Protect Medicaid Funding: Pregnant Women, Issue 11 (Updated March 2017)

Executive Summary

Cutting the funding of Medicaid, whether through block grants or a per capita caps, will result in yanking vital health care coverage from pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid. In this issue of our Protect Medicaid Funding series, it is noted that Medicaid funds almost half of all births in the country, and that Medicaid encourages states to be generous in their coverage for pregnant women; and that more than half the states do provide comprehensive coverage for pregnant women. But that coverage is threatened by proposals embraced by conservatives in Congress and the Trump administration. This paper explains how block grants or caps would cut Medicaid funding and endanger quality care for pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid. In March 2017, this paper was updated with a personal story from Rachel, a woman in Illinois, whose job did not provide a health care plan with maternity coverage, when she became pregnant. She describes how Medicaid enabled her to give birth to her son Owen, who is now also enrolled in Medicaid.