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Washington — Major Companies such as JPMorgan Chase & Co, Amazon.com Inc, and Walt Disney Co were Roe v in 1973 by the US Supreme Court. After overturning Wade's groundbreaking ruling, he said he would pay travel expenses to employees seeking out-of-state mischief. National procedure.
Here's what you need to know about how a company's abortion-related travel policies work:
How does this work for employees?
Large companies can offer travel benefits as part of their health insurance plan or as a separate health benefit. Welfare experts say that additional methods of providing reimbursement are still being developed.
In a health plan, benefits may be treated in the same way as other off-network health services. Employees submit not only care, but also travel and other expenses if permitted. They may have to cover part of the cost.
Employers can also make their miscarriage-related travel expenses available through a health plan that integrates a health compensation contract, a tax exemption fund that employees can use for eligible medical expenses. ..
According to data from the Guttmacher Institute, both options may exclude low-income women who are the largest users of abortion services. Some companies do not include all hourly workers in their plans and may offer refunds of expenses rather than prepayments.
What about privacy?
If the perks are part of a health plan, the insurer must maintain the confidentiality and safety of employee health information in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA. Protected below.
Employers are generally not covered by HIPAA, but if a large company functions as an insurance company and bears the cost of medical services, it must comply with the law. They usually outsource profit management to additional external companies, who are also obliged to maintain HIPAA protection.
Within a company, firewalls usually isolate people working on health plans. Colleagues and supervisors should not have access to health information, such as the use of abortion travel benefits.
There are exceptions to HIPAA for law enforcement. States that criminalize abortion may request information related to these interests for these reasons. It is unclear how it interacts with federal privacy law. This can expose employers to legal risks.
Do many companies already offer this?
No. According to a Mercer survey of 708 employers conducted prior to the expected Supreme Court decision, 14% of employers with more than 20,000 employees already offer the benefits of an abortion trip. It states that it will be provided.
Another 25% said they were considering, 46% said they were not, and 11% said they had no employees in the states that needed benefits.
What about small employers?
According to Mercer's research, the smaller the employer, the less likely it is to offer such compensation.
Of the more than 500 employers, only 3% said they would or plan to offer these benefits, and 18% said they were considering it. was. Another 15% said they had no employees in the states that needed it.
Small employers rely on insurers such as Aetna of CVSHealthCorp and UnitedHealthcare of UnitedHealthGroup Inc to handle all aspects of their health planning, including medical costs.
This type of insurance is subject to state financial laws and regulations. This includes restricting or banning access to abortion.
Overall, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there are 25 states that have banned abortion compensation with health insurance subsidies provided by the state government under affordable care laws, 11 of which. Abortion compensation is completely prohibited. Civil service insurance plans are banned from covering abortions in 22 states.
CVS said it would provide employers requesting out-of-state suspension services. UnitedHealth said it is considering a Supreme Court decision.
(Report by Ahmed Aboulenein, Additional Report by Doyinsola Oladipo in New York and Manas Mishra in Bengaluru, Edited by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)