At the Longview Chamber of Commerce, one of our top priorities is making sure that we are setting up kids for success in school so they can grow up to be the next generation of business owners, teachers, doctors, and community leaders. And we know that putting a child on that path to success starts with a healthy pregnancy and a healthy mom.
Fortunately, a bill in the Legislature would take a big step to ensure that Texas moms are healthier during that critical first year of her child’s life.
One of the challenges to supporting healthy pregnancies and healthy babies is that many families in our region have jobs that don’t provide health insurance and don’t pay enough to buy private insurance. (They might be able to get reduced-price insurance at HealthCare.Gov, but that isn’t available to families with jobs below the official poverty line, which is about $22,000/year for a family of three.)
Our vision is that with job training, health care and other support, they will eventually be able to get a better-paying job that offers health insurance. But what do we do in the meantime, especially for women of childbearing age and their babies?
Under state policy, Texas women can get health insurance through Medicaid — but only while they are pregnant. It cuts off 60 days after pregnancy, often leaving them uninsured at a time that is pivotal for their health and their baby’s healthy development. Some important health services are available from clinics, hospital emergency rooms, and the state’s Healthy Texas Women-Plus program, but those options all have significant limitations. They are not substitutes for insurance.
A new report by researchers at Mathematica shows some of the consequences of leaving Texas moms uninsured during this critical time. For a single year of childbirths in Texas, the report found that untreated postpartum depression and other maternal mental health conditions creates $2.2 billion in costs by a child’s 5th birthday. The Mathematica analysis shows that failing to connect moms with the treatment they need creates more health care costs for the state, contributes to behavioral and developmental disorders that affect kids’ success in school, leads to moms missing a lot of work and, tragically, ends up with more kids and moms dying. If the analysis included physical health conditions alongside those mental health conditions, surely the price tag for lack of health care would be even higher.
Two other reports — one by the UT Health Science at Tyler and one by the state’s health department — show that here in Northeast Texas, we have even more work to do than the rest of the state. Northeast Texas has the highest rate of maternal hypertension in the state, which can lead to medical complications and even death during pregnancy, birth, and later; the state’s second-worst infant mortality rate; and high rates of postpartum depression, late entry into prenatal care and suicide.
House Bill 133 and similar bills at the Capitol can help. Rather than ending moms’ Medicaid insurance when their baby turns 2 months old, this proposal would let them keep their insurance until the baby’s 1st birthday, as recommended by the state’s Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee. Moms need health insurance beyond that, but proposals for a longer period of time have not gained as much support in the Legislature. The year of coverage provided by HB 133 would give moms a much better shot at getting consistent help for their mental health and physical health at a time when their baby really needs a healthy mom.
This legislation passed the Texas House two years ago with strong bipartisan support, but it ran out of time in the Texas Senate. This year, we urge our legislators to get the job done for Northeast Texas moms and the babies that — in the blink of an eye — will be walking into our kindergarten classrooms, graduating from high school and college and building the Longview economy.
— Kelly Hall is the president/CEO of the Longview Chamber of Commerce.