Maine Insurance Co-Op Drops Coverage For Elective Abortion Services

NPR reports:

The largest provider of health coverage on the Affordable Care Act's online marketplace in Maine has dropped coverage of elective abortion services.

Community Health Options, an insurance co-op, decided to eliminate the coverage as it tries to dig itself out of a $31 million financial hole that it accumulated in 2015. (It's one of six co-ops remaining of the 23 initially created by the Affordable Care Act.)

"This decision was really driven by economic considerations," says CEO Kevin Lewis, "as well as the construction of the Affordable Care Act and how it regards essential health benefits in the individual marketplace."

Elective abortions aren't considered an essential health benefit under the federal health care law. Neither is adult vision care, which Community Health Options also dropped. Both services were included in all of the 56,291 policies the co-op sold on the individual market in 2015.

Imagine that.