A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Like other states where abortion is legal, Maryland has seen more people coming for care from out of state. Many need financial assistance. As WYPR's Scott Maucione reports, Maryland is the first state to tap money associated with Obamacare to help them.
SCOTT MAUCIONE, BYLINE: The Baltimore Abortion Fund has seen so much demand that it had to change how it allocates funds. Lynn McCann-Yeh is a co-director.
LYNN MCCANN-YEH: We were receiving so many calls in the first half of the month that by the time we were, you know, a week or two weeks in, we had exhausted all available financial support and had to actually close down our helpline.
MAUCIONE: McCann-Yeh estimates the fund turns away around a third of the people who call. Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Maryland clinics have been providing about 39,000 abortions a year, up from 31,000 in 2020. Part of the reason is that Maryland voters put reproductive rights in the state constitution. The new laws encourage more clinicians to offer abortion. Dr. Diane Horvath is with Partners in Abortion Care, a Maryland clinic that specializes in later abortions after 13 weeks, which are expensive. She says up to 80% of her late-term patients are from out of state, and almost all of them need financial support.
DIANE HORVATH: I would say a typical patient is somebody who's already got children - at least one child. They're working a job that doesn't offer substantial leave for medical care. It may not offer health insurance or the insurance it offers doesn't cover abortion, and they're struggling and living paycheck to paycheck.
MAUCIONE: Now, Maryland is turning to a pot of money that many forgot existed. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, it had to deal with the Hyde Amendment. That law forbids the use of federal funds, like Medicaid, to pay for most abortions. But some states wanted insurance plans sold on the new marketplaces to cover abortion. So they used a provision in the Affordable Care Act to levy a small surcharge - usually just a dollar - on each insurance plan sold through the new marketplaces. The surcharges go into a pot, and that fund covers the cost if an insured patient needs abortion care. But in many states, the funds have built up a surplus over the last 15 years. In Maryland, it's now $25 million. Now a new state law will tap into those funds to give grants to groups like the Baltimore Abortion Fund. Horvath says her clinic will be able to do more.
HORVATH: Our ability to see people and to care for them is directly related to the well-being of the abortion funds that help get patients to us. So we're delighted about this.
MAUCIONE: The money can now be used for patients traveling from other states and for those with no insurance. Maryland delegate Lesley Lopez, a Democrat, helped sponsor the bill.
LESLEY LOPEZ: We're making sure our clinics stay open. And we're the only Southern state that has this constitutionally protected right, and so you have folks coming from other places.
MAUCIONE: However, some Marylanders feel the law forces residents to pay for abortions they may disagree with. Laura Bogley's the executive director of Maryland Right to Life and testified against the bill in the state legislature.
LAURA BOGLEY: This bill uses insurance premiums from insured women to abort the children of uninsured women. Many of those uninsured women are non-Maryland residents.
MAUCIONE: The law goes into effect this summer. Supporters hope it will become a model for other states that still allow abortion. Again, delegate Lesley Lopez.
LOPEZ: We're looking for California, Illinois, New York - those bigger states that are sitting on potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to take what we've done here in Maryland and implement it there.
MAUCIONE: For NPR News, I'm Scott Maucione in Baltimore.
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