Hyde-Smith, pro-life colleagues call for separate billing rule alerting Obamacare enrollees to abortion coverage

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and other pro-life lawmakers called on the Trump administration Sept. 15 to reinstate a rule requiring insurers to bill Obamacare enrollees separately for elective abortion coverage, a step they say would make it clear when people enrolled in affected plans are helping pay for abortion coverage. 

The lawmakers renewed their request after the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Sept. 15 that 1,719 of the 6,655 qualified health plans offered through Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges in 2026 — about 26% — covered abortions outside the limited circumstances permitted for federal funding. The plans covered an estimated 4.4 million Americans.

>> Federal watchdog: Taxpayer subsidies support Obamacare plans covering abortion <<

“The GAO’s findings provide further evidence that Obamacare plans, as they have from the beginning, continue to violate the Hyde Amendment ban on the use of federal tax dollars to pay for abortion services,” Hyde-Smith, who chairs the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, said in a Sept. 15 statement.  

Although federal subsidies do not directly pay for abortions under the ACA, pro-life advocates have long argued that subsidizing health plans that include such coverage undermines the Hyde Amendment’s protections. Congress has renewed the amendment annually for decades to prohibit federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life.

The lawmakers called on the administration to reissue the 2019 Exchange Program Integrity Final Rule, which required insurers to send policyholders a separate monthly bill for the portion of their premiums allocated to abortion coverage outside the Hyde Amendment’s exceptions. 

The first Trump administration issued the rule in December 2019, but federal courts vacated its separate-billing provision in 2020 before insurers had to comply. The Biden administration formally repealed the provision in 2021.

“Pro-life taxpayers should know whether their hard-earned money is being funneled to abortion providers,” Hyde-Smith said, “and the White House should reinstate protections that help ensure that those of us who oppose abortion do not subsidize health exchange plans that provide abortion coverage.”