TOPEKA — Debate over maternity centers has returned to the Statehouse following last year’s failed bid to ban abortion providers from receiving state liability insurance. This year’s legislation has been tweaked to focus solely on the centers, not abortion, one lawmaker said.
House Bill 2478 would include accredited maternity centers in the list of healthcare providers eligible to obtain liability insurance through the state-run Health Care Stabilization Fund. Maternity centers are facilities that provide delivery services for uncomplicated pregnancies.
The legislation was packaged and passed out of committee as House Bill 2325 last year but failed to gain traction after Senate lawmakers amended the legislation. The amended bill would have banned abortion providers from buying liability insurance from a state fund, a move that would have significantly damaged these organizations.
Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill and legislative attempts to override her veto failed.
Senate lawmakers have already introduced a separate bill to keep abortion providers from accessing the fund’s liability insurance.
HB 2478 proponent Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, said he had discussed the maternity center bill with his Senate counterparts and received confirmation that Senate lawmakers were “amenable to doing this without any additional legislation attached at this time.”
“I’m back again with this bill, as it was last year when it passed out of this committee with an amendment to correct an error in the wording and to make sure that the maternity center has to be accredited and without any of the abortion stuff that got tacked on in the Senate,” Proctor said during a Wednesday bill hearing in the House Committee on Insurance. “I’m back hoping we can get this done this time.”
Kendra Wyatt, CEO of New Birth Company in Overland Park, said the change would bolster her company’s operations.
“This is a critical technical fix, without which we can’t operate and we would be ineligible to accept KanCare, TRICARE and the VACCN program which we are a part of, as well as commercial insurance,” Wyatt said.
Wyatt said the center had conducted 300 low-risk births and estimated the center provides services to Kansas families from more than 22 counties as well as families on the Missouri side.
As rural hospitals in the state shutter or reduce services, access to maternal health services has also worsened. Only an estimated 44 hospitals in rural Kansas continue to provide maternal health services. Proctor said many Kansas communities, including his own, are no longer able to offer birth services for local residents.
“Right now, people can’t say I was born in Leavenworth, and I want to fix that,” Proctor said. “That’s why I’ve been working so hard on this.”
