About a quarter of large U.S. employers have significantly limited or no coverage of legal abortion in their employees’ health plans, according to the latest Employer Health Benefits Survey by KFF. .
The findings point to another area beyond state law, where access to abortion care has varied widely across the country since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year. There is.
Now more than ever, where you work and health insurance restrictions can determine whether you can get an abortion. Uninsured workers must pay out-of-pocket for abortion care and related costs.
In 2021, the median cost for those who paid out-of-pocket during their first trimester was $568 for a medication abortion and $625 for a surgical abortion. According to the report She received her PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, where she promoted new standards in reproductive health. By the second trimester, the cost of the abortion procedure had increased to $775.
KFF’s 2023 annual survey found that 10% of large employers (defined as those employing 200 or more workers) do not cover legal abortion care in their largest job-based health insurance plan. It turned out that it wasn’t. Additionally, 18% said legal abortion is only covered in limited circumstances, such as when a pregnancy results from rape or incest, or when it endangers a person’s life or health.
Matthew Ray, an associate director at KFF, who helped conduct the survey, said the percentage of employers who said they would not cover abortion under any circumstances was “larger than we expected.”
So far, 14 states, mostly in the South and Midwest, have near-total abortion bans, and seven more have set gestation limits of six to 18 weeks. Abortion is legal in her 24 states and the District of Columbia.
Ray said the Dobbs decision solidifies widely disparate abortion laws across states, further complicating the complexities for employers with workers across multiple states. Many large companies employ employees in areas where abortion policies vary widely, and their health benefits are more likely to cover dependents living elsewhere.
“Those dependents could be college students, and college students could be anywhere. Or some other kind of thing that could be spread out over a much larger area than where the actual physical facility is. may be dependents of the child,” Ray said.
According to the KFF survey, about one-third of large companies say they cover legal abortion in most or all circumstances. Larger companies with 5,000 or more employees were more likely to offer this benefit than smaller companies. Additionally, 40% said they were unsure of their coverage. That’s probably because employer policies are fluid, Ray says.
The study found that the treatment of employer health insurance coverage for abortions has changed little since Dobbs’ decision. Among companies that said they either do not cover legally provided abortion services or do cover them in limited circumstances, 3% have reduced or eliminated abortion coverage. By contrast, 12% of large companies with general abortion coverage added or significantly expanded their coverage.
This stands in contrast to the rapidly changing laws governing abortion access in each state. It is unclear whether workers at companies that do not cover abortion or significantly limit coverage are primarily located in states that have outlawed abortion procedures.
KFF’s research includes information on employee health benefits and associated costs from more than 2,100 companies large and small. Annual premiums for family insurance rose by an average of 7% this year to $23,968, with employees contributing an average of $6,575 towards those costs. The increase in insurance premiums represents a significant increase compared to the previous year, when there was virtually no increase in these costs. The average annual deductible for employees was $1,735 for a single policy, and costs remained relatively unchanged.
One tactic used by employers is to provide separate benefits for abortion-related costs. In response to increasingly restrictive state abortion laws and Supreme Court decisions, large companies such as Amazon, Starbucks, Disney, Meta and JPMorgan Chase have announced that they will cover the cost of abortion-related travel for their employees.
However, the KFF survey found that only a minority of large employers said they provided or planned to provide financial assistance to workers to cover abortion-related travel costs. Companies with at least 5,000 employees are most likely to provide that assistance. Overall, 7% of large employers said they provide or plan to provide financial assistance to employees who must travel out of state for abortion care.
According to Brigid Alliance, a New York-based nonprofit that helps people with logistics and covers abortion-related costs. Average travel cost is now over $2,300. As restrictive laws proliferate, travel distances have also increased since Dobbs, with the average distance per person traveling approximately 1,300 miles round trip in the first half of 2023.
recent research Employers who have announced abortion-related travel benefits are less likely to have announced abortion-related travel benefits, according to job search firm Indeed, the Institute for Labor Economics, and academics from the University of Southern California and the University of Maryland. The number of clicks on job postings increased by 8% compared to other companies. Similar jobs at comparable employers that have not announced such policies.
But job satisfaction among existing employees at these companies also declined, with employees in typically male-dominated jobs rated senior executives “8% lower,” they write. waded into contentious political waters. ”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism on health issues and is one of KFF’s core operating programs and an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.Click here for details KFF.
Copyright 2023 Florida Health News
