Montana’s conservative leaders, stymied by the courts from passing laws that impose significant statewide abortion restrictions, seek to tighten the state’s Medicaid rules to make it more difficult for low-income women to receive abortions.
The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services is proposing to define when an abortion is medically necessary, limit who can perform such services, and require preauthorization for most cases.
The push to change the regulations is borne of a belief by Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte’s administration that health providers are using existing rules that allow Medicaid reimbursements to cover abortions that aren’t medically necessary.
