Setting Minimum Standards For Health Insurance

Setting Minimum Standards For Health Insurance

One of the proposals that Congress is considering will not only require employers to insure employees (or pay a fine), but also to set minimum standards for health insurance--because there are, without question, some very minimal health insurance plans out there. And who can argue with that? But Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) in a column at PajamasMedia points out that there's something hiding in that reasonable sounding "minimum standards" idea:

Under the proposed legislation, virtually every individual will be required to have health care that meets the “minimum benefit standards” established by the administration. Without an explicit exclusion, abortion will be determined to be included in these benefit standards.

President Obama himself stated that “reproductive care is essential care, basic care.” And history has demonstrated that unless abortion is explicitly excluded, administrative agencies and the courts will mandate it.

We have seen this time and time again. The federal Medicaid statute was silent on abortion, but the administration and the courts deemed abortion-on-demand to be mandated coverage. Then in 1979, Congressman Henry Hyde asked the Indian Health Service where they found the authority to pay for abortions. They responded, “We would have no basis for refusing to pay for abortions.”

In both of these cases, explicit exclusions had to be added to ensure that taxpayers would not have to continue to pay for abortions. The issue here is clear — if abortion is not explicitly excluded, it is implicitly included. The stakes are high and the implications incredibly far-reaching.

Now, even if you don't have a moral problem with abortion, think about the cost. In 2005, there were 1.21 million abortions in the U.S. In 2001, the average cost of an abortion at 10 weeks was $468. Figure with inflation, this is at least $500 now--or at least $605 million a year--and for something that is, in most cases, a preventable expense, by using birth control. This is going to drive up health insurance premiums for existing employers.

What else will end up having to be covered to meet minimum standards? Sex reassignment surgery? Once you give the government authority to tell private insurers what must be covered, it is rather difficult to say, "Wait a minute, you've gone too far." That's one of the reasons why, as much as I think insurers should have provided mental health treatment, I could not support the mental health parity requirement imposed by Congress several years ago. It's difficult once you get started on something like this to stop with reasonable impositions.