For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Clark, 512-473-2274, [email protected]
Austin — Today, 56 Texas organizations sent a letter calling on Congress to ensure that the final version of the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill includes critical provisions for children’s health and moms’ health. Congress and the White House are currently finalizing negotiations on the legislation. In the letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Ted Cruz, Senator John Cornyn, and Texas Representatives in Congress, the groups urged Congress to pass the provision allowing mothers to remain enrolled in their health insurance for a full year after pregnancy and allowing children to remain enrolled in their Medicaid or CHIP health insurance for 12 continuous months. Both provisions were included in the original draft of the legislation.
“Congress is on the verge of passing transformational legislation for children in Texas and across the country, with provisions that will slash child poverty, offer high quality early learning to kids of all backgrounds, and ensure parents with low-wage jobs finally have health coverage in states that rejected Medicaid expansion,” said Adriana Kohler, Policy Director for Texans Care for Children. “We want to ensure that the proposals that focus on healthy moms and healthy kids have Congress’ attention too as they finalize the legislation.”
The letter is signed by Texans Care for Children, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Texas, Texas Medical Association, United Ways of Texas, and other children’s advocates, health care providers, women’s health organizations, and faith-based organizations from across Texas.
The letter points out that earlier this year the Texas Legislature passed six months of health coverage for moms after pregnancy, but not the full 12 months recommended by the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. Similarly, the Legislature reduced the red tape that removes eligible children from their Medicaid health insurance, but it did not pass 12-month continuous health coverage for children.
“A full year of health coverage for moms after pregnancy is critical for preventing maternal deaths, addressing postpartum depression, supporting infants and toddlers during this key period of early brain development, and more,” explained Ms. Kohler. “A full year of continuous health coverage for kids is so important so they don’t lose their insurance — and miss the health care they need — just because their parent picks up a few extra shifts at work one month and momentarily boosts their income bracket.”
The full letter is available below. A PDF of the letter is available here.
October 25, 2021
The Honorable Chuck Schumer
Majority Leader, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
Texas Congressional Delegation
Dear Majority Leader Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, and Members of the Texas Delegation in Congress,
We are writing today to urge you to strongly support two critical but lower-profile provisions in the Build Back Better budget reconciliation bill to support healthy moms and healthy children. Specifically, we urge you to encourage congressional leaders to ensure that the bill maintains the provision allowing mothers to remain enrolled in their Medicaid health coverage for 12 months after pregnancy and the provision allowing children to remain enrolled in their Medicaid or CHIP health insurance for 12 continuous months. While we also support other provisions in the original draft of the Build Back Better bill, particularly the provision to permanently close the health coverage gap in states that have not implemented Medicaid expansion, we want to ensure that Congress is paying attention to the low-cost, high-impact provisions on postpartum coverage for mothers and continuous coverage for children.
The provision to support healthy moms would have a significant positive impact in Texas, where approximately one-quarter of women of childbearing age were uninsured prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. A full year of comprehensive health coverage for mothers after pregnancy was the top recommendation of the Texas Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee appointed by Governor Greg Abbott. The Review Committee has also warned that Black mothers in Texas are at much higher risk of maternal mortality compared to other mothers — one of the reasons that implementing 12 months of postpartum coverage is a key step towards addressing racial disparities in Texas and nationwide. Greater access to health coverage would help prevent maternal deaths — and maternal mortality is just the tip of the iceberg. Many more Texas moms face medical issues and complications in the year following pregnancy, such as postpartum depression, cardiac arrest, infection, and extreme blood loss or hemorrhage. These issues often lead to extra hospital stays, create long-term health problems for mothers, affect infants and toddlers during the critical years of early brain development, and generate higher costs to Medicaid and the state. In fact, a 2021 report by Mathematica found that failing to treat maternal mental health conditions costs Texas $2.2 billion for one year of births due to productivity losses, child and behavioral and developmental disorders, maternal health expenditures, and preterm births.
The Texas Legislature has recognized the importance of addressing this maternal health issue, but it has not passed 12-month postpartum coverage. This year, 12-month postpartum coverage passed the Texas House on a strong bipartisan vote, although the bill was reduced to 6-month postpartum coverage before it was ultimately passed and signed by the Governor. We deeply appreciate the Legislature's work, although there is more left to do.
Texas is also one of the states that would benefit most from the children’s health care provision in the Build Back Better bill. Texas has the nation’s highest uninsured rate for children. In fact, Texas was responsible for one-third of the total increase in the number of children who lost health insurance from 2016 to 2019 in the United States. While children of all racial/ethnic backgrounds have high uninsured rates in Texas, Hispanic children in particular are disproportionately uninsured — one of the reasons that continuous health coverage for children must be part of a health equity agenda.
According to an analysis by Urban Institute, almost half of the uninsured children in Texas prior to the pandemic were eligible for Medicaid but unenrolled. Part of the challenge is that eligible children often cycle on and off of Medicaid health insurance due to monthly fluctuations in their family income. That process hurts children’s health outcomes and continuity of care as they miss doctors’ appointments, support for mental health, speech therapy sessions, medications, immunizations, and school. It also creates more administrative burdens for the state, doctors, insurance companies, and families. The state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) avoids many of these challenges by offering 12 months of continuous coverage for most children.
As they did with maternal health, this year our state legislators recognized the importance of addressing this challenge, although they did not fully resolve it. We are grateful to the Legislature for passing a bill to reduce the number of inaccurate mid-year eligibility reviews in Children’s Medicaid. However, to ensure that eligible children can remain enrolled in their health insurance and receive consistent, reliable health care, the state’s Children’s Medicaid program should offer 12 months of continuous health coverage. By taking this step, Congress will ensure more children get the health care they need and are more likely to succeed in school, graduate from high school and attend college, earn higher wages, and grow up into healthy adults.
We urge you to ensure that Congress uses the opportunity presented by the Build Back Better bill to take these important steps to support healthy kids and healthy moms. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists - District XI (Texas)
Any Baby Can
Autism Society of Texas
Center for Civic and Public Policy Improvement
CHILDREN AT RISK
Children's Defense Fund - Texas
Circle Up United Methodist Women
City of Austin
Clarity Child Guidance Center
Council For A Strong America- Texas
East Texas Human Needs Network
Every Body Texas
Every Texan
Geoffray Strategies, LLC
Hand to Hold
Healthy Futures of Texas
Houston Area Women's Center
Jewish Family Service Houston
Jolt Action
La Fe Policy Research and Education Center
Legacy Community Health
Mental Health America Greater Houston
Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
Nacogdoches Area United Way
NAMI Texas of Palestine
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Texas
National Association of Social Workers - Texas Chapter
National Council of Jewish Women Greater Dallas
Network of Behavioral Health Providers
New Hope Housing
North Texas Area Community Health Centers
Paso del Norte Center of Hope
Postpartum Support International-Texas
Pregnancy and Postpartum Health Alliance of Texas (PPHA)
Proyecto Azteca
Texans Care for Children
Texas Academy of Family Physicians
Texas AFL-CIO
Texas Association of Community Health Plans
Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Texas Hospital Association
Texas Medical Association
Texas Parent to Parent
Texas Pediatric Society, the Texas Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility
Texas Women's Healthcare Coalition
TexProtects
The Good Life Outcomes program, at Change Happens!
UnidosUS
United Way for Greater Austin
United Way of Denton County
United Way of Metropolitan Dallas
United Way of Tarrant County
United Ways of Texas
Valley AIDS Council
Young Invincibles
CC:
The Honorable Bernie Sanders Chair, Senate Committee on the Budget
The Honorable Patty Murray Chair, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
The Honorable Ron Wyden Chair, Senate Committee on Finance
The Honorable Bobby Scott Chair, House Committee on Education and Labor
The Honorable John Yarmuth Chair, House Committee on the Budget
The Honorable Richard Neal Chair, House Committee on Ways and Means
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