Federal Legislation

Active legislation

116th Congress

Status

Referred to Health Committees

What it does (gist)

• Extends Medicaid and the Children’s Heath Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage to one year postpartum for women who have pregnancy-related Medicaid of CHIP coverage;
• Authorizes funding to establish or support Regional Centers of Excellence for implicit bias and cultural competency education;
• Standardizes maternal mortality and morbidity data collection across states;

• Empowers the Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDC) to provide technical guidance and publish best practices for maternal mortality and morbidity prevention;
• Authorizes funding for the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health grant program – a national data-driven maternal safety and quality improvement initiative to implement obstetric emergency protocols and best practices to save birthing peoples’ lives.

Status

Referred to Health Committees

What it does (gist)

• The Black Maternal Health Momnibus is composed of nine individual bills sponsored by Black Maternal Health Caucus Members. The legislation will:
  1. Make critical investments in social determinants of health that influence maternal health outcomes, like housing, transportation, and nutrition.
  2. Provide funding to community-based organizations that are working to improve maternal health outcomes for Black women.
  3. Comprehensively study the unique maternal health risks facing women veterans and invest in VA maternity care coordination.
  4. Grow and diversify the perinatal workforce to ensure that every mom in America receives maternity care and support from people she can trust.
  5. Improve data collection processes and quality measures to better understand the causes of the maternal health crisis in the United States and inform solutions to address it.
  6. Invest in maternal mental health care and substance use disorder treatments.
  7. Improve maternal health care and support for incarcerated women.
  8. Invest in digital tools like telehealth to improve maternal health outcomes in underserved areas.
  9. Promote innovative payment models to incentivize high-quality maternity care and continuity of health insurance coverage from pregnancy through labor and delivery and up to 1 year postpartum.

Status

Ordered to be reported

What it does (gist)

• Establishes grants for rural obstetric networks to improve birth outcomes and improve access to care;
• Extends telehealth resource grants to maternal care providers throughout pregnancy, birth and post-partum periods;
• Establishes a provider training grant program to support maternal care providers to practice in rural areas;
• Establishes an innovation in maternal health grant program;
• Establishes a grant program to train health care providers in implicit and explicit bias;
• Establishes a grant program to support integrated services for pregnant and postpartum women – and for the GAO to issue a report on best practices

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Authorizes funding for the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) grant program — a national data-driven maternal safety and quality improvement initiative to implement obstetric emergency protocols and best practices to save mothers’ lives;
• Authorizes funding for a grant program to help states and hospitals implement the standardized maternal safety best practices developed by AIM;
• Encourages the CDC to work with states to compile data from state maternal mortality review committees to improve national surveillance.

Status

Introduced – Hearing

What it does (gist)

• Directs U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work with relevant providers, specialty organizations, consumer organizations and other stakeholders to identify and publish a core set of maternity care quality measures for childbearing women and newborns;
• Directs Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) to develop and use a Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Maternity survey;
• Authorizes the expansion or development of quality collaboratives that focus on maternal or perinatal care

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Extends Medicaid coverage to one year postpartum for women who have pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage;
• Provides comprehensive benefits to women with pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage;
• Establishes a maternity care home demonstration project;
• Increases Medicaid payment to at least Medicare primary care rates;
• Requires guidance and reports to increase access to doula services;
• Requires U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports on maternal health care in the United States and on the use of telemedicine to increase access to maternity care.

Status

Introduced – Hearing

What it does (gist)

• Authorizes grant funding to health professional schools and training programs to support implicit bias training with priority given for training in obstetrics and gynecology;
• Authorizes funding for a demonstration project to assist up to ten states to implement and sustain pregnancy medical home programs to incentivize integrated health care services; 
• Directs the National Academy of Medicine to study and make recommendations for incorporating bias recognition in clinical skills testing for U.S. medical schools.

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Creates a special enrollment period for pregnancy in most private insurance plans
• Ensures comprehensive maternity care for dependent children in most employment-based insurance
• Guarantees 12-months of continuous Medicaid eligibility for postpartum women

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Directs the CDC to coordinate efforts with respect to maternal mortality and morbidity, to report on women’s health conditions according to sociocultural and geographic contexts, and to emphasize research on pregnancy-related deaths.
• Rewards New Rural Obstetric Network Grants to establish regional innovation networks to improve maternal mortality and morbidity as well as birth outcomes.
• Expands existing Federal Telehealth Grant Programs to include birth and postpartum services as part of telehealth networks and to allow federal funding to be used for ultrasound machines, fetal monitoring equipment, and other pregnancy-related technology.
• Establishes a New Rural Maternal and Obstetric Care Training Demonstration to support training for family medicine physicians, obstetricians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, midwives, doulas, and other professionals to provide maternal care services in rural community-based settings.
• Reports on Maternal Care in Rural Areas to identify the locations of gaps in maternity care, recommendations to standardize data collection on maternal mortality and morbidity, and activities to improve maternal care in rural areas

Status

Introduced – Hearing

What it does (gist)

• Extends coverage for Medicaid’s pregnancy pathway from 60 days to 365 days, and would ensure that eligible new mothers have access to full comprehensive care, rather than services only related to their pregnancy
• Increases Medicaid minimum reimbursement rates for maternal and obstetric services for people in underserved areas
• Establishes a maternity care home model demonstration project.
• Directs Medicaid and the CHIP Payment and Access Commission to report on the coverage of doula care under state Medicaid programs and create strategies to improve access to pre- and postpartum doula care
• Directs GAO to submit a report to Congress on state Medicaid’s use of telemedicine to increase access to maternity care

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Establishes two new funding streams for midwifery education: one in the Title VII Health Professions Training Programs, and one in the Title VIII Nursing Workforce Development Programs. 
• Special consideration for funding will be given to programs that demonstrate a focus on increasing racial and ethnic minority representation in nurse-midwifery education, and prioritize students that wish to practice in health professional shortage area

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Requires state Medicaid programs to cover doula and midwife services, including prenatal, delivery, and postpartum services

Status

Introduced

What it does (gist)

• Creates a grant program to provide states with services such as: funding for maternal and infant health classes, baby boxes containing essentials to assist new parents in caring for their newborn children, and the services of a certified Doula or Midwife