The Colorado Senate gave initial approval Thursday to a bill requiring individual health-insurance plans to cover maternity care and contraception, sparking objections from Republicans who said that would make health care more costly.
State Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, called the bill “morally repugnant” for requiring coverage of IUDs and morning-after pills, both of which can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. Lundberg called those contraceptive methods abortion-inducing.
Sen. Joyce Foster, D-Denver, the sponsor, said the measure was needed to help 130,000 Colorado women in the individual insurance market get coverage of maternity care and contraception. Foster said federal law for decades has required group plans to cover those things, but insurers have never voluntarily expanded the coverage to individual plans.
“Contraceptive care like pills and IUDs aren’t covered,” but Viagra and prostate care for men are, she added.
While the bill specifically says insurers are not required to cover abortion services, Lundberg said it would effectively do so because Colorado law does not define a pregnancy as beginning the moment when an egg becomes fertilized but when a fertilized egg is implanted. That means morning-after pills and IUDs are not considered abortifacients, he said.
The Senate must approve the bill once more before it can go back to the House, which must consider Senate amendments. Tim Hoover, The Denver Post
