Hyde-Smith calls for renewal to stop Obamacare abortion services

U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), chair of the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, and other pro-life lawmakers called on the Trump administration to reissue a rule to ensure taxpayers know whether their Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance plans provide coverage for abortion services.

The request was prompted by a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published Tuesday (Health Insurance Exchanges: Coverage on Non-Excepted Abortion Services by Qualified Health Plans, 2026 GAO-26-108995), which revealed federal taxpayers subsidized 1,719 ACA Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) that covered elective abortions for an estimated 4.4 million individuals this year alone. The report was requested by Hyde-Smith as Senate Pro-Life Caucus chair along with the Senate and House majority leadership, co-chairs of the House and Senate Congressional Pro-Life Caucus and Values Action Teams, and the chairmen of the Senate and House committees of jurisdiction.

"The GAO's findings provide further evidence that Obamacare plans, as they have from the beginning, continue to violate the Hyde Amendment ban on the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortion services," Hyde-Smith said. "Pro-life taxpayers should know whether their hard-earned money is being funneled to abortion providers, and the White House should reinstate protections that help ensure that those of us who oppose abortion do not subsidize health exchange plans that provide abortion coverage."

In 2019, the first Trump administration issued the Exchange Program Integrity Final Rule that established separate billing requirements for abortion services as specifically mandated by Congress in Section 1303 of the ACA. The Biden administration in 2021 issued a final rule that further facilitated violations of the long-standing and bipartisan Hyde Amendment.

QHPs covering elective abortions have grown since 2014, when the GAO issued a similar report (Health Insurance Exchanges: Coverage of Non-excepted Abortion Services by Qualified Health Plans GAO-14-742R) that showed 1,036 ACA plans covered abortion on demand. With 683 more plans today covering abortion services, nearly a third of all current QHPs operate in violation of the Hyde Amendment – despite continued claims by Democrats that ACA plans adhere to that law.

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