The Senate, which is led by female Senate President Karen Spilka, also Wednesday passed a bill requiring MassHealth to cover new mothers’ postpartum care for a year, up from 60 days. Sen. Joan Lovely, a Salem Democrat, said on the Senate floor that pregnant women enrolled in Medicaid, which covers low-income individuals, are more likely to have birthing complications than women with private insurance. Complications like postpartum depression can develop six months after a birth.
Health Care For All, a health care consumer advocacy organization, said pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths are a growing crisis across the US, and Black women are three times more likely to die of a childbirth-related cause than White women.
“Sixty days of coverage is not sufficient to address the medical and behavioral health needs of the postpartum period,” said Yaminah Romulus, policy manager at Health Care For All.
Both bills will now go to the house.
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