US insurers will pay for abortion pill

Major US insurers, such as Aetna, Cigna and United HealthCare, have saidthey will cover the newly-approved abortion pill Mifeprex (mifepristone: see page 19) as a standard benefit, say Associated Press reports.

Mifeprex is different from other new drugs in that it is dispensed directly from a physician's office and not through a pharmacy, which is why the plans are deciding to cover it as a standard medical benefit rather than a drug benefit, the reports note.

Other firms, such as Humana and Kaiser Permanente, have yet to decide to whether or not to cover the drug, while PacifiCare says it will leave the decision to its doctors, because it regards Mifeprex as a new method of performing abortions rather than as a new drug.