Administration
Plans Care of Fetuses in a Health Plan
By ROBIN TONER,
NYTimes on the Web, February 1, 2002
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 — The Bush administration said
today that it would broaden the definition of a child eligible for coverage
under the Children's Health Insurance Program to begin with conception.
Administration officials said the move to "clarify"
eligibility was an effort to allow states to provide coverage for prenatal care
to low-income women who might not otherwise receive it. But the new policy, soon
to be issued as a proposed regulation, was immediately denounced by reproductive
rights advocates. They asserted it was a backdoor effort to expand legal
protections for fetuses and restrict the reproductive rights of women.
"The Bush administration's proposal demonstrates
its commitment to the strategy of undermining a woman's right to choose by
ascribing legal rights to embryos," said Kate Michelman, president of the
National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.
Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California
Democrat who is involved with health issues, argued that the administration
could have broadened coverage to pregnant women by many other means and that the
new rule was less a serious policy effort than "an ideological statement" aimed
at pleasing the administration's conservative base.
The National Right to Life Committee hailed the
move. Douglas Johnson, the group's legislative director, said, "We applaud this
Bush administration proposal to recognize the existence of an unborn child in
order to allow the baby, and the mother as well, to receive adequate prenatal
care — a concept to which only the most extreme pro-abortion ideologues will
object."
Secretary Tommy G. Thompson of the Department of
Health and Human Services said that while government health programs already
provided coverage to many low-income pregnant women, "there are still tens of
thousands every year who are not eligible under current regulations until after
their child is born."
The Children's Health Insurance Program, enacted in
1997, was intended to expand health insurance to children whose families were
not poor enough to be eligible for Medicaid, the basic government health program
for the needy, but still had low enough incomes that affording coverage was
difficult. In most states, the program covers only children, although some
states have received permission — known as waivers — from the federal government
to extend the coverage to their parents.
Administration officials said the program allowed
states to cover children under age 19. "The new regulation would clarify that
states may include coverage for children from conception to age 19," the
officials said. "This would mean that pregnant women can receive prenatal and
delivery care."
A few states received permission in the Clinton
administration to cover pregnant women. Reproductive rights leaders argued that
this showed the Bush administration was interested in abortion politics as much
as prenatal care. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services
said the effect of today's policy, which was first circulated last summer, was
to grant a "universal waiver," so that "states can immediately cover these
pregnant women."
The new policy does not require Congressional
action.
Mr. Thompson announced this rule change in a speech
today to the 29th annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which erupted
in cheers. Mr. Thompson presented the new policy after discussing Mr. Bush's
commitment to ensuring that "unborn children" were "welcomed" and "protected."
Mr. Thompson also announced to the conservatives
that Mr. Bush's new budget would include a substantial increase in money for
educating teenagers on abstinence.
"For the first time, the federal government has
demonstrated its commitment to bringing equity to the message of abstinence and
teen family-planning services," he said.
Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood
Federation of America, argued, "Everything we know about what can reduce
unintended pregnancy, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, tells us
that medically accurate comprehensive sex education is key." Efforts that focus
solely on abstinence, Ms. Feldt asserted, do not work.
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