Abortion insurance coverage is now much more complicated

As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, abortion benefits will depend even more on where a woman lives and who says it.

Even before the constitutional right to abortion was struck down last month, health insurance coverage was patchy. Abortion benefits largely depended on where a woman lived or who she worked for.

These factors have become even more crucial now that the Supreme Court left it to the states to regulate abortion. The existing patchwork of coverage is likely to become more restrictive, and the rift will widen between states that had already banned abortion-related benefits and those that mandate coverage.

Dozens of major employers are trying to fill the gaps by paying the expenses of workers who must cross state lines for a legal abortion, though questions remain about the risk the companies are taking and in how far an anti-abortion state – or an aggressive prosecutor – could go to stop them.

For women without this additional support or coverage, the new logistical challenges and additional costs may be impossible to overcome.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">"People with financial resources will find ways to get the treatment they want or need," said declare é Susan M. Nash, benefits attorney and partner at Winston & Strawn, specializing in health care. "But people who can't travel or have limited means to access treatment outside of the health plan will be affected here."

Here's an overview of the manner in which the decision, Dobbs v. Jackson, can affect insurance coverage across the country:

How much does an abortion cost?

The median cost for a patient of a medical abortion - which involves two drugs , typically taken until 10 to 12 weeks pregnant — was $560 in 2020, according to a recent study by the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program at the University of California, San Francisco. A procedural abortion cost $575 in the first trimester and $895 in the second trimester. This does not include travel and other expenses, such as childcare and time off from work, which will be increasingly necessary for women in a growing number of states. And costs varied widely by region.

Most patients pay out of pocket, research shows, largely because their insurance doesn't does not cover the intervention. Even before the Dobbs decision, 11 states restricted the type of abortion coverage that private health insurance plans could cover, and 26 states prohibited all plans in their state's health insurance exchange from covering abortion. abortion, the researchers found.