Black Maternal Health Disparities Bill Gets Renewed Push in 2021

Senators Michael Bennet and Cory Booker have introduced the Black Maternal Momnibus Act of 2021 into the Senate. The bicameral legislation would address black maternal health disparities by driving investments in social determinants of health, community health, and health equity data collection.

The legislative package, which builds on similar bills introduced last year, adds language to address disparities and health impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We need to tackle the shameful maternal mortality rate in this country and its especially devastating impact on Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color,” Bennet said in a statement on his website. “Our legislation will help address the harmful racial disparities in our health care system that have only been exacerbated by COVID-19. This crisis is urgent, and we must ensure that every woman has access to the necessary, comprehensive care they deserve.”

The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world with the starkest racial health disparities. Per 2019 figures from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Black birthing people are between two and three times more likely to die from childbirth than their White counterparts. According to Bennet and Booker, that figure has increased to three to four times more likely to die from childbirth, the pair said in the statement.

Other communities of color, including Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian birthing people also see maternal outcomes disparities.

This legislation would tap community-based organizations to provide more support to birthing people of color, invest in social determinants of health, push for more diversity in the perinatal workforce, and drive better data collection around maternal health equity.

“As the rest of the world works to improve maternal health outcomes, skyrocketing maternal mortality rates here in the United States are precipitating a public health crisis -- one that puts mothers of color especially at risk," Booker stated.

“We simply cannot continue to accept this alarming status quo. This is why I am proud introduce the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act with Representatives Underwood and Adams that will save moms’ lives and improve health outcomes for all birthing people.”

In addition to making social determinants of health investments and offering more funding to community-based organizations serving communities of color, the bill would look into unique maternal risk factors. Specifically, the bill would look at maternal health risk factors among pregnant veterans and offer more support to the VA.

In addition, the bill would:

• Provide more support for pregnant people with mental health conditions
• Provide more support for pregnant people with substance use disorder
• Provide better perinatal care for incarcerated pregnant people
• Develop better health IT care delivery models for pregnant people, including using telehealth care access
• Invest in new payment models incentivizing high-quality maternity care
• Invest in research looking into COVID-19 side effects that could impact pregnancy and birthing outcomes
• Look into the impacts of climate change on maternal health outcomes and disparities
• Promote vaccine access for pregnant people

 This legislation has received 80 original cosponsorships in the House of Representatives, as well as the support of 191 non-governmental organizations.

The 2021 Momnibus Act builds on similar legislation introduced in 2020, spearheaded by Bennet, Booker, and now Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Black women across the country are dying from pregnancy and childbirth complications at astounding rates- and the disparity transcends income and education levels,” Harris said after introducing last year’s legislative package. “It is critical that the federal government work with states, local health providers, and mothers and their families to address the crisis and save lives. The Black Maternal Health Momnibus will address many barriers to care so we can improve maternal health outcomes and help ensure women—especially Black women—have access to comprehensive, culturally competent care.”

The 2020 package included several of the same provisions. Lawmakers this year added language about the impact COVID-19 and climate change may have on pregnancy and maternal health outcomes.

This comes as the medical industry has faced a racial reckoning, turning its attention to health equity and ways to better promote it. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly played a large role in this renewed attention, as Black people and other people of color have been disproportionately impacted by the illness.

But those disparities existed long before the pandemic, experts have said. Instead, the novel coronavirus has shone a spotlight on a key area for investment in public health and health equity.

Lawmakers have sought to codify that renewed attention.

Earlier this month, Elizabeth Warren, Ayanna Pressley, and Barbara Lee introduced new bicameral legislation that would assert racism as a public health crisis and establish an anti-racism center within the CDC.

“Structural racism is a public health crisis that continues to ravage Black, Brown and indigenous communities, deny us access to quality health care, and exacerbate the longstanding racial disparities in health outcomes,” Pressley, the congresswoman from Massachusetts’s 7th district, said in a statement put out by her office.

“To confront and dismantle the racist systems and practices that create these inequities, we need robust, comprehensive research on the public health impacts of structural racism and policy solutions to bring an end to these disparities once and for all. Congress must pass our bill, which is exactly the type of bold, responsive legislation we have a mandate to deliver. Our communities deserve nothing less.”