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Abortion Care Coverage and Health Care Reform: Getting the Facts Straight
There has been a great deal of misinformation being spread about abortion care in health reform efforts. First, the majority of private insurance plans today cover abortion care. Second, a recent Mellman poll revealed that most Americans will NOT support health care reform if it doesn't include comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion. And, third, Americans do not want to see benefits taken away under health care reform. In other words, people don't want women to be worse off under health reform than they are today.
WASHINGTON
There has been a great deal of misinformation being spread about abortion care in health reform efforts. First, the majority of private insurance plans today cover abortion care. Second, a recent Mellman poll revealed that most Americans will NOT support health care reform if it doesn't include comprehensive reproductive health care, including abortion. And, third, Americans do not want to see benefits taken away under health care reform. In other words, people don't want women to be worse off under health reform than they are today.
Myth: Abortion coverage will be mandated under the current health care reform bills making their way through Congress unless explicitly restricted.
Reality: Nothing in any of the current health care reform bills mandates abortion coverage -- or any other type of medical procedure -- in the Exchange. Abortion is not mandated any more than any other medical procedure in health care reform. Like all other coverage decisions, it would not be determined by Congress, but instead, decided by a panel of medical experts. Opponents of women's health and health care reform are exploiting this legislation as a way to push for unprecedented prohibitions on abortion coverage in the private marketplace. And they are trying to undermine health care reform.
Currently, the majority of private health plans cover abortion care as part of a broader health care package. Moreover, according to a recent poll conducted by the Mellman Group, nearly 60 percent of likely voters would not support health care reform efforts if they failed to include reproductive health care, including abortion. Any attempt to prohibit health plans from covering abortion care in the Exchange would be a reduction in benefits and make women worse off under health care reform than they are today. This would be a dramatic and dangerous shift in the status quo for women, weakening access to care.
Myth: Health care reform would result in the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.
Reality: Currently, the majority of plans already cover basic reproductive health care, including abortion care. A Guttmacher Institute survey found that 86.5 percent of employment-based health plans cover medical abortion and 86.9 percent of employment-based health plans cover surgical abortion. The Kaiser Family Foundation's 2003 Employer Health Benefits Survey found that 46 percent of workers have coverage for abortion services. And when looking at larger firms, the rate is more than 50 percent.
Allowing private plans to continue offering what they are already providing today simply does not amount to an expansion. Republicans and Democrats alike believe that under health care reform, people shouldn't lose benefits they currently have from the provider of their choice. Why should women's health care be any different? Moreover, according to a recent Mellman poll, most Americans would not support health care reform efforts if they failed to include existing reproductive health care, including abortion.
Myth: Health care reform would mandate that virtually every American be forced into a health plan that includes abortion coverage.
Reality: Nothing in any of the current health care reform bills mandates abortion coverage -- or any other type of medical procedure -- in the Exchange.
Myth: Taxpayer money would be used to pay for abortions in the public plan.
Reality: Opponents of reproductive health care are trying to make you think that the public plan is a government-funded health plan like Medicaid or Medicare -- it is not. The public health insurance plan in the Exchange would operate like any private insurance plan would. Government employees will administer the public plan, but the plan will be funded in the same way the private plans in the exchange are funded. Therefore, there is no reason to treat any coverage issue, including abortion coverage, differently in the public health insurance plan than in private plans in the Exchange.
Myth: Health care reform would require medical providers to violate their consciences and perform abortions -- or risk losing their jobs.
Reality: Not true. Current law already protects individuals from having to perform abortions if doing so violates their religious or moral beliefs. There is nothing in any of the health care reform proposals that would change current law or would require an individual health care provider to perform abortions.
Myth: Employers are choosing plans that do not cover abortion care.
Reality: Currently, the majority of private insurance plans cover abortion care. A Guttmacher Institute survey found that 86.5 percent of employment-based health plans cover medical abortion and 86.9 percent of employment-based health plans cover surgical abortion.
The Kaiser Family Foundation's 2003 Employer Health Benefits Survey found that 46 percent of workers have coverage for abortion care. And when looking at larger firms, the rate is more than 50 percent.
Bottom Line
Singling out abortion for exclusion from plans in a health insurance exchange is both discriminatory and harmful to women's health. With the majority of private insurance plans covering abortion today, any attempt to restrict this coverage in the health insurance exchange would constitute an unprecedented restriction on women -- taking benefits away that they currently have today.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is many things to many people. We are a trusted health care provider, an informed educator, a passionate advocate, and a global partner helping similar organizations around the world. Planned Parenthood delivers vital health care services, sex education, and sexual health information to millions of women, men, and young people.
LATEST NEWS
'Abolish ICE,' Says Mamdani After Agent Kills Houston Man Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
Salgado "called Houston home for 35 years," said New York's democratic socialist mayor. "On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him."
Jul 09, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday renewed his call to "abolish ICE" after a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a man in Texas earlier this week.
"Lorenzo Salgado Araujo called Houston home for 35 years. On Tuesday, an ICE agent shot and killed him," Mamdani said on social media. "His family learned of his death from a video before anyone bothered to knock on their door."
"New York City stands with the Salgado family in demanding a full, independent investigation and real accountability," the mayor added. "To the Salgado family and any immigrant family in this city living in fear: We grieve with you, and we will continue to stand beside you in the pursuit of justice."
More than 1,000 people gathered in Houston's East End on Wednesday evening to denounce ICE and remember Salgado, a 52-year-old married father of three originally from Mexico who, according to relatives, was in the process of legalizing his status in the United States.
Salgado's son, school teacher Ronaldo Salgado, said that his father had "dedicated his life to giving his family the American dream."
Salgado was driving in the Magnolia Park neighborhood to pick up his construction crew on Tuesday morning when an unidentified ICE agent fatally shot him during an enforcement operation. ICE claimed that Salgado tried to evade arrest and threatened agents with his vehicle, but his family, civil rights advocates, and community leaders strongly dispute that account, pointing to surveillance footage and eyewitness accounts that they argue undermine the agency's narrative.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told The New York Times late on Thursday that neither Salgado nor any of his three passengers were the targets of ICE enforcement, but that they drew agents' attention because one of them resembled a wanted man from Guatemala.
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups have joined Salgado's relatives in demanding an independent investigation of his killing.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that her government plans to file criminal complaints in the United States in connection with 14 Mexican nationals who died in ICE custody. Sheinbaum added that Salgado's killing "is not only sad and regrettable, but also appears to have been targeted."
On-duty officers from ICE and other Department of Homeland Security agencies have fatally shot at least four other people during President Donald Trump's deadly second-term crackdown on undocumented immigrants: Silverio Villegas González of Mexico and US citizens Ruben Ray Martinez, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti.
At least dozens of people have also died in ICE custody or shortly after being released during Trump's second term. Last month, ICE announced that it was rescinding a 2021 Biden administration policy requiring congressional notification and an investigation whenever a detainee died within 30 days of their release.
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'Absolutely Unprecedented': Trump Lackeys Crushing Efforts to Rein in Price-Hiking Corporate Mergers
“Consumers are getting really screwed by all of this,” said one critic.
Jul 09, 2026
Political appointees installed by President Donald Trump are overruling career attorneys inside the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, intervening to weaken or halt investigations into major corporate mergers in a way never seen before, MS NOW reported Thursday.
Three unnamed sources told the outlet "that DOJ staff have privately complained that the Trump administration is essentially deciding not to enforce antitrust laws that are critical to keeping companies from becoming single-source providers and being able to charge enormous sums for their product or service."
According to MS NOW:
The two mergers that DOJ leaders are ramming through include two low-cost Mexican air carriers, Viva Aerobus and Volaris, who announced their plans to merge last year, and the proposed merger of the Italian firm Saipem and UK firm Subsea7, who together control a sizable portion of sales for equipment used for subsea oil operations. Major oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Petrobras and TotalEnergies, have filed formal objections with federal regulators about the latter merger, arguing to antitrust regulators that the combined firms will create a subsea monopoly that will increase costs, delay critical projects and force clients into expensive, long-term contracts.
Experts say the aforementioned mergers are likely to drive up prices US consumers pay for airfare to Mexico and at the gas pump, yet again giving the lie to Trump's "America First" pledge.
Current and former DOJ officials described Trump's interference as without precedent.
“It’s unilateral surrender on antitrust enforcement; it’s absolutely unprecedented,” Bill Baer, the former assistant attorney general for the antitrust division during the Obama administration. “It’s definitely going to hurt consumers. It means prices will go up, concentration is going to increase—and quality often diminishes when you have only a few firms operating in the same market.”
The DOJ Antitrust Division was originally launched more than a century ago during the tail-end of the Progressive Era to combat monopolies and enforce antitrust legislation like the Clayton Antitrust Act and the Gilded Age-era Sherman Act. It was formally created during the Great Depression following weak enforcement of the Sherman and Clayton acts, as the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration viewed concentrated corporate power as a threat not only to consumers but to democracy itself.
While the postwar decades saw relatively aggressive antitrust enforcement by presidents of both major parties, the Reagan administration adopted a much more permissive merger philosophy that laid the groundwork for decades of consolidation across industries that has continued to this day, despite limited antitrust revivals during the Obama and Biden administrations.
Biden-era Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and DOJ officials pursued a more aggressive antitrust agenda that Trump has been rolling back in favor of deregulation. Critics have pointed out that Trump has sometimes used antitrust mechanisms selectively, targeting certain media or technology companies for political reasons rather than consistently applying a broad anti-monopoly approach.
According to an article published last month in The Wall Street Journal, Stanley Woodward, the senior DOJ official now overseeing antitrust enforcement, has told department lawyers that he favors resolving cases through settlements rather than taking corporations to trial. Some antitrust attorneys interpreted the remarks as a directive to avoid litigation and seek settlements in ongoing and future cases. Critics say Woodward’s posture could weaken the DOJ's ability to challenge monopolistic mergers in favor of fast-tracked settlements.
"He's taking litigation off the table, and you don’t get a settlement absent a litigation threat,” one person with knowledge of Woodward's actions told MS NOW. “I can’t think of an administration in history that would want to run antitrust policy like this.”
“Consumers are getting really screwed by all of this,” the person continued. “We’re talking 10 years of consumer harm that can’t be undone.”
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'It Was a Field Execution': IDF Shoots Driver Delivering Relief Supplies to Gaza in the Head
A Gaza trucker's association leader called it "a deliberate killing of a civilian driver who had complied with all instructions."
Jul 09, 2026
A soldier with the Israel Defense Forces reportedly shot and killed a Palestinian driver delivering aid to Gaza on Wednesday in what witnesses described as a "field execution."
Based on accounts from three witnesses, The Guardian reported that the driver, Ahmad Nasser Saleem, was shot in the head at close range shortly after his convoy entered Gaza to deliver food supplies from the World Central Kitchen.
They said the four-truck convoy had stopped along the Philadelphi Corridor on the edge of Gaza after one of the vehicles broke down. Israeli soldiers then ordered the drivers to dismount before one of them shot Saleem in the head when his hands were raised.
The other drivers in the convoy stressed that every movement made by the World Central Kitchen is coordinated with the Israeli government.
“After the truck broke down, we waited for authorization to get out and inspect it, because every movement we make has to be coordinated in advance,” said one of the other drivers, Diaa Mansour.
He said that while they were awaiting authorization, an Israeli military vehicle arrived and soldiers ordered him, Saleem, and another driver, Alaa Shaat, to get out of their trucks.
“They made us stand by the side of the road. They ordered me to take off my clothes and forced me to sit under the sun,” Mansour said. “Then they brought Ahmad out of his truck. One of the soldiers began talking to Ahmad while he stood with his hands raised. Ahmad did not speak Hebrew, and it seemed the soldiers did not understand his Arabic."
"Suddenly, they shot him. He was hit in the head and died at the scene," Mansour said. "It appeared they were trying to find out why we had stopped, but they did not understand the situation and opened fire immediately, without any discussion or attempt to communicate.”
Jihad Saleem, the deputy head of the Association of Transport Companies in Gaza, identified as a distant relative of the aid worker who was killed, said that the transportation of aid was "100%" coordinated with Israel through the UN World Food Program and WCK.
"The moment Ahmad raised his hands in surrender, one of the soldiers drew his M16 rifle and shot him directly in the head,” he said. “It was a field execution and a deliberate killing of a civilian driver who had complied with all instructions. He was wearing his orange safety vest and carried all the required permits, security clearances, and coordination that had been approved by the IDF."
The IDF confirmed the shooting, but disputed the series of events. A military spokesperson said the convoy "had stopped along the Philadelphi Corridor and exited their trucks contrary to established procedures" and that one of the drivers "ran toward the troops" who "initiated the suspect apprehension protocol and, after perceiving an immediate threat, opened fire toward him."
Jihad Saleem said that “drivers are subjected to daily violations, including beatings, abuse, humiliation, and being forced to stand for long hours under the sun."
“Even more disturbing," Saleem said, "the soldier who shot Ahmad talked to the three surviving drivers afterward and threatened them, saying they would meet the same fate as Ahmad. This clearly indicates that the attack was deliberate.”
Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza, which began in October 2023, has included the systematic restriction of humanitarian aid entering the strip, which has caused widespread starvation, which humanitarian groups have said Israel is using as a "weapon of war" against the Palestinian population.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said as of April 29, 2026, that it had recorded the killing of 593 aid workers in the territory, including eight since a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in October 2025.
The shooting of Ahmad Saleem follows the shooting of two other Palestinian aid drivers in May under similar circumstances. According to The Guardian, the two men had been detained by the IDF for days before being released near a roundabout in Rafah where they were each shot.
The month before, two drivers working for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) were killed by Israeli fire as they were filling their water trucks at an established distribution point.
Saleem is at least the 11th documented worker with WCK to have been killed by Israeli forces during the conflict. In April 2024, an Israeli strike hit a convoy clearly marked with the WCK logo and killed seven workers after the drivers had similarly coordinated their movements with the IDF.
That November, Israel bombed another vehicle, killing three WCK workers and two others, claiming that one of them had been involved in Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack against Israel, which was not independently confirmed and which the WCK said it had no knowledge of.
WCK said in a statement that it was "devastated" to learn of Saleem's killing on Wednesday.
"Ahmad Nasser Saleem was doing what so many of our partners do every day in Gaza—working to get food to hungry people," the group said. "We are in contact with his family, and our deepest grief is with them. WCK expects a full accounting of what happened. Humanitarian aid deliveries should never be a target."
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