Gov. Janet Mills signs a bill at the State House on July 19 expanding access to abortion. A new law taking effect Monday will prohibit some insurers from charging patients deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for abortion care. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer, file
A new law taking effect Monday will prohibit some insurers from charging patients deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for abortion care in Maine.
“Patients with state-regulated health insurance plans can now be assured access to the abortion care they need, when they need it, without unnecessary financial burdens of meeting high deductibles and other cost-sharing,” said Lisa Margulies, vice president of public affairs for the Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund. Planned Parenthood is an abortion provider in Maine.
Insurance plans that are not regulated by the state – such as self-insured plans – would be exempt from the new rules.
The law is one of several passed by the Maine Legislature and signed into law in 2023 by Gov. Janet Mills, partly in response to the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade that eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion. Since then, 18 states have approved tight restrictions or banned abortions, but Maine has expanded abortion rights.
A Maine law that went into effect in October permits abortions later in pregnancy when a health professional concludes it’s medically necessary. Previous Maine law outlawed abortions after fetal viability, when a prematurely born baby could live outside the womb – typically considered to be 22 to 24 weeks.
Dana Peirce, of Yarmouth, had to travel to Colorado for an abortion in 2019 after a fatal abnormality was discovered in her fetus when she was 32 weeks pregnant. Peirce shared her story publicly, including publishing an op-ed in the Press Herald, which caught Mills’ attention and inspired her to propose the law change.
Later-term abortions are extremely rare. In 2022, there were six abortions in Maine at 20 weeks or later out of 2,225 abortions done that year. About 60% were medication abortions done early in pregnancy.
Destie Hoffman Sprague, executive director of the Maine Women’s Lobby, said the new law regulating insurance costs for abortion is a “powerful step forward in ensuring that everyone who needs an abortion can afford one. Too often, co-pays and deductibles create a financial barrier to abortions.”
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