Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Announces Additional Actions in Response to Vice President Harris’s Call to Action on Maternal Health

Vice President Harris to Host Initial-Ever Assembly with Cabinet Officers on Maternal Wellbeing

On Wednesday, April 13, 2022, throughout Black Maternal Wellness Week, Vice President Kamala Harris will convene a assembly with Cabinet Secretaries and company leaders to focus on the Administration’s full-of-authorities strategy to addressing maternal mortality and morbidity. The Vice President will convene leaders throughout the federal govt – such as agencies that could not have traditionally taken a leading job addressing the maternal wellbeing crisis.
 
In December 2021, Vice President Harris convened the first-at any time federal Maternal Well being Working day of Motion, in which she announced a historic Connect with to Motion to enhance wellbeing results for parents and infants in the United States. This resulted in the Administration’s announcement of personal sector and community sector investments. In advance of the assembly with Cabinet officials, the Administration is following up with supplemental steps to address maternal wellness, and to overcome the systemic inequities that guide to even worse maternal outcomes for Black, Native American, and rural girls.
 
New Announcements:

• 11 Additional States and D.C. Question to Extend Medicaid and CHIP Coverage to a Comprehensive Yr Immediately after Pregnancy below American Rescue Program: The American Rescue System is performing to make Medicaid and CHIP coverage for 12 months right after pregnancy a reality for folks across the state. The Vice President identified as on states to grow their postpartum protection all through her Connect with to Motion in December.
  • The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Expert services (CMS) has authorised Louisiana, Virginia, New Jersey, and Illinois’ extension of Medicaid and CHIP protection for 12 months just after being pregnant on or just before April 1, 2022. CMS is also performing with one more eleven states and the District of Columbia to increase postpartum protection for a complete 12 months soon after pregnancy, which includes: California, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia.  In addition, a amount of other states have announced that they are doing work to prolong Medicaid and CHIP coverage to 12 months right after pregnancy, and CMS appears to be ahead to operating with those states.
  • In order to get federal money and to guarantee regularity with federal benchmarks, which includes all those set by the American Rescue System, states ought to go via a official approach operate by CMS. Medicaid handles far more than 40 % of births in the United States, and extending this coverage will provide the peace of mind of wellness coverage to moms and dads and youngsters all through the vulnerable put up-partum period of time. 
  • Based on HHS estimates, roughly 720,000 people would gain if all states were being to adopt the American Rescue Plan’s new alternative to increase put up-partum Medicaid and CHIP protection for a complete 12 months.
• “Birthing-Friendly” Hospital Designation: CMS is proposing the “Birthing-Friendly” hospital designation to drive improvements in maternal health and fitness results and maternal well being fairness. The “Birthing-Friendly” clinic designation would help individuals in deciding upon hospitals that have demonstrated a dedication to maternal well being. The Administration declared this new designation in the course of the White Residence Maternal Health Day of Motion Summit.
  • In the beginning, the designation would be awarded to hospitals centered on attestation that the healthcare facility has participated in maternity treatment good quality advancement collaboratives and implemented greatest practices that advance health and fitness care high-quality, safety, and fairness for expecting and publish-partum individuals.
  • Info will be submitted by hospitals for the to start with time in May perhaps 2022, and CMS will put up information for October to December 2021 in tumble 2022. Standards for the designation may perhaps be expanded in the upcoming.
• Partaking the Overall health Care Industry to Make improvements to Well being Results: In Summer 2022, CMS will convene well being care marketplace stakeholders – together with well being care amenities, insurance policies corporations, condition officers and companies – to target on sector commitments to strengthen wellness results expert by pregnant and postpartum people. CMS and experts will share finest tactics and commitments and request that health and fitness treatment marketplace leaders make commitments to advance maternal overall health.
• Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Dwelling Viewing (MIECHV) Applications: The Department of Well being and Human Companies (HHS), by means of the Health Sources and Providers Administration (HRSA), declared approximately $16 million to bolster Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Traveling to (MIECHV) Plans via 7 awards supporting 8 states.
  • These awards will progress facts and technological innovation improvements to help beneficial maternal and baby wellbeing results in states and communities, and concentration on addressing health and fitness disparities.
• Point out Maternal Health and fitness Innovation and Implementation (Point out MHI) Plan: Point out MHI supports point out-level growth and implementation of demonstrated techniques to improve maternal health and handle maternal wellness disparities. The new funding, $9 million, will carry on to create state capacity to deliver superior-high-quality maternity treatment services and provide training for maternal care clinicians. It also adds a component to increase the high quality of condition-level maternal health information through greater collection, reporting and investigation. The plan will fund up to nine cooperative agreements, and each individual will get up to $1 million over 5 many years.
• Maternal Wellness Ideal Tactics: HHS, as a result of the Overall health Methods and Services Administration (HRSA), is also, on telehealth.hhs.gov, submitting a new Maternal Wellness Ideal Practice Tutorial for vendors to include telehealth for prenatal and postpartum treatment, and checking in superior-risk pregnancy. Via remote patient monitoring, screening and procedure for postpartum melancholy, and lactation consulting, maternal telehealth can help cut down limitations to accessibility to critical treatment for mothers in advance of, all through and just after a being pregnant.

Previous Actions Announced due to the fact the Vice President’s Get in touch with to Action in December

• Investing in Doulas: HHS declared the availability of $4.5 million for employing, schooling, certifying, and compensating neighborhood-based doulas in regions with higher prices of adverse maternal and toddler wellbeing results, doubling the amount of Wholesome Start off doula plans nationwide.
• Title X: HHS restored access to Title X loved ones preparing products and services nationwide to fill support gaps triggered by far more than a quarter of Title X companies withdrawing from the system in excess of the previous two and a 50 % many years in response to the past administration’s Title X rule. HHS awarded $256.6 million in grant funding to help 76 grantees to produce equitable, inexpensive, consumer-centered, and superior-excellent spouse and children scheduling companies.
• FY23 Spending plan Request: The President’s finances consists of $470  million to: lower maternal mortality and morbidity rates broaden maternal overall health initiatives in rural communities put into practice implicit bias teaching for health care vendors create pregnancy health care property demonstration jobs and address the optimum costs of perinatal wellness disparities, such as by supporting the perinatal health workforce.

Supplemental Track record

• As Vice President, Kamala Harris has labored carefully with President Biden and other leaders in the Administration to strengthen results for Black women and their family members.
  • The White Household released a Presidential Proclamation to mark Black Maternal Well being Week in 2021 and 2022.
  • In December 2021, the Vice President led a Maternal Well being Day of Motion Summit, noting the urgent want to deal with this disaster.
    • At the Summit, the Vice President announced assistance to assist states present 12 months of steady postpartum coverage as a result of their Medicaid programs, up from 60 times a new HHS report showing the effect of condition extensions of Medicaid postpartum protection to 12 months and CMS’s strategy to propose the establishment of a “Birthing-Friendly” healthcare facility designation. She also declared that extra than 20 businesses and nonprofits have pledged to make investments about $150 million and acquire other crucial actions to handle the maternal wellness disaster.
  • In April 2021, the Vice President hosted a roundtable on Black Maternal Well being with Domestic Plan Advisor Ambassador Susan Rice. She was joined by gals who shared their encounters with problems from being pregnant, childbirth, and postpartum as properly as their work in advocacy and research, highlighting the disparities that Black women deal with in maternal well being.

• The Omnibus investing bill handed in March and signed by the President contains equally the Maternal Overall health High quality Enhancement Act and an expansion of the Rural Maternal and Obstetric Modernization of Services (Rural Moms) software. 
  • These foundational bills authorize and increase plans to handle the maternal mortality disaster in this place and build on recent funding at the Facilities for Condition Management & Avoidance (CDC) and Health Methods and Companies Administration (HRSA) to minimize maternal morbidity and mortality.
• Last fall, the Administration released the initial-at any time Countrywide Approach on Gender Equity and Equality, which includes its eyesight to fortify overall health treatment and  women’ overall health, including through addressing the maternal mortality crisis in the United States and abroad.
• As a Senator, Vice President Harris was a champion on the issue of maternal health and fitness. She brought racial disparities in maternal mortality, specially for Black gals, to the forefront legislatively, increasing recognition between her colleagues and foremost to a broader discussion of racial disparities throughout other health and fitness problems.
  • She convened roundtables, lifted up regional organizations that are concentrated on the problem, and ensured that initiatives on maternal health and fitness integrated references to racial disparities and appropriate solutions.

She released several bills in the Senate specially focused to addressing racial disparities in maternal mortality, such as the Maternal Care Act and the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act.

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