CAMPAIGN 2018: Brown assails Raimondo on ‘pro-life’ health plans

June 14--PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- An abortion-rights dispute among pro-choice Democrats flared Wednesday as gubernatorial candidate Matt Brown attacked Gov. Gina Raimondo for providing "pro-life" health insurance plans on Rhode Island's Obamacare exchange and touted endorsements from women's rights leaders, including Gloria Steinem.

Hoping to unseat Raimondo in the September Democratic primary, Brown released a letter endorsing him and criticizing Raimondo that was signed by more than 40 reproductive health-care advocates including Steinem; Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America; and Barbara Roberts, a professor at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School and former staff physician at Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island.

"Alarmingly, Rhode Island's Democratic Governor has joined the attack on reproductive freedom," the Brown endorsement letter said. "The Affordable Care Act requires each state exchange to include at least one plan that doesn't cover abortion. Governor Raimondo forced insurers in Rhode Island to offer nine plans that restricted abortion coverage."

Why endorse a man over Rhode Island's first female governor?

"Feminism is not about electing one woman, but making life more fair for all women, so it's important to say that the restrictions she signed deny reproductive choice to thousands of women in Rhode Island," Gloria Steinem wrote The Journal in an email from her office.

The letter does not mean Brown has captured all of Rhode Island's pro-choice community. Michelman was president of NARAL from 1985 to 2004, but the organization has not yet endorsed anyone in the Rhode Island governor's race. The Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Women endorsed Raimondo last month.

In a photo posted on Twitter Wednesday afternoon, Raimondo held up a book titled "Men Explain Things to Me." Later in the evening, a statement from the governor said Brown's suggestion that she "has been anything other than a champion for women's health care is laughable."

Brown was one of five gubernatorial candidates who participated Wednesday night in a forum organized by the Women's Fund of Rhode Island and held at Rhode Island College. Brown was quick to point out that neither of the two women running for governor, Raimondo and Republican Patricia Morgan, were present. "I think that's unfortunate," he said.

Democrat Spencer Dickinson, Republican Giovanni Feroce, independent candidate Luis-Daniel Munoz, and Democrat Paul Roselli also attended. The Women's Fund does not endorse candidates, but advocates for issues that empower women, said executive director Kelly Nevins. The forum was moderated by Maureen Moakley, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island.

Moakley's first question centered on reproductive rights. With the exception of Feroce, all the candidates said they support a woman's right to make her own reproductive health-care decisions without government interference.

Roselli said the Reproductive Health Care Act legislation now stalled in the General Assembly, which would codify abortion rights in state law, should get a floor vote to let Rhode Islanders know where their lawmakers stand, so they can vote accordingly. Raimondo and Brown also support the legislation.

The core of Brown's attack on the governor stems from the fight over offering health insurance plans that don't cover abortions on HealthSource RI, the state's public health insurance exchange.

In 2015, facing a lawsuit from a Rhode Island man who objected to HealthSource's lack of plans without abortion coverage, the exchange began offering a plan with abortion coverage limited to only extreme circumstances such as rape or incest.

When the state later required each insurer to offer limited abortion plans at the "bronze," "silver" and "gold" levels, the lawsuit, backed by a Christian legal group, was dismissed.

Later, this arrangement was enshrined in the state budget, including language that allowed employers to offer health insurance plans to workers that didn't cover abortion. It was hailed by pro-life groups. Brown said Rhode Island now has an "F" rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America.

"HealthSource RI offers 18 plans in the individual market, 12 of which cover abortion services and six of which do not except in very limited circumstances," wrote HealthSource spokeswoman Kyrie Perry in an email about the current breakdown of plans on the exchange. "According to the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2016, 31 states have no plans that cover abortion on their marketplaces."

Campaign spokesman Ron Knox said Brown would push for legislation to scale back anti-abortion plans to the single plan required by federal law.

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