Maryland is the first state to tap into an old fund connected to the Affordable Care Act to help solve a new problem: helping pay the expenses of patients who travel to Maryland for an abortion.
With abortion now restricted or illegal in 22 states, jurisdictions like Maryland have become a destination for patients from as close as neighboring West Virginia to as far as Texas.
With a staff of six, the Baltimore Abortion Fund helps patients who need to travel pay for bus or plane tickets, lodging in Maryland, and sometimes meals. The fund spends about a million dollars a year on that support. Calls to its confidential helpline have increased by 50%-60% every year since Roe v. Wade was overturned, said Lynn McCann-Yeh, the fund’s co-director.
The fund disburses aid as people call in. Often, the weekly allotment is depleted after just one or two days.
“Sometimes that means that our helpline is closing within 24 to 48 hours at the start of the week, because there’s just too much demand for the amount of resources that we have,” McCann-Yeh said. “There are many, many more dozens of callers each week that are just getting a voicemail message saying that we’ve run out of support.”
To help, the Maryland Legislature turned to a pot of money established under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Under the la …