While Roberts and Curry duke it out over a seemingly obscure policy issue the state legislature risks losing two stalwart pro-choice voices. Roberts is term-limited and is seeking a Senate seat in a evenly partisan district. Meanwhile, Curry, who voted to support the maternity mandate bill, is now an unaffiliated candidate. She must petition onto the ballot to seek reelection in 2010. And she’s already drawn a conservative, anti-choice Republican challenger.
Solomon’s choice for a pro-choice Dem
The decision to vote against the mandate was also a difficult one for Rep. Jim Riesberg, chairman of the House Health and Human Services Committee.
“Primarily, I’m in support of what this bill is trying to do,” explained Riesberg, a pro-choice Democrat from rural Greeley. “But what I’m more concerned about is the 700,000 people in Colorado who have no insurance whatsoever, many of whom are women.”
Riesberg claims 85 percent of insured Colorado women already have access to maternity care in their policies. Yet, on the flipside, he said he would have supported a bill to solely mandate coverage of contraceptive care since that’s less likely to be covered by insurance than childbirth expenses.
“I’m very concerned that an insurance company would pay for a pregnancy but wouldn’t to tie a woman’s tubes,” he said elaborating on his vote conundrum. “I mean that doesn’t make sense to me. I just hate to expand coverage for those who have something instead of expanding coverage for those who have nothing.”
Riesberg also confirmed that the maternity care mandate will effect a very small number of women because many health insurance plans are not subject to Colorado law. About half of insured Coloradans have policies regulated by the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), such as self-funded employer insurance plan and publicly-funded programs, like Medicare, Medicaid and federal employee benefits.
Even the Colorado Division of Insurance can’t pinpoint the precise number of women with private insurance policies the mandate could potentially benefit. But both Roberts and Riesberg echoed the same concern: it’s likely that few women could afford to maintain their coverage with reproductive health mandates since premiums for individual plans are already skyrocketing with annual double-digit increases.
Despite Roberts and Riesberg’s concerns, the bill now moves to the democratically-controlled Colorado Senate where the upper chamber co-sponsor predicts easy passage.
Senate sponsor vows to fight
“It’s a good strong health care bill for families that buy individual policies,” remarked Sen. Joyce Foster. “For me, it’s my most important bill this session. This bill is long overdue.”
Foster’s co-sponsor is Sen. Betty Boyd, a veteran lawmaker with a strong history of passing pro-choice, pro-family bills through the contentious chamber.
Foster is undaunted by the prospects of going up against a fierce ultra-conservative bloc of Republican senators whose anti-choice antics are legendary. Colorado Springs Sen. Dave Schultheis last year said the HIV testing of pregnant women encourages sexual promiscuity. Not to be outdone, a week later, Sens. Larry Liston and Kevin Lundberg raised the old, tired canard that oral contraception is just a fancy word for abortion.
“Bring ‘em on,” she taunted.
This story originally appeared at RH Reality Check.
