Can Postpartum Medicaid Coverage Solve the Black Maternal Health Crisis?

Today marks the last day of Black Maternal Health week, a time to raise awareness about thedeplorably high rate of maternal mortality among Black women in the United States. A key policy response has been to extend Pregnancy Medicaid (the type of Medicaid you may only be eligible for when pregnant) from 60 days to 12 months postpartum. Currently46 states have implemented such legislation, making it one of the single biggest actionable items society has done to address the maternal mortality crisis. Such national consensus is a major accomplishment and should be applauded. While Medicaid extensions are a critical step in the right direction, our research suggests that alone it will do little to solve the Black maternal health crisis in many states. States where Medicaid extension postpartum is unlikely to have a large impact are those which already have relatively generous Medicaid policies – but even many of these states have appalling outcomes when it comes to Black mothers. Take New York, for example, where a recently released maternal mortality review reported that non-Hispanic Black women had a pregnancy-related mortality rate five times that of non-Hispanic White women, and non-Hispanic Black women comprised 42% of pregnancy-related deaths but only...