Will Wisconsin become the next state to expand Medicaid benefits for new mothers?
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A group of OB-GYNs and an anti-abortion group found themselves on the same side of the table Wednesday during a state Senate committee hearing where they both pushed for passage of a bill to expand Medicaid benefits for new mothers.
The bipartisan bill would allow low-income mothers who make more than the poverty threshold to stay on BadgerCare Plus, the state's largest Medicaid program, for a full year after giving birth — when they may still be at risk of life-threatening, post-pregnancy complications — instead of only two months.
Currently, only mothers who make as much as or less than the poverty threshold qualify to stay on BadgerCare Plus beyond the second month after delivery.
The bill went before the Senate Committee on Insurance and Small Business Wednesday for a public hearing, a step forward for a piece of legislation that also was introduced in the last legislative session but did not make it to a floor vote then. The committee is chaired by Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma.
The legislation's authors — Felzkowski; Sen. Joan Ballweg, R-Markesan; Rep. Tony Kurtz, R-Wonewoc and Rep. Donna Rozar, R-Marshfield — hope that the bill will have more success this session. Similar measures have gained momentum in other states.
After years of rejecting it, several Republican-led states have embraced a year-long coverage period for new mothers, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. Some Republicans now see the extended coverage as a key part of their anti-abortion platform.
"I am proudly pro-life, and this should be part of a pro-life package," Rozar said. "The best way to have healthy babies is to have healthy mothers."
Organizations that oppose abortion, including Pro-Life Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, spoke in support of the bill, calling it "good public policy."
"In a post-Roe nation, Wisconsin is presently a safe haven for mothers and their pre-born children. It is vitally important that we provide robust, public and private support for pregnant mothers," said Matt Sande, legislative director of Pro-Life Wisocnsin.
Longtime supporters of the legislation, including medical professionals with the Wisconsin chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, reiterated that the bill would help prevent pregnancy-related deaths, which can occur months after delivery and have been on the rise in recent years.
Most maternal deaths in Wisconsin are preventable, said Dr. Jasmine Zapata, chief medical officer for community health and state epidemiologist for maternal and child health at the state Department of Health Services. She said she reviews about 50 to 60 maternal deaths each year as part of the statewide team that studies maternal mortality in Wisconsin.
"One life is too many," she said.
The bill, supporters said, would allow low-income mothers to keep seeing their doctors in the vulnerable year after giving birth, when they may struggle with any number of pregnancy-related complications, including postpartum depression, high blood pressure, clotting disorders or diabetes.
Annmae Minichiello, a mother of two and volunteer with the American Heart Association, told legislators that she was rushed to the hospital several days after giving birth to her first daughter, unable to breathe and "gasping for air." Minichiello was diagnosed with peripartum cardiomyopathy, a rare form of heart failure that occurs in women toward the end of their pregnancy or in the months after.
While her medical team struggled to find a treatment that would work, she feared she would die, she said. She didn't have any history of heart disease in her family, and was an otherwise healthy, active person.
“How could I go from running triathlons to barely breathing while walking?” she said.
Eventually, her condition improved and she was released from the hospital, but the experience was traumatizing. She said she suffered from anxiety and panic attacks long after the hospitalization, and had difficulty bonding with her newborn baby.
She stressed that heart complications can occur months after pregnancy and that recovering from the emotional trauma takes even longer.
BadgerCare Plus covers four in 10 births
About four of every 10 births in Wisconsin are covered by BadgerCare Plus. If the bill passes, it would mean that an average of 5,300 more pregnant women per month would be covered under BadgerCare Plus in fiscal year 2025 than would be covered under current law, according to figures provided by Elizabeth Goodsitt, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services.
Dr. Jennifer Krupp, a maternal fetal medicine physician with SSM Health, pointed to two real-life cases where patients lost their health insurance shortly after pregnancy and then suffered complications later on.
One of her patients developed Type 2 diabetes after pregnancy. But when she lost coverage, she stopped taking the medication that was controlling her blood sugar levels. The next time Krupp saw the patient, for a new pregnancy not a year later, her blood sugar levels were not under control, which put her and her baby at higher risk of complications. The mother developed preeclampsia, a serious condition that puts stress on her heart and other organs. The baby was born with a heart defect that required surgery, Krupp said.
"If her diabetes would have been better controlled, likely that we would have prevented the heart defect in the baby and then also decreased her risk for having preeclampsia," she said.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Will Wisconsin be next to expand Medicaid benefits for new mothers?
