CUTS AND CONSEQUENCES…. About a year ago, Republican policymakers in Nebraska approved a policy that cut off Medicaid funding for prenatal care for about 1,600 low-income women, many of them undocumented immigrants.
Andrea Nill reported the other day on the consequences of those cuts.
The elimination one year ago of Medicaid funding for prenatal care for about 1,600 low-income women has had dramatic effects, doctors and health clinic administrators reported Wednesday. At least five babies have died. Women are traveling 155 miles to get prenatal care. Babies have been delivered at clinics, in ambulances and hospital emergency rooms. […]
Andrea Skolkin, chief executive officer of One World Community Health Centers in Omaha, said that in the past year, only about half of uninsured women are receiving any prenatal care. The health center has more premature births to uninsured women, compared to insured women. Uninsured mothers were twice as likely to deliver through cesarean section, which is more expensive. […]Four infants died in utero at the Columbus health center, she said. In the previous seven years, the clinic had never had an in utero death.
After seeing these results, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) is also pushing to restrict prenatal care assistance.
Remember, these are the folks generally known as “pro-life.”
Or, as Matt Yglesias reminds us, “Life … begins at conception, ends at birth, and doesn’t count if you’re from Mexico.”
