NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado : News : Press Releases

Will anti-abortion, anti-birth control politicians support bill to reduce need for abortion by promoting affordable access to prenatal care?

DENVER (Feb. 23, 10) – This week, Colorado’s House of Representatives will consider House Bill 1021 (Frangas and McCann, Foster), “Required Coverages for Reproductive Services for Health Insurance Policies,” in an attempt to close Colorado’s maternity-coverage gap by ensuring all health insurance plans sold in Colorado cover pregnancy as a core benefit. To support these efforts, Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado has submitted more than 250 postcards and more than 350 online signatures of Coloradans who support the measure to Colorado legislators.

“Coloradans who care about healthy pregnancies are calling on our elected officials to recognize the importance of ensuring women and their families have access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care services they need to bear healthy children. Affordable access to the recommended 12-13 prenatal care visits is a critical tool to achieving healthy pregnancies and increasing the number of full-term, healthy birth-weight babies born in Colorado,” said Emilie C. Ailts, executive director of Denver-based NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado. “Will the anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-comprehensive sex education politicians vote their purported values, which they claim are about healthy babies and healthy families? House Bill 1021 provides a clear opportunity for these anti-choice lawmakers to enact responsible policies that can reduce the need for abortion by ensuring women have access to the prenatal care they need for healthy pregnancies.”

According to national research, one out of every five Colorado women did not receive prenatal care during the first trimesters of their pregnancies in 2007, increasing risks for maternal mortality, late diagnoses of complications during pregnancy, and premature and/or low-weight births.[1] Women who receive no prenatal care are three to four times more likely to die from complications during pregnancy than those who receive basic prenatal care.[2] Moreover, premature and/or low-weight births are associated with neonatal respiratory and cardiac distress, jaundice, feeding difficulties, hypoglycemia, sepsis, and long-term developmental, behavioral, or other health problems including physical disability, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder.[3] National data has shown that medical costs for neonatal care for low-weight births increase dramatically based on the infant’s birth weight, with costs for babies whose birth weight is just over one pound averaging up to a quarter of a million dollars.[4]

“In Colorado, more than 130,000 women aged 19-64 who buy health insurance through the individual market are at-risk for receiving inadequate prenatal care because pregnancy isn’t a core benefit in individual health insurance plans. It’s unconscionable that we penalize these women and their families by denying them affordable access to the critical health care services necessary to promote healthy pregnancies simply because of the market where they buy their health insurance,” Ailts said. “For three decades, federal non-discrimination law has required health insurance plans offered by employers with at least 15 employees to cover pregnancy as basic medical care, and our state statutes have required small-group plans to cover pregnancy as basic medical care. We also know that taxpayer-funded Medicaid covers pregnancy as basic medical care. It’s beyond time for us to close this maternity-coverage gap in Colorado.”

Recommended by the General Assembly’s bipartisan Health Care Task Force interim committee, HB 1021, as introduced, would have established parity across Colorado’s health insurance markets by adding individual sickness and accident insurance policies to the list of those required by statute to (a) provide maternity coverage and (b) ensure policies do not exclude pregnancy coverage on the grounds that pregnancy is a pre-existing condition. The bill also requires all individual and small group sickness and accident insurance policies to cover contraceptive counseling, drugs, and devices in the same manner as any other sickness, injury, disease, or condition that is otherwise covered under the policy.

NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado (NPCC) is the political leader of Colorado’s pro-choice community. NPCC has more than 30,000 supporters statewide and works to develop and sustain a constituency that uses the political process to guarantee every woman the right to make personal decisions regarding the full range of reproductive health choices, including preventing unintended pregnancies, bearing healthy children and choosing legal abortion. More information is available at www.ProChoiceColorado.org.

[1] “Colorado,” National Report Card on Women’s Health, National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health & Science University, available online at: http://hrc.nwlc.org/Reports/State-Report-Card.aspx?stateID=COLORADO.

[2] “Healthy Pregnancy and Healthy Children: Opportunities and Challenges for Employers,” National Business Group on Health, http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/healthtopics/maternalchild/investing/docs/4_businesscasepregnancy.pdf.

[3] Ibid.

[4]Weight and cost data from “The Cost of Prematurity: Quantification by Gestational Age and Birth Weight,” by WM Gilbert, TS Nesbitt and B Danielsen, in Obstetrics & Gynecology, September 2003.