At the beginning of this month, the state Senate took up an uncontroversial bill that would start the process of setting up a state health care exchange. The legislation is necessary to comply with the federal health care reform law President Obama signed last year. In fact, the Providence Journal reported that the exchange must be established by summer, or Rhode Island could lose out on "millions of dollars in federal planning grants."
But the bill has become a lightening rod of controversy. At the behest of anti-abortion advocates, Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport and Jamestown, added an amendment restricting abortion access "moments before the bill came before" the Senate Health and Human Services Committee for a hearing. On its face, the amendment seems to simply echo federal law and prohibit any tax dollars from going towards abortion.
But in actuality, the new language is an aggressive assault on abortion rights. If the amendment becomes law, women receiving even the smallest federal or state subsidy could not purchase insurance covering abortion through the exchange. Furthermore, insurance plans could not offer abortion coverage to non-subsidized individuals if they enroll even a single subsidized person. As a result, it is likely that no one purchasing health insurance through the exchange would be able to get abortion coverage.
Lest anti-abortion forces forget, this is a medical procedure deemed a fundamental constitutional right by the United States Supreme Court. Preventing women from purchasing insurance that covers this legal procedure, even if they use their own money, is outrageous. It is especially insidious that this policy targets low-income women — the most likely to be receiving federal or state subsidies — many of whom will be the first users of the state exchange.
How Paiva-Weed went about adding the language is in many ways as unsettling as the amendment itself. Members of the Senate committee only realized how drastic the last-minute language was after it had been passed to the floor, where the whole Senate approved it. Such a divisive issue deserves open debate, not sneaky maneuvering.
But the real question is why our Senate president would even insert such a polarizing matter into a straightforward, non-partisan bill in the first place. Why risk derailing legislation that is essential to Rhode Island's compliance with the federal health care law? Why reignite the abortion debate at all at a time like this? Rhode Island's economy and fiscal health are in dire straits, and citizens are as divided as ever on a host of political issues. Leaders should strive to bring people together, not drive them apart. Sadly, Paiva Weed's amendment does the latter.
Fortunately, the amendment is not guaranteed to become law. The House is considering a bill right now that would set up the exchanges without the abortion language. We strongly urge the House to pass this clean bill, which would give the Senate an opportunity to concur and leave this sordid episode behind. Let's start down the road toward providing insurance to the thousands of Rhode Islanders who lack it and put aside a debate that can only serve to divide our community.
Editorials are written by The Herald's editorial page board. Send comments to editorials(at)browndailyherald.com.
