Abortion Bans Correlate With Children Losing Health Care Coverage
The majority of kids who have lost access to medical care since the unwinding of pandemic-era protections come from the states enacting the strictest abortion bans, and Florida is a prime example.
The Biden administration, through Health and Human Services, implemented a policy which mandates that states must provide 12 months of continuous coverage for children on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), who are under the age of 19, beginning January 1, 2024. Additionally, there is a clause in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, that ensures that children will be provided with 12 months of continuous coverage if at least one premium payment is made.
Despite this requirement, a collective of Republican-led states continues to kick children off their Medicaid rosters, and ten conservative states refused federal subsidies in the Affordable Care Act's expansion of Medicaid altogether, leaving a record number of children and low-income adults uninsured at the beginning of 2024.
According to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), at least 2.2 million kids were removed from Medicaid and its sister program, the Children's Health Insurance Program, following the loss in September 2023 of pandemic-era coverage protections. As of April 2024, the Georgetown School of Public Policy estimates that nearly 5 million children have been denied medical coverage in the last six months.
States which had the smallest decreases in continuous healthcare coverage for children were found largely in blue states and in some states, like New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington, DC, enrollment for kids actually increased. In contrast, CMS reflected that South Dakota and Idaho recorded the sharpest decreases (27%) in Medicaid enrollment among kids between March and September of 2023.
The Biden administration made a considerable effort to approve close to 400 additional requests from states for administrative flexibilities to make coverage renewals easier and ensure continued coverage. But, conservative states continued to cancel Medicaid coverage for children, despite federal policy mandating 12 months of continuous coverage and all of the administrative efforts made to insure kids were protected.
While millions of children had their healthcare safety nets removed, conservative-led states simultaneously continued to enact restrictive abortion bans following the Dobbs decision, which overturned healthcare protections embedded in Roe v. Wade. Florida is a state that is utilizing this twisted Republican strategy of denying children health insurance and denying women the right to access abortion procedures, a dichotomy which only succeeds in producing more needy children that conservatives have no interest in assisting.
An incredibly strict ban on abortion services will go into effect in Florida tomorrow. The May 1st ban in Florida will deny women abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, replacing a previous 15-week ban. This means that patients in Florida will now have to join other southern women in traveling as far north as Virginia to receive necessary medical assistance and care.
Nearly every state in the southeast region has banned or sharply restricted abortion since June 2022; a predicament which left the women of this region with even fewer abortion provider options than they had before Dobbs. North Carolina still allows abortions up to 12 weeks, but the state has a 72-hour waiting period that makes it difficult for out-of-state patients, with limited funds, to avail themselves of care. The answer to this problem since 2022 has been the State of Florida.
Until July of 2022, the third-largest state by population, allowed abortions until about 24 weeks. The state had roughly 50 clinics and in 2023, Florida provided 84,000 abortions; with nearly 8,000 of those procedures being done for women who lived outside the state. This new ban in Florida will mean that women, many of whom don’t even know they are pregnant before six weeks, will no longer have a choice. Florida will also require two in-person visits with the abortion provider 24 hours apart which will further limit access for out of state patients.
Last year, Florida’s Republican Governor mocked the desperation many women are facing, saying: “We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,” as if ladies were already on their way to Disney World, but thought they should just throw in an abortion for good measure. The effects of tomorrow’s latest attack on women in Florida is not just an attack on Floridians, but on all of the women in the region who will no longer have any options for essential healthcare — much like the millions of children in Florida who are now without basic healthcare services.
While it is possible to eventually reverse the policies causing the damage that is being done in Florida and other Republican-controlled states, we will never be able to fix the current fallout from the cruel and callous actions of the GOP. As Conservatives continue to toy with the health and welfare of human beings who are currently in need of assistance now, they also remain insistent on producing more human beings that they have no intention of caring about.
These latest actions represent more than a a callous indifference to girls and women and the children they are being forced to bear — they represent the continuation of the disadvantages that keep some oppressed and some in power. Tomorrow will be the day where we all draw a line in the sand and realize that this fight is about the upper classes fighting to keep others impoverished and controlled. Please share this article with everyone you know and make a commitment today to vote in your best interests in the 2024 election.
Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter and is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.
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Anybody who honestly falls for the reblicon talking points:
Pro family
Pro life
Protect children
is a complete moron. Let's hope suburban women have had enough come November.
Fuckers🤬