Fox News suggested that new parents are unable to add their babies onto health care plans under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in order to stoke fears about the law, even though parents are able to add new dependents onto ACA plans by directly contacting their insurance provider. Fox called the process more difficult than going through labor.

The January 3 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends purported to report that the portion of HealthCare.gov that would allow consumers to report major life changes -- such as having a baby -- is not yet online and available to consumers, airing a graphic claiming “Obamacare lacks easy way to add baby to plan.” Co-host Brian Kilmeade attempted to explain the sign-up process by comparing it to labor: “A lot of people think having a baby's tough. Know what's harder? Under Obamacare, getting that baby insured. So labor might be easier than getting insurance paperwork done.” But co-host Steve Doocy took it even further, claiming that new babies cannot be added to ACA plans, saying “You might have a new dependent who's dependent on you and dependent on health care, but right now, you can't put them in on the Affordable Care Act.”

But while the ACA's website, Healthcare.gov, is still working on its reporting system for consumers to add new dependents online, this information can be given directly to insurance providers in order to update ACA plans. As the Associated Press (AP) reported, parents can directly contact their insurer “to include the child immediately” on existing policies, and will “have to contact the government at some point later on.” Parents must notify the government of the birth of a new baby because "[s]uch changes affect financial assistance available under the law," and may qualify for increased financial assistance under the ACA, AP wrote:

After the federal system is ready to process changes, parents will have to contact the government to formally bring their records up to date. Albright said parents will be able to add a new child to their policy for 30 days.

Having a baby could increase a family's monthly premiums, but it could also mean that the parents are eligible for a bigger tax credit to help with the cost. Under some circumstances, it could make the child or the family eligible for Medicaid, a safety-net program that is virtually free of cost to low-income beneficiaries.

In fact, having a child counts as a qualifying life event, that allows consumers enrolled in health insurance under the ACA to alter their coverage outside of the open enrollment period.

Fox has previously attacked provisions in the ACA designed to aid pregnant women and new mothers, claiming that a ban on discrimination against women in the health insurance market constitutes "sticking it to men" and denying the need for improved access to maternity coverage -- while ignoring the benefits of improved maternity care under the ACA.