Bill limits abortion payments
Public workers would not be allowed to use their health insurance to cover most abortions
MADISON – Public workers could not use their government-sponsored health insurance plans for abortions in most cases, under a bill that GOP lawmakers advanced Wednesday.
Republicans on the Senate insurance committee approved the measure on a party-line vote four years after senators abandoned a similar bill that state Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said then would unleash “all out hell” in that house.
Assembly Bill 128 would prevent the state from providing insurance plans that cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or to preserve the life of the mother.
The provision would also apply to local governments that get their insurance through the state Group Insurance Board.
Republicans passed the bill in the Assembly in November so passage in the Senate would send it to Gov. Scott Walker, who has long supported abortion restrictions.
“Governments should not be paying for abortions,” Rep. André Jacque (R-De Pere), one of the sponsors of the bill, said during a hearing on the bill last year.
Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) said then that the legislation would mean women who experience severe complications late in their pregnancies won’t be able to get abortions through their insurance plans.
“Leave these decisions to the physicians and families who are suffering, and they are suffering when they have a wanted pregnancy that goes wrong,” Taylor said then.
Taylor and other Democrats said the measure was unnecessary because as it stands now, state health plans will pay for an abortion only if a doctor has determined it is medically necessary. Jacque has said he wrote the legislation to tighten that policy.
Taylor said the legislation would make it harder for public workers who are victims of sexual assault to get abortions.
They could get their abortions covered under their health plans only if they reported their assaults to police — something many victims choose not to do.
Sen. David Craig (R-Town of Vernon), another lead sponsor of the bill, has said the proposal does not bar women from getting abortions, but puts restrictions on who pays for them.
The Assembly passed the similar bill in 2013, but it died because the Senate did not take it up — in part because of Erpenbach’s comments about how Democrats would react on the Senate floor.