through health exchanges through the Affordable Care Act no longer provide abortion coverage. Instead, people who want that coverage would have to purchase supplemental plans that may cost people extra and may be harder to find, according to abortion rights advocacy groups.
Twenty-five other states already ban health exchange plans from providing abortion coverage, but just eight other states bar standard private insurance policies from covering abortions without an exception for rape and incest, like
Texas is close to passing.
Groups opposed to abortion rights say Texas needs to finally spare people who oppose abortion from either helping fund abortions through the Affordable Care Act or through private insurance pools.
“It’s not going to force us to have to pay for something that goes against our sincerely held religious beliefs or just the belief that life begins at conception,” said Nicole Hudgens, a policy analyst for Texas Values, a nonprofit organization based in Austin and opposed abortion rights.
Abortion rights groups say the Texas Legislature is only making it harder on women to be able to afford an abortion.
‘Not about the volume’
Although several other states already have dealt with the impact of pulling the pregnancy-ending procedure from insurance coverage, lawmakers backing the bills said they do not know how many women the legislation would affect.
“The point again is not about the volume, it’s about the right policy,” said Sen. Brandon Creighton, RConroe, who sponsored the bill and said the state will find out after the bill goes into law.
Calling the bill the “Texas Pro-Life Insurance Act,” Creighton said the bill assures that people who oppose abortion are not required to subsidize the procedure.
The House passed the same bill 92-46, although one Democrat charged that the legislation would require women to buy “rape insurance” because it gave no exceptions for abortions stemming from instances of rape or incest.
While the legislation would allow for an abortion when the life of the mother is in danger, Republican lawmakers shot down Democrats’ attempts to allow the procedure in the case of sexual assault or a fetal abnormality.
“I’m frustrated by the message we are sending victims of rape and sexual assault,” said Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, who pointed out the high number of sexual assaults on college campuses. “No one plans to be assaulted or raped.”
The bill could get final clearance in the Senate as soon as Sunday and would mark the fifth bill during the special session to get to Abbott’s desk.
He already has signed two bills to keep five government agencies operating and another to increase penalties for mail-in ballot fraud.
Another abortion related measure to force more reporting requirements on abortion providers passed late Friday and awaits Abbott’s signature. Property tax progress
The House also made some progress on Saturday on a property tax reform bill that has split the House and Senate so far. At the core of the disagreement is a plan to cap the amount cities and counties can raise their effective tax rates. Currently, the state allows cities and counties to raise the effective rate by 8 percent before voters can petition for a rollback election to block the increase. The Senate has proposed capping the rate at 4 percent and forcing local governments into an automatic election if they go beyond that. The House on Saturday voted 98-43 to give initial approval to a 6 percent rate.
Under the plans, smaller cities and counties would be exempt. Taxing entities with less than $25 million budgets would not face caps on effective tax rate increases.
Rollback rates debated
Even at the 6 percent rate, House members have been clear that the rollback rates really won’t mean tax relief for homeowners. By moving the cap to 6 percent or even 4 percent, cities and counties can still raise taxes and schools — which are the primary driver of tax bill increases — are not part of the legislation.
“Senate Bill 1 doesn’t provide one ounce of tax relief,” state Rep. Greg Bonnen, RAngleton, said. “This does absolutely nothing to lower anyone’s property taxes.”
But it does slow the growth of tax bills in many places, State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, has argued.
“The data is conclusive that we have seen an unprecedented explosion in property tax bills throughout the state,” Bettencourt, R-Houston, said earlier this week.
He has said if Senate Bill 1 passes, the rate of growth in local tax revenues would slow at least some and people would see their property taxes go up by less than they would without the caps..