Trump Administration lawsuit would end health coverage for more than 299,000 Arkansans

UPDATE: The Trump Administration filed its lawsuit late on Thursday, June 26, 2020.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting major recession, the Trump Administration and 18 state attorneys general, including Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, are expected to file briefs today asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA). If the lawsuit succeeds, at least 299,000 Arkansans – likely many more – would lose health coverage.

The administration and AGs’ lawsuit has the potential to throw the health care system into chaos in the middle of a pandemic and economic recession. Thousands of Arkansas would lose coverage and many more would pay more for coverage or care.

The Supreme Court is likely to decide the case in the first half of 2021, when the unemployment rate is still expected to be about 10 percent and the public health crisis may still be ongoing. ACA repeal was projected to cause 20 million people to lose coverage nationally – and 299,000 people in Arkansas – before the crisis, but many more would likely lose coverage if the law is repealed during a deep recession, when even more people will turn to ACA programs for coverage.

Many of the estimated 169,000 Arkansans who have already lost job-based health coverage during the recession are eligible for coverage thanks to the ACA. Estimates show 56 percent are eligible for Medicaid coverage – a large share through the ACA expansion – and another 28 percent are eligible for marketplace coverage with premium tax credits.

Both the Medicaid expansion and the premium tax credits that help moderate-income people afford private coverage in the health insurance marketplaces would be eliminated if the ACA is struck down.

Research shows the ACA has improved access to care, financial security, and health outcomes – with strong evidence that both Medicaid expansion and coverage through the ACA marketplaces save lives. Reversing these coverage gains would be expected to worsen all of these outcomes, and the adverse effects would be even greater with more people depending on the ACA for coverage during the recession.

The ACA also significantly narrowed racial disparities in health coverage, and the lawsuit would widen them. Based on pre-crisis estimates, repeal would cause nearly 1 in 10 non-elderly Black people, and 1 in 10 non-elderly Hispanic people, to lose their health insurance, compared to about 1 in 16 White people.

Coverage losses from the lawsuit would also lead to spikes in uncompensated care costs that would add to the financial burden on state and local budgets during an unprecedented state budget crisis and harm providers at a time when many will likely still be reeling from the large drop in their revenues due to the pandemic. Uncompensated care costs in Arkansas have fallen by 57 percent as a share of hospital budgets since the ACA’s major coverage provisions took effect. COVID-19 is threatening the survival of some community-based providers and rural hospitals.

Meanwhile, striking down the ACA would also eliminate other policies and protections important to addressing and recovering from the public health crisis. Arkansans with pre-existing health conditions – which could include having had COVID-19 – could once again be denied coverage or charged higher premiums. Insurance companies would no longer have to cover preventive services, including vaccines, without cost sharing, and could go back to putting annual and lifetime limits on coverage. And Centers for Disease Control funding would be cut.

The ACA has bolstered Arkansas’s ability to deal with both the pandemic and the resulting economic recession. Striking down the law would impede efforts to end the public health crisis and deal with the fallout.

Children in Arkansas are losing health insurance coverage at a staggering rate.

In September, the United States Census Bureau published yearly data from its American Community Survey, as it has each year since 2008. This year’s data is a stark reminder of how much improvement that Arkansas needs in providing access to health care, especially for children. Arkansas experienced steep increases in the rate and number of uninsured children in 2019, which follows a national decline in health insurance rates for children over the past three years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and families losing employer-sponsored health insurance, it is unlikely that the trend will reverse course when the 2020 data becomes available next fall.

2019 Snapshot of health insurance coverage for children

Much of the United States lost ground in children’s health insurance in 2019. It was the largest one-year increase in both the rate and number of uninsured children since the American Community Survey began reporting this metric in 2008. Around 320,000 more children in the United States were uninsured in 2019 than in 2018, representing a one-year increase of 7.5 percent. Based on this, the overall uninsured rate for children in the United States rose from 5.3 percent in 2018 to 5.7 percent in 2019.

Unfortunately, the outlook in Arkansas is even more troubling. In 2019, the number of uninsured children in Arkansas grew to 43,000, representing 5.9 percent of the total number of children in Arkansas. The increase in Arkansas’s 2019 uninsured rate (5.9 percent) over the 2018 uninsured rate (4.5 percent) was the fifth largest in the country. And Arkansas’s uninsured rate surpassed the national uninsured rate for only the second time since 2008.

2016 – 2019: Arkansas trending in the wrong direction

On October 9, our partners at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families released their annual report that analyzes the data published by the American Community Survey. This year, the report takes a deeper dive into why so many states are seeing dramatic coverage losses. It compares the data from 2016 through 2019, to give a multi-year assessment of how the data changes. In 2016, the uninsured rate for children in Arkansas was 4.0 percent; by 2019, it was 5.9 percent. The difference in Arkansas’s uninsured children in 2016 and 2019 was the fourth largest over that span. In 2019, there were 13,000 more children uninsured in Arkansas than in 2016 (a 43 percent increase).

In Arkansas, these coverage losses undo many of the gains that were made after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. One part of the Affordable Care Act that is extremely beneficial to Arkansas is the expansion of Medicaid coverage to adults up to 138 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. In Arkansas, Medicaid expansion was done through the passage of the Private Option. Although the Medicaid expansion does not apply to children, there was an increase in health insurance enrollment for children after Medicaid expansion was enacted. The increase stems from more adults taking the time to enroll their children when they are also enrolled in health insurance (often referred to as the “welcome mat effect”).

Without Medicaid expansion, Arkansas would be in an even worse situation. On average, states that have expanded Medicaid had an uninsured rate for children at 4.2 percent in 2019, compared to 8.1 percent in those states that have not yet expanded Medicaid. Though Arkansas now has a higher-than-average uninsured rate for children among the states that have expanded Medicaid, the uninsured rate would likely be much higher without Medicaid expansion.

In addition to protecting the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas, it is also important to protect the Affordable Care Act. The biggest decline in uninsured rate in Arkansas (for both children and adults) came after the ACA was passed. It is vital that the ACA is protected, both by the federal government and the Supreme Court. This November, the Supreme Court will hear a case pursued by several states, including Arkansas, that seeks to dismantle the individual mandate. If that case were to be successful, it could further endanger the strides that Arkansas made in helping both adults and children access affordable health insurance coverage over the past decade.

Another factor that has created such coverage losses in Arkansas (and many other states) is the recent change to the “public charge” rule. This is the policy that prevents immigrants from obtaining legal permanent residency if it is deemed that they’re likely to require certain types of government assistance. A major expansion of the rule, which took effect this year, has had a “chilling effect,” especially in the Hispanic community. Even though children’s health coverage isn’t counted in the public charge determination, an environment of fear and mistrust has led to families not signing their kids up for benefits to which they are entitled. Anecdotally, health care providers and immigrant advocates in Arkansas have told us that families have been more reluctant to enroll their children in ARKids First coverage because they fear it will jeopardize their immigration status.

Pre-pandemic

After assessment of the data, it is clear that from 2016-19 Arkansas trended in the wrong direction for children’s health insurance coverage. Unfortunately, this trend is likely to only get worse for 2020, which will not be reflected until the uninsured numbers from the COVID-19 pandemic are published in 2021. Due to the economic recession created by COVID-19 and the failed federal approach to combatting the virus, unemployment in the United States increased substantially in 2020. For many families who relied on their workplace to provide health insurance for themselves and their children, losing their job meant losing health insurance coverage. Even with the guidance provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services that froze disenrollment from Medicaid during the public health emergency, there will still be children who are not enrolled next year based on losses in the private insurance sector alone.

Reversing the trend

Until we identify these children, work to improve our outreach and enrollment strategies, and focus on reducing the red tape that creates additional barriers to obtaining health insurance, Arkansas will continue to run behind many other states across the country.

Arkansas Advocates has produced a video to encourage parents whose children may qualify for ARKids First to learn more about the program and enroll. Visit our YouTube channel to find the video in English and in Spanish, and share with your networks.

Lawsuit more dangerous than ever for Arkansans during pandemic and economic crisis

If a lawsuit before the Supreme Court to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) succeeds, 230,000 Arkansans would lose health coverage, increasing by 152 percent the number of Arkansans who are uninsured, a new analysis from the nonpartisan Urban Institute estimates. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting major recession, the Trump Administration and 18 state attorneys general, including Arkansas’s Attorney General Rutledge, are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire ACA. Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are scheduled for November 10.

If it succeeds, the ACA repeal lawsuit would throw the health care system into chaos in the middle of a pandemic and recession. Thousands of Arkansans would lose health coverage when they need it most, and many more would pay more for coverage or care and lose protections for their pre-existing conditions.

If the ACA is struck down, an estimated 21 million people would lose coverage nationally in 2022, according to the new analysis. The coverage losses could be even larger in 2021 when the case is decided, as the public health crisis and resulting recession are likely to still be ongoing.

The ACA has been a lifeline during the pandemic, providing coverage for many of the thousands of Arkansans who have lost their jobs or experienced sharp drops in income in the recession.

The large coverage losses from striking down the ACA would reverse the law’s historic progress in reducing racial health disparities in health coverage and access to care that often stem from structural racism. While overturning the ACA would increase uninsured rates dramatically for all racial and ethnic groups, it would cause nearly 1 in 10 non-elderly Black and Hispanic people nationwide, and more than 1 in 10 American Indians and Alaska Natives, to lose their health coverage and become uninsured.

Coverage losses would also hurt hospitals and other health care providers. Arkansas’s hospitals’ uncompensated care costs have fallen by 57 percent since the implementation of the ACA’s major coverage provisions, based on data from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission.

Repeal would also end provisions that prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to or charging much more for coverage to people with pre-existing conditions like diabetes or cancer, or potentially, COVID-19. It would allow insurance companies to re-introduce annual and lifetime limits on coverage, including for people with health insurance through their jobs, and it would end the requirement that insurers let young adults get covered through their parents’ plans.

But there would be some winners if the lawsuit succeeds. Wealthy people and certain corporations would receive billions in tax cuts, a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis shows:

• The highest-income 0.1 percent (1 in 1,000) households would receive tax cuts averaging about $198,000 per year. This group has annual incomes over $3 million.  A portion of these tax cuts would come at the expense of the Medicare Trust Fund, which would lose about $10 billion in revenue each year.
• Pharmaceutical companies would pay $2.8 billion less in taxes each year, even as millions of seniors could pay billions more for prescription drugs because eliminating the ACA could reopen the “donut hole” gap in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit.

The ACA has bolstered Arkansas’s ability to deal with both the pandemic and the resulting economic recession. Striking down the law would harm those who have suffered the most as a result of the public health crisis and economic fallout, while showering large tax cuts on the very wealthiest.

December 11, 2020

This is our last policy update of the year. Next year, we’ll start our weekly legislative updates during the Arkansas General Assembly’s legislative session. This year is certainly one that will go down in the history books with worldwide protests against racism and police violence, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic fallout, and a contentious presidential election. Let’s go into 2021 with hope and a dedication to continue the work of improving the lives of kids and families in Arkansas.  

If you haven’t already, please join our new Facebook Group, Arkansas’s Digital Advocates to engage in our work and connect with fellow advocates on issues impacting children and families in our state.

Case numbers and hospital capacity

Arkansas faces a shortage of health care resources to care for sick patients as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise. Hospitals in Arkansas have been stretched to the limits caring for a high caseload of severely ill COVID-19 patients since early March. The rolling average of confirmed COVID-19 cases in a week rose from around 500 people in June to more than 2,000 people now. 

There is growing concern for hospital capacity left to treat not only COVID-19 patients but patients with any other medical concern requiring acute care. Last week, UAMS Chancellor, Dr. Cam Patterson tweeted his alarm over the worsening conditions. News reports last week identified limited hospital beds, intensive care beds, ventilators, and even limited morgue space in some communities.

Not only are hospitals concerned about bed space and equipment, a third  threat is having enough medical staff members to care for the patients. Overburdened staff with higher patient-to-medical staff member caseloads, and the significantly increased hours required to work could jeopardize the quality of care.

The CARES Act Steering Committee approved a $109.6 million request by DHS in June to reimburse hospitals for spending between March and June on COVID-19 related expenses. Last week, Arkansas DHS received approval for another $30 million of CARES Act funding to help hospitals for COVID-19 related spending in response to the current surge of cases.  Although the state is providing more funding for the worsening conditions, the money alone will not stem the rise in cases. Instead, Arkansans must follow the guidance of public health officials to reduce the burden on hospitals. 

In a speech Thursday evening, Gov. Hutchinson said that the solution is personal action — wearing a mask, washing hands and keeping socially distant. He announced an extension of the public health emergency but did not announce any new restrictions.

SCOTUS will hear Arkansas Medicaid case

Last Friday, the United States Supreme Court announced that it would hear the case challenging Arkansas’s addition of a work-reporting requirement to our Medicaid expansion program. The decision comes as a mild surprise, given that the federal District Court and Court of Appeals ruled decisively against the work-reporting requirements. Arkansas encouraged the federal government to appeal those rulings to the Supreme Court, which has now decided it will hear arguments in the case. No date was set by the Court in its decision, but it is likely that the case will be scheduled in early 2021. 

AACF’s Josh Hall wrote earlier this year about the Appeals Court ruling in this case, which clearly stated that the reporting requirements went against Medicaid’s purpose in federal law: to provide health care coverage. A full analysis of the work reporting requirements is here. 

Lawmakers negotiate potential federal relief bill

The clock is ticking, and Congress still hasn’t come to agreement on what should be included in pandemic-relief legislation that congressional leaders hope to approve before they adjourn for the holidays. Some of the sticking points are whether to: issue stimulus checks to most Americans, rather than provide targeted relief only to those who are unemployed or struggling; shore up funds for ailing local and state governments; and provide liability protections for employers. Meanwhile, emergency relief provisions expire at the end of the year, including an eviction moratorium that provides limited protection for renters.

Arkansas joins case challenging election

Arkansas is one of the states asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a case that seeks to delay certification of the presidential election in four battleground states that President Trump lost in his failed re-election bid. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge joined attorneys generals in five other states asking to join the lawsuit filed Tuesday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The lawsuit claims in part that voting procedures established during the pandemic, including expanding mail-in voting, were unlawful and created “massive opportunity for fraud.” It challenges voting procedures that were also used in Arkansas. More than 100 Republican members of Congress signed a brief backing the lawsuit, including Arkansas Reps. Rick Crawford and Bruce Westerman.

Job growth is slowing amid pandemic

The national unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent in October to 6.5 percent in November, but this number obscures some underlying issues. Job growth was anemic with the economy only adding 250,000 jobs, hundreds of thousands below the expectations of many analysts. One reason the unemployment rate dropped was because 400,000 people dropped out of the labor market altogether between October and November. 

Reapportionment in 2021

Major changes to our state’s political boundaries are coming next year. Every 10 years, following the decennial census, states redraw their voting districts, taking into account population data from the census. While the process ranges from state to state, in Arkansas state House and Senate districts are drawn by the Board of Apportionment, whose three members include the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of State. U.S. Congressional districts are redrawn by the state general assembly. In a recent interview with Talk Business, Governor Hutchinson said that he does not believe redistricting will have much impact since Arkansas is “a ruby red state, regardless of how you draw the lines.” You can watch the interview here. 

Hate crime legislation 

Arkansas Advocates’ Northwest Arkansas Intern, Michelle Faucher, wrote a blog post on the most recent attempt to pass hate crimes legislation in the state that will be considered by the Arkansas General Assembly next year. “The 93rd General Assembly, which convenes in January 2021, is our best chance yet to join the 47 states that have passed similar legislation. Only South Carolina, Wyoming and Arkansas have no such law in the books. As noted in a previous AACF article, Arkansas also has one of the highest numbers of hate crime groups per capita. In fact, Southern Poverty Law tracked 15 hate groups just in the state of Arkansas.”

Congress proposes bill to end slavery exception

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Last week, nearly 20 congressional lawmakers filed a joint resolution to remove the exception that allows people who have been convicted of a crime to be enslaved. It would add an amendment stating that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude may be imposed as a punishment for a crime.” Authors of the bill argue that the exception is, and was always, a racist policy aimed at harming Black Americans. In the 2019 regular session of the Arkansas General Assembly, Rep. Vivian Flowers proposed an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution that would ban the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime in Arkansas. 

Author Shane Bauer wrote in Slate about how, almost immediately following the Civil War, southern plantation owners, railroad companies, and mines used prison labor in their operations. Perhaps the clearest indication that this new system was an attempt to re-enslave Black Americans is that before the Civil War, most people who were imprisoned were White. Following the Civil War, seven out of 10 people who were imprisoned were Black. Today prison labor is used both by the prisons themselves for work such as cleaning and laundry, but also by corporations. 

Census count

Though the census count is over, the work of the Census Bureau to calculate the data continues. NPR has reported that in the rush to complete the census count, millions of records may be flawed. Counts of group quarters such as college dorms and prisons had major inconsistencies, according to leaked documents. Though impacting less than 1 percent of census records, the inaccurate counts could impact how federal funding is distributed and how congressional seats are apportioned. 

DACA ruling

On Monday, the Trump administration began re-accepting applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, after a federal judge ruled the administration had to restore the program to its status before 2017, when they attempted to end the program. The Department of Homeland Security said it would be meeting with the Justice Department to discuss an appeal. Local immigrant rights group Arkansas United has created a document in Spanish and in English to explain the requirements for DACA and what documents are needed to apply.

Arkansas General Assembly committee assignments

Last month the Arkansas Senate announced its committee assignments and leadership. Earlier this month, members of the House of Representatives made their committee choices, and those became final this week. If you are planning to advocate on a specific issue or issue area during the legislative session next year, it is important to find out who is serving on the committees where the issue will be considered. You can follow the committee members on social media to get updates of what is happening at the capitol, find out where they stand on issues, and connect with them directly. Tag them in a post or tweet to ask them their positions and to support or oppose a specific bill. You can also contact them directly to discuss the issue/s you care most about. 

State EITC most efficient, targeted way to cut taxes for working Arkansans

AACF Senior Policy Analyst, Bruno Showers, recently wrote in response to Governor’s Hutchinson’s proposed budget: “The Governor’s proposed budget for the upcoming biennium includes unspecified income tax cuts for ‘low-income’ Arkansans, amounting to $25 million in 2022 and $50 million in 2023, and it will be up to legislators as to how to allocate the cuts.

“We are encouraged that Gov. Hutchinson recognizes the need to help struggling Arkansas families, and we urge state lawmakers to ensure this opportunity will be good for local economies and lead to healthier and more successful children in our state. Research shows the EITC encourages work and improves children’s health, education, and later life work outcomes.” Read more.

Kids Count Week “at” the Capitol  

Join the Arkansas Kids Count Coalition for our first virtual Kids Count Week “at” the Capitol. Laws reflect the people who show up. And this week is all about ensuring that advocates for children show up at the state Capitol in 2021 to advance equity and social justice. You will have an opportunity to virtually: attend legislative committee meetings, network with other advocates, learn about pending legislation, hear from leaders around the state, and, most importantly, find out how you can take action to help our state’s kids including during the event. We will have some fun too! Stay tuned for more details.

Register here, separately, for each meeting you would like to attend.

Resources

COVID-19 Resources 

Racial Equity Resources

Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families (AACF) is conducting a Story Collection Project on the Arkansas Medicaid program.

We want to highlight what is working and what needs to be made better for Arkansans using Medicaid.

We want you to voice your concerns about the Arkansas Medicaid program. Your story will help us advocate for changes and raise public awareness. Our mission is to ensure that all children and their families in Arkansas have the resources and opportunities to lead healthy and productive lives and to realize their full potential.

Information provided by you may be trimmed down, compiled with other stories, published, shared, and used for other advocacy purposes about the Arkansas Medicaid program. However, we will not share your information publicly without your informed consent.

All participants will receive a $50 Visa gift card, while supplies last.

Why is Collecting Stories Important?

AACF values personal stories because they are a great resource for achieving advocacy goals.  Consumer stories not only humanize a complex policy area, but they can also help inform and refine our advocacy priorities as we learn more about what families are experiencing in their everyday lives. 

From these stories, we hope to highlight the need for improvements for families who use Medicaid. Specifically, AACF is assisting our partners Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, to create a nationwide story bank of Medicaid experiences, whether positive or negative.  

How Can Someone Share Their Story?

Arkansas Advocates has several options in which individuals/or families can share their Medicaid story with us. There will be a mandatory consent form that each individual must sign upon sharing their story.  The consent form will allow us to share the individual’s stories publicly through social media platforms, advocacy materials, legislative reports and more. 

1. Email – An individual may email one of the below email addresses.
   • CaSandra Glover, Health Policy Fellow
   • Michelle Faucher, Health Policy Assistant
   • AACF Main Email Address
2. Phone – An individual may call one of the below phone numbers.
   • (501) 371-9678 – AACF Main Number
   • (951) 218-3833 – CaSandra Glover
   • (479) 652-9857 – Michelle Faucher
3. Video or Voice Recording
   • Send a personalized video or voice recording through email to one of the above email addresses.
4. Schedule a zoom meeting with AACF or your organization
   • Email or call one of the contact numbers above to schedule a zoom meeting.
5. Survey
   • Consumer – this survey is made specifically for an individual who is sharing their personal story regarding Medicaid. 
   • Provider – this survey is made specifically for a provider who is sharing their story regarding Medicaid within their past or previous practice. 

Help spread the word with this flyer.

More than a thousand bills were passed during the 2021 General Assembly. Do you know how they will impact kids? From positive changes for immigrant families in Arkansas to increasing teachers’ salaries, and to defending the state’s Medicaid expansion program, our Kids at the Capitol 2021 Legislative Summary covers it. Read about the good laws that passed, the legislation we wished had, and the harmful legislation that passed or was thwarted.

Arkansans want what’s best for our children.

We all want kids to have happy, healthy lives. Access to affordable medical care is an important part of overall health, and each Arkansan should have access to health care.

But, as shown in the data in this report, Arkansas is getting further from the Finish Line of covering 100 percent of children with health insurance. We see significant differences in who has coverage and who doesn’t along racial and ethnic lines, nativity, and between households with higher and lower incomes.

We want Arkansas to be a great place to be and raise a child. Improving access to affordable health care is a proven step in the right direction.

Download the Finish Line report below to learn more about the state of health care in Arkansas and AACF’s recommendations on improving coverage for children.

The state of Black women’s health is in critical condition, due to the systemic racism, discrimination, and implicit bias that Black women face within the health care system. To combat the intersecting factors that create an inequitable health care experience for Black women, aggressive strategies must be implemented.

This brief will provide an overview of the multifaceted issues contributing to the status of Black women’s health. It will also highlight health policy areas that require urgent attention and immediate intervention. Lastly, it will offer health policy recommendations targeting the institutions, systems, and previous legislation that have both intentionally and inadvertently harmed Black women’s overall health. Our goal is to help inform Arkansans of health policy issues impacting Black women and to create partnerships with other community stakeholders in Arkansas to help increase access to health care and improve the well-being of all Black women. Policymakers, health care providers, and community-based organizations must work together to address the health care inequities that plague Black women.

Download this publication to learn more.

The state of Black women’s health is in critical condition, due to the systemic racism, discrimination, and implicit bias that Black women face within the health care system. To combat the intersecting factors that create an inequitable health care experience for Black women, the following aggressive strategies must be implemented.

• Create policies with an intentional racial equity lens
• Continue expanding Medicaid benefits, including postpartum coverage
• Integrate health care access into public schools
• Ensure technological accessibility for Black families
• Increase the number of Black professionals in the medical field
• Improve the quality of care for Black women

This report, which is an extension of the previously published brief by the same name, will provide an overview of the multifaceted issues contributing to the status of Black women’s health. It will also highlight health policy areas that require urgent attention and immediate intervention. Lastly, it will offer health policy recommendations targeting the institutions, systems, and previous legislation that have both intentionally and inadvertently harmed Black women’s overall health.

Our goal is to help inform Arkansans of health policy issues impacting Black women and to create partnerships with other community stakeholders in Arkansas to help increase access to health care and improve the well-being of all Black women. Policymakers, health care providers, and community-based organizations must work together to address the health care inequities that plague Black women.

Download the full report below.

Babies need their mothers; children need their parents. Everyone should have the opportunity to raise their children and live out their full life expectancy. However, this opportunity is denied many babies and their mothers due to the mother’s death following childbirth.

In this brief we discuss the need for Arkansas Medicaid to extend maternity coverage from two  months to 12 months postpartum. Postpartum care is health care for the mother following the birth of her baby. Among the main conditions faced by mothers during the first year of their babies’ lives include chronic diseases that can be prevented, such as increased blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease.

Throughout the United States, thousands of women die or have near-death experiences while giving birth and up to one year following childbirth. Arkansas has one of the highest rates in the nation of mothers dying within one year of childbirth. Although the risk of death is  highest during and shortly following birth, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has found that one-third of the deaths related to childbirth occurs up to one year following childbirth.

Most women in Arkansas received Medicaid support during their pregnancies in 2018. Two out of every three births in Arkansas were funded by Medicaid. Arkansas should move to extend health coverage to moms for the full year after they give birth.

Most pregnancy-related deaths are preventable, and many are related to loss of health  coverage and access to care. Right now, many Arkansas women lose Medicaid coverage just two months after the end of their pregnancy, putting them at risk of lapse in medication or access to other supports, making it more difficult to care for their new baby as well as themselves.

Health coverage before, during and after pregnancy increases access to preventive care, improves health outcomes for mothers and children, and reduces maternal mortality rates. Ensuring that new moms have health coverage for 12 months after their pregnancy could help lower the rate of maternal mortality and morbidity and reduce disparities for women of color and women in rural communities.

Download the full report below