Wait a minute. I have to be misunderstanding you.

You talked about the 'abortion premium'. Now, according to my local paper today, Rep. Hodes (D-NH) is going to argue AGAINST an ammendment that was already in the House bill that PROHIBITED paying for abortions - so it seems the prohibition is there.

But putting that aside for a moment..

You want women who take their pregnancies to term to have access to the 'abortion premium'. Are you saying the entire premium pool or just the part that IS the 'premium' - meaning if the normal plan is $X and the abortion premium plan is $Y that would be the $Y - $X amount?

Either way I think what matters is which plan the person is subscribed to.

But you also say you don't want abortions paid for out of the 'regular' pool.

It's not a 'sponsorship' of abortion to say there are two groups. But here's the part that will make your blood boil. I'd venture a guess that the abortion plan will be cheaper than the non-aboriton plan. Why? Because if aboriton is an *option* for someone, then a percentage of those can be reasonably expected to take that option. Back when I knew the costs of these matters, an abortion was about $300 in my area while a live birth was a MINIMUM of $5000 - and that's without complications (like my 2nd daughter had).

So, on average, it might cost LESS, overall, to cover abortions - on a strictly actuarial basis. But when you see the premiums in black and white, someone will jump to the immediate conclusion that the government is trying to force-feed abortions (which makes no sense at all - after all, government wants voters to vote for them) to the public.

Think about it - if the non-abortion plan says "to term only", that means each and every pregnancy has to go to term - and then you get into the sticky areas of things like anencephaly, Tay-Sachs, etc, and the HUGE costs that will be involved covering THOSE cases.

My 1st daughter, born in '87, cost around $5000 - no complications. Covered by insurance.

My 2nd, born in '92, cost something in excess of 6 figures - I think. We never saw the final bills. But that included 2 ambulance rides and a night in the neo-natal center of Boston Children's Hospital. I never saw all the bills. The ones I *did* see were over $50,000 - and that was because all those things were done AS A PRECAUTION. Turns out nothing serious ended up being wrong with our daughter long-term. But they never DID figure out what she was choking on about 7 hours after she was born.