Medicaid cuts off the risk of worsening the black maternal health crisis

Defenders warn the legislators that the cuts offered in Medicare and Medicaid will leave millions of black pregnant women at an increased risk of death, aggravating the crisis of maternal mortality and its racial disparities.

Last month, the chamber’s budgetary resolution offered up to 880 billion dollars in MEDICAIDE cuts over a decade, which would also lead to Medicare reductions.

But the defenders say that Medicaid is a vital resource to reduce the disparities in maternal mortality.

“We often see these cuts like: we make sure that people who” do not deserve “these programs do not get it. But in reality, this will have an impact disproportionately to people of color, to women of color, “Rolonda Donelson, Huber Reproductive Health Equity Fellow, told National Partnership for Women & Families, told The Hill.

While Medicaid finances around 40% of all births nationwide, more than 64% of births by black mothers are covered by Medicaid.

However, black women are three times more likely to die of complications related to pregnancy than white women. Some of these conditions include preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhage and blood coagulation.

Eighty percent of these deaths are avoidable, according to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For Natasha Ewell, Medicaid allowed him to deliver his third child safely. When Ewell was pregnant with her son, she felt what many black women feel: excitement, happiness – and concern.

Ewell was over 35, so she was already a high -risk patient. Ewell then unexpectedly lost his job, and with him, his insurance. Desperate of coverage, she registered in Medicaid.

During its first trimester, Ewell was diagnosed with oligohydramnios, a condition characterized by a low amniotic fluid. The results of the oligohydramnios can be drastic, sometimes affecting fetal development or causing complications during work and childbirth.

In some cases, the oligohydramnios can cause a mortinity.

When Ewell’s doctor discovered his diagnosis, he provided it for weekly checks to make sure that she and her son were healthy and safe.

“It was very important for me to have this assurance, because having to go every week – I cannot imagine the co -payments for that. And these are specialists I had to see,” said Ewell. “It would have been a more frightening pregnancy. This condition was not like the flight or the spots. If my liquid was low, I had no way to check this. I would not have known.”

Ewell finally delivered a healthy baby – several weeks earlier via the cesarean – but she says that without public health insurance, she does not know if it would have happened.

The proposed cuts, she said, make it more and more worried about future mothers, because it could force them to make a decision: risking potential pregnancy and financial devastation, or stop.

“I can’t imagine not having my son here. Who are they to make me have this choice between having this wonderful and incredible young boy who loves robotics, who will be part of the next generation, and who knows what he will be able to do? ” Said Ewell.

The coverage of prenatal care in Medicaid is essential to fill the gaps in the maternal mortality crisis, said Stacey Brayboy, main vice-president of public policy and government affairs in March of Dimes.

Prenatal treatments for Medicaid can help not only cover screening like Ewell needed every week, but also help follow the cardiovascular health of pregnant people, the risk of preeclampsia, hypertension and glucose – all chronic stressors that can cause premature births.

“The idea is to see how we decrease the effects of pre -eclampsia and premature birth and to watch many other tests related to pregnancy to your pregnancy journey,” said Brayboy.

Not only could this help close racial disparities in the crisis of maternal mortality, but also the infant mortality crisis where black babies are more than twice likely to die than their white counterparts.

But Medicaid’s discounts could also reduce the gains made in recent years to extend the coverage of postpartum insurance.

March of Dimes was one of several organizations that have managed to defend Medicaid to extend postpartum 90-day care to a full year.

Indeed, deaths by heart disease and conditions related to mental health are the most common in the year following childbirth.

But at least 10 states have triggered laws, said Brayboy, which would eliminate extensive postpartum care.

Brayboy is also concerned about the conditions that may no longer be studied with the proposed cuts.

“These cuts will have an impact on research, and research helps stimulate some of the policy changes,” said Brayboy. “These cups proposed by Medicaid will back down all the progress we have made and have a training effect. It will not simply be isolated cuts; This will cross the whole ecosystem of maternal health. ”

There are members of the Congress who try to create policies for research on cement to end the black maternal health crisis.

Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MASS.) Told The Hill that she worked with Senator Cory Booker (DN.J.) to strengthen her support for their mothers law.

The law would extend the coverage of Medicare for the pregnancy, labor and postpartum services, as well as the Directorate of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to issue advice encouraging Doula community care.

The law would also increase the minimum Medicaid reimbursement rates for maternal and obstetric services for people in poorly served areas and establishes a project to demonstrate the maternity house model.

“The policy determines who lives, who dies, who survives and who prosperous,” said Pressley, member of the Caucus de la santé maternal black, in The Hill. “I am not hyperbolic when I say that these crises in layers created by political violence and negligence are a death sentence for black mothers.”

Pressley said that the black maternal health crisis was personal – his paternal grandmother died in the 1950s giving birth to his uncle.

“It was incredibly devastating and destabilizing for our family. You talk about generational trauma – every woman from their years of reproduction was told this story,” said Pressley. “I cannot believe that my grandmother suffered a fate that was avoidable in the 1950s and here we are in 2025 with the same disparate devastating results.”

The defenders say that most of the work to fight against the Medicaid cuts must come from the leaders of the Congress. But Donelson, of the National Partnership for Women & Families, added that families must also come forward.

“I think it is important for people who get their insurance via Medicaid, or have benefited from Medicaid in the past, to call their members of the Congress, to write to their members of the Congress, to publish on social networks and to make a lot of noise on the way Medicaid has benefited them and their families and how this program is essential to their health care,” said Donelson.