The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday that it is investigating 13 states that require state-regulated health insurance plans to cover abortion services.
HHS officials said in a news release that the department’s office for civil rights (OCR) is looking into the states for allegedly violating the federal Weldon amendment, which prohibits federal funding for programs or state or local governments that “subjects any institutional or individual healthcare entity to discrimination on the basis that the healthcare entity does not provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions”.
“OCR launches these investigations to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon amendment,” Paula Stannard, director of the OCR, said in the announcement. “Under the Weldon amendment, healthcare entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period.”
While HHS did not list the states, the Associated Press reported that the 13 states with the coverage requirements are California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey’s governor, criticized the investigations in a statement on Thursday, calling the investigation “nothing but a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money”.
“I will fight tooth and nail to defend and protect New Jerseyans’ abortion rights against attacks from Donald Trump, or anyone else,” she said. “New Jersey requires health insurance plans to follow all applicable laws, including protecting women’s reproductive freedom.”
In Vermont, Kaj Samsom, the commissioner of the Vermont department of financial regulation, said that the agency stands “firmly behind the law in question and the protections and choice it provides Vermonters” and “does not believe that it has unlawfully coerced or discriminated against any insurer related to the coverage of abortions as outlined in the [federal government’s] request”.
During the Biden administration, the HHS took a narrower reading of the Weldon amendment, arguing that it did not apply to employers or other healthcare sponsors, as reported by the Associated Press. It also withdrew a previous notice of violation against California from the first Trump administration. Current HHS officials say that interpretation was too limited.
This week, an HHS official told the Hill that the new investigations were not triggered by complaints from the states, but “because the prior administration closed complaints”.
Katie O’Connor, the senior director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), released a statement this week condemning the investigations: “President Trump’s claim that he wants to ‘leave abortion to the states’ is an absolute lie, and this latest attack on abortion access is further proof,” O’Connor said. “The administration is weaponizing the anti-abortion Weldon amendment to rip away affordable abortion care from people and to punish states where this care remains protected.
“At a time when abortion care is getting harder and harder to access, we are deeply concerned that the few states that have taken steps to protect access are now under attack. These investigations also follow a familiar pattern from the administration: attacking states that the president views as political threats.”
