The comment, delivered last week by U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, was a stark and painful indictment of the United States’ health care system.
“The U.S. spends significantly more per capita on childbirth than any other industrialized nation,” the Camas Republican said. “However, despite this investment, America continues to rank far behind almost all other developed countries in birth outcomes for both mothers and babies.”
While politicians often are prone to hyperbole in support of a pet issue, the numbers bear out Herrera Beutler’s assertions. According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, the United States ranks 47th in infant mortality rate, just ahead of New Caledonia, Northern Mariana Islands and Guam. And according to a 2013 New York Times report: “Childbirth in the United States is uniquely expensive, and maternity and newborn care constitute the single biggest category of hospital payouts for most commercial insurers and state Medicaid programs. The cumulative costs of approximately 4 million annual births is well over $50 billion.” The Times also reported that from 2004 to 2010, childbirth costs paid out by insurers increased by more than 40 percent.
Driven by these disturbing facts, Herrera Beutler has announced the creation of a congressional caucus focusing on maternity care. Along with Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., she is working to “raise awareness about important and timely maternity care-related issues, and highlight challenges facing America’s maternity care system. Caucus members will promote cost-effective and optimal outcomes for both high- and low-risk pregnancies by highlighting bipartisan policy solutions based on the best available evidence.”
Undoubtedly, Herrera Beutler is motivated in part by her own high-risk pregnancy. Her daughter, Abigail, was diagnosed with Potter Syndrome and was born premature and without kidneys. The congresswoman also has worked on legislation to create a nationwide network of providers to assist medically complex children.
Such complexities can be financially ruinous to families. But even routine childbirth in the United States is accompanied by costs that dwarf those of other nations. As The New York Times wrote: “The chasm in price is true even though new mothers in France and elsewhere often remain in the hospital for nearly a week to heal and learn to breast-feed, while American women tend to be discharged a day or two after birth, since insurers do not pay costs for anything that is not considered medically necessary.”
Childbirth is one of the most universal of medical needs, but the cost of maternal care provides just a snippet of the health care issues facing the United States. Herrera Beutler has joined with fellow Republicans in calling for a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, yet her party has been loath to present reasonable alternatives or pursue ways to improve the legislation, colloquially known as Obamacare. “There are better solutions to ensure Americans who are young, or struggling, or living with a pre-existing condition can access good health care,” Herrera Beutler said last year, yet we are waiting for those solutions from Republicans in Congress.
Meanwhile, Herrera Beutler is to be lauded for attempting to bring attention to the dangers and the costs of having a baby in this country. As with many facets of our health care, we should expect better from the lawmakers and the medical system that have created a situation that poorly serves the American people.
