Yesterday, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury published a proposed new rule that would require all insurance plans available on the health-care exchanges to disclose whether they cover abortion in their summary of plan benefits.

As I reported last year, and earlier this year, finding out whether the plan you're shopping for includes abortion coverage has been nearly impossible. According to the new proposed rule, an insurer offering plans on a health-care exchange must explicitly indicate whether or not elective abortion services are included. That is, if such coverage is included, the summary of benefits must list it "in the covered services box," according to the proposed rule. If  abortion is not covered, the insurer must list "abortion" in the "excluded services box." Finally, "plans that cover only excepted abortions [elective abortions] should list in the excluded services box 'abortion (except in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is endangered)' and may also include a cross-reference to another plan document that more fully describes the exceptions."

The new rule, if adopted, would strengthen another rule, proposed by the Obama administration last month, requiring insurers to disclose their plans' abortion coverage before a customer signs up for the policy. Previously the Affordable Care Act only required insurers to disclose abortion coverage "at the time of enrollment." It wasn't clear whether that meant before a person signed up for a plan, at some point after she had begun the signup process, or after she had already completed it. These two rules, if finalized, would allow customers shopping on the exchanges to readily tell whether the plans they're considering cover abortion well before they've purchased a policy.