Illinoisans to pay for other’s abortion services under proposed grant program

(The Center Square) – Some Illinois health insurance policyholders could begin automatically funding a grant program providing abortion services for underinsured and noninsured women.

After passing the Illinois House this week, the plan heads to the Senate.

House Bill 5408, backed by Rep. Anna Moeller, D-Elgin, would create the Abortion Access Fund under the Illinois Department of Public Health, receiving 90% of any leftover dollars insurers are already required by the Affordable Care Act to set aside to cover abortion services for policyholders.

Debating the bill on the House Floor, Moeller said similar legislation has already passed in California and Maryland. She asked fellow lawmakers to vote in favor of the bill, despite not accounting for insurance industry claims.

“We are aware that the Illinois health insurance industry came in kind of late with some concerns regarding the bill, so I do anticipate that there will be an amendment in the Senate,” Moeller said.

Answering questions from Republican lawmakers, she said the ACA has already required the minimum of $1 per enrollee each month be set aside by insurance plans that cover abortion for over a decade. She added that the state would be taking in unused funds that cannot be applied to other forms of care.

Rep. Regan Deering, R-Decatur, asked if the fund would be connected to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Prairie State Access fund, which he created alongside philanthropic partners in response to what he said was “the anti-woman, anti-LGBTQ campaign being waged by extremists.”

Moeller said that the fund would not be connected to Pritzker’s program.

Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, said the state is moving in the wrong direction when it comes to abortion services by continuing to provide public funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood.

“Now we see that insurance companies have been putting money into a fund that we're going to access for grant access to give to folks such as Planned Parenthood, to continue abortion access here in the state of Illinois, and it is my sincere hope that federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services deem this an excessive use of funds,” Niemerg said.

In a fiscal note alongside the bill, the Illinois Department of Public Health said there would be no fiscal impact to the state in implementing the bill.

The bill passed 69-36.