Reintroduced ‘momnibus’ maternal health care bill package clears first stop in Michigan Senate

BY ANNA LIZ NICHOLS, MICHIGAN ADVANCE

LANSING—A “momnibus” bill package aimed to reduce racial inequities in maternal mortality in Michigan cleared the Michigan Senate Housing and Human Services Committee Tuesday with bipartisan support.

Policies in the package were widely supported last legislative session by the partisanly split Michigan Senate, Sen. Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) noted to lawmakers Tuesday, but the bills became  a “lame duck casualty of the House” as Republican lawmakers boycotted session in December in protest to minimum and tipped wage reforms not being placed for a vote.

But the legislation is worth taking up again, Tamika Jackson, a Community Organizer for Mothering Justice told lawmakers Tuesday. Mothering Justice, a Detroit-based group dedicated to advocating for mothers of color, addressing economic and health care inequities, has been vocally supportive of policies aimed to help Michigan moms.

Rather than listen to her when she said she couldn’t breathe, Jackson said her anesthesiologist ignored her during labor as a mistake with her epidural started to shut down her organs.

“This medical professional was willing to let me die before she would admit that I needed care, and essentially, I did. I coded. I was put on life support. I had to have an emergency C-section, and then I was revived with epinephrine,” Jackson said recalling everything she missed in the birth of her baby.

She was not the first person to hold her child and she had difficulty breastfeeding because of the experience, Jackson said and she lives with the trauma of begging for help and being refused.

Black women maternal mortality rates are three times higher than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This gap exists for an assortment of reasons including accessibility to quality care and educational information on healthy pregnancies, but also chronic dismissal to the pain and needs of Black women.

In order to combat inequities, Senate Bill 29 would mandate the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to compile annual data on racial and ethnic disparities in health care, as well as review statewide maternal deaths in order to complete a report to the legislature to offer insight on gaps in maternal health care starting in 2026 and then continuing every three years. The department would also have to come up with a statewide plan to reduce such ethnic and racial disparities in health care.

Senate Bill 30 similarly would require the state health department to take and analyze reports of unfair treatment by pregnant or postpartum individuals who say they received improper medical care that was not culturally informed or treatment that caused them harm. The department would have to create a reporting tool to accept such complaints while also maintaining the patients’ privacy.

Senate Bill 31 would bar leadership of a hospital from discriminating against a patient on the basis of their pregnancy or lactating status and would require a health facility to stabilize a patient or resident going through labor before ceasing care for the patient upon the patient’s refusal or denial of care. The facility would have to author a policy on patient rights and adhere to the policy.

Senate Bill 34 would clarify Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act barring discrimination on the basis of “sex” including pregnancy and lactation status.

Senate Bill 32 would require insurance companies offering medical malpractice insurance policies to provide the Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) with a review of the policies related to perinatal care on an annual basis.

Senate Bill 33 would clarify that a patient’s pregnancy would not preclude a designated patient advocate from making life-sustaining treatment decisions for the patient.

Due to historic worse outcomes in hospitals, many women of color are opting for out of hospital options for delivery, including using midwives.

Michigan has not yet tapped the positives to society that midwives offer, said Leseliey Welch, co-founder of Birth Detroit, a network for Black midwives.

Welch notes that the World Health Organization has urged expansions in midwifery across the globe as a means to provide less costly means to care through highly trained professionals who could meaningfully lower maternal and newborn deaths by expanding access to care.

“I continue to marvel at the fact that this is currently one of the only areas of health care where policy makers…  across some states continue to ignore a whole body of evidence about how it will improve the health in our communities,” Welch said. “Michigan needs more midwives.”

In order to increase the number of midwives, Senate Bill 36 would amend the public health code to include eligible midwives who attended midwifery programs to participate in the state health department’s Michigan Essential Health Provider Repayment program.

Senate Bill 37 would require insurance companies that cover gynecological and pregnancy services to cover such services whether they be in a hospital or a patient’s home, by a qualified physician or nurse midwife or midwife.

Senate Bill 38 and Senate Bill 39 would amend the Social Welfare Act to require the Healthy Michigan Plan to cover ultrasound procedures and fetal nonstress tests in offsite locations and permit Medicaid eligible individuals to be able to receive perinatal and gynecologic care under the Healthy Michigan Plan under certain circumstances.

READ MORE: Doulas are helping birthing families in Michigan more than ever

This coverage was republished from Michigan Advance pursuant to a Creative Commons license.