
{"id":12304,"date":"2010-09-02T11:11:06","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T19:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=12304"},"modified":"2010-09-02T11:20:26","modified_gmt":"2010-09-02T19:20:26","slug":"unc-abortion-coverage-sparks-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/09\/02\/unc-abortion-coverage-sparks-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"UNC abortion coverage sparks controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Susan Dickson, Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Following complaints by a national anti-abortion organization, the UNC system last month began allowing students enrolled in the student health plan to opt out of an elective abortion benefit.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first year that the 16-campus system has used one statewide student health plan and required all students to either enroll in the plan or provide proof of other insurance, said Joni Worthington, UNC system vice president for communications.  However, 11 of the system\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s schools had a similar requirement with individual health plans last year. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153All but one of [the 16] plans already had elective abortion included in the insurance plan,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Worthington said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And the development of the university-wide plan &#8230; was based on programs that were already in place.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Students for Life of America, a national anti-abortion organization with local chapters on campuses across the country, approached the UNC Board of Governors in the second week of August regarding the inclusion of the abortion benefit in the student plan. Within a few days, Worthington said, UNC system President Erskine Bowles asked Pearce and Pearce, the provider of the insurance plan, to allow students to opt out of the benefit. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was an effort to accommodate those students who felt strongly about this issue,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Worthington said.<br \/>\nHowever, anti-abortion groups say the move by administrators isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enough and that the abortion benefit inclusion could be in violation of federal law under the Hyde Amendment, which since 1976 has barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are confident that our processes for awarding financial aid fully comply with federal financial aid policy and guidelines,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Worthington said.<\/p>\n<p>Kristan Hawkins, group executive director of Students for Life of America, said that students who receive federal funds such as Pell grants to pay for their schooling are using those funds to pay for their health plans, and in turn, are funding abortions.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Abortion should not be in health care. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not health care. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the exact opposite of health care,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>Hawkins said her organization has sent letters to the N.C. General Assembly and contacted lawmakers on Capitol Hill regarding their concerns. Since August, Students for Life has been contacted by several other universities, Hawkins said. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is just the tip of the iceberg,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. <\/p>\n<p>Hawkins added that the abortion coverage in the plan should have been opt-in rather than opt-out, and that she was concerned that students who opt out are still paying for the abortions of those who don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t, since the premium remains the same cost whether or not students opt out. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The utilization of this elective benefit would only be paid from the premiums of that group of students who did not opt out,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Worthington said. Adding the benefit to the plan did not raise the premium, she said, so opting out of the benefit would not lower the premium either.<\/p>\n<p>Amy Sparks, president of UNC Medical Students for Choice, said the decision regarding what medical procedures are covered in health plans should be made by doctors. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am a little bit worried than when it goes before the Board of Governors &#8230; that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to scale back all the coverage because of all the controversy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sparks said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Anti-abortion activists] don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually understand how health insurance works, that abortion is actually a cost-saving medical procedure.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The price of paying for a pregnancy in any health insurance plan is one of the highest things you can pay for,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she added \u00e2\u20ac\u0153[Abortion] is actually fairly low-cost compared to a lot of medical procedures.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nSparks said that an abortion costs about $400. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For an insurance company, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a lot of money, but for an undergraduate student it is,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sparks said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think anyone truly knows what they will do until they are faced with that situation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>As of last week, 940 students had opted out of the elective abortion benefit. About 107,000 students on the system\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campuses have waived out of the system\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plan by providing proof of other insurance. <\/p>\n<p>Roughly 200,000 students would have been eligible for the plan, and students have until Sept. 30 to provide proof of other insurance if they choose not to use the plan. <\/p>\n<p>There is no deadline to opt out of the elective abortion insurance benefit, Worthington said, as long as students haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t filed an abortion claim. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following complaints by a national anti-abortion organization, the UNC system last month began allowing students enrolled in the student health plan to opt out of an elective abortion benefit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12304"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12315,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12304\/revisions\/12315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}