The High Risk of Being Pregnant
A free public service for a better community
Happy Thursday Healthcare Advocates
I would like to encourage comments and suggestions from you if you have time. If there is a special topic you’d like to see please let me know. Please use the comment button below. Some of the topics in work are funding for key medical research, rural healthcare, and healthcare in prison. I am also collecting inputs from state insurance commissioners on the rate of health insurance denial in their state. I will publish what I learn here.
CEOs Stock Holdings Related to Speed of Medical Recall
The Wall Street Journal, who loves to discover all things financial, reported, that the more shares of their company’s stock a CEO owns the longer it took to recall their company’s medical devices putting more patients at risk. Amazingly, waiting longer to recall faulty medical devices had a worse effect on the stock.
As a brief aside, when I was an aerospace engineer, we were trained to relate bad news ASAP, so it could be fixed ASAP. Perhaps that was missing in business school. (Ok I know it is just misguided self interest).
Tele-health Good for the Planet
Also in the the Wall Street Journal, link, that tele-health, made popular during the pandemic, is helping to reduce the carbon footprint of healthcare. The healthcare industry is responsible for about 5% of greenhouse gases world wide and the US is responsible for 25% of that. Less driving, and less support at facilities helps drop the footprint. The savings are not dramatic, Kaiser’s were 7500 metric tons out of 800,000 but take positive where you find it.
Giving Birth - Now Riskier Than Ever
Maternal mortality is abysmal in the US. You already know the statistics. We’ve done this before. According to the CDC, Non-Hispanic Black women had a rate of 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021 — more than 2.5 times the 26.6 deaths per 100,000 live births among non-Hispanic white women. Overall in the US the average death rate is about 32/100,000 live births. Much of the disparity is due to access to care and social determinants of health.
Remember that maternal mortality in Germany is 4/100,00 live births and France is 8/100,000 live births. That’s because there is readily available Universal Health Care.
Medical deserts also play a role here. 5.6 million women live in counties with little to no access to maternity care services, according to March of Dimes. More than 300 hospital birthing units have closed since 2018, and there's been a 4% decline in hospitals that offer labor and delivery services in the last year alone. Where there is limited care the numbers are high.
Abortion restrictions are likely related to the growth of maternal care deserts. An analysis released this spring found that new doctors applying to medical residency programs were likelier to avoid states with the most stringent abortion curbs.
Making medical care more widely available, especially in rural and medical desert areas, keeping labor and delivery open in hospitals by making sure that the infrastructure costs of the hospital are met so that unprofitable, but needed, departments don’t have to close is what HR 3421, Medicare for All will provide through regional management of global budgets.
Additionally, the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2023 is a piece of legislation that addresses the urgent crisis of maternal health that affects thousands of American parents each year. The act includes 13 individual bills that will make critical investments in social determinants of health that influence maternal health outcomes, such as housing, transportation, and nutrition. It does not fix everything but it is a start.
ACTION
Let’s contact our Congresspersons and Senators and make sure they know what to do to help lower those maternal mortality numbers. Their contact information is here.
You can also use RESISTBOT on your cell phone by texting to 50409 SIGN PKYJCG to send this message.
“I am your constituent and I am alarmed by the skyrocketing rate of maternal mortality. The average death rate is 32/100,000 live births. That’s EIGHT TIMES what it is in Germany. And for Black women it is two and a half times what it is for White women in the US. THIS JUST CAN’T STAND. There are access issues and medical deserts and social determinants of health, like food and transportation that are at play here. I want you to pass the Black Momnibus bill of 2023. It will fix social determinants of health portion of this. Then I want you to cosponsor and pass HR 3421, MEDICARE for ALL, so that all of us have access to health care - Cradle to Grave. Each of those lives lost was precious. You have it in your hands to fix it. So FIX IT.”
Find My Elected Officials
Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/addr/
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare
Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Plan
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water Resistbot write up