A committee of House and Senate members agreed to a plan to extend Medicaid coverage for a year after childbirth — with a controversial anti-abortion amendment attached. The bill now goes to both chambers for a final vote.
This session, in the wake of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the bill to expand postpartum Medicaid caught bipartisan support from a wide-ranging coalition of legislators and advocates, and it initially passed the House with overwhelming backing.as Republicans demanded an amendment that specified women who had elective abortions do not qualify for the extended Medicaid coverage.
that allowing extended Medicaid coverage to go to women who had out-of-state or illicit abortions is tantamount to using state funds to support abortion. Throughout the session, advocates called for the Legislature to pass a “clean” bill that matches the language in Medicaid guidelines to ensure the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quickly accepts the state’s application for the extension., a Dallas Democrat, said on the floor Sunday that Republican senators’ amendment left “the entire program…vulnerable to not being approved.”Bill sponsor, R-Brenham, said this was a necessary compromise to get the bill to pass the Senate.
“My goal is to get this bill over the goal line and allay some of the … concerns of members on this floor,” she said. “I think that this is a compromise that is best.” In a closed-door conference committee this week, House members agreed to accept the bill with a version of the Senate’s amendment, according to a copy of the report reviewed Friday by The Texas Tribune. The bill now includes a section that reads, “Out of the state’s profound respect for the lives of mothers and unborn children, Medicaid coverage is extended for mothers whose pregnancies end in the delivery of the child or end in the natural loss of the child.
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