— New mothers will have more access to health care next year under a provision in the new state budget.

Under current law, new mothers who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for Medicaid are eligible for services for two months after the baby’s birth. Starting next April, that stretches out to a full year.

Speaking at a meeting of the Child Fatality Task Force’s committee on infant health on Monday, Emma Sandoe, associate director of strategy and planning for the state Division of Health Benefits, said the change is expected to help about 2,000 new mothers a month. She said it will improve care for chronic conditions like diabetes, depression and substance use disorder that can make it hard for mothers to take the best care of their newborns.

Members of the task force said they hope the expansion will help reduce the state’s infant death rate, which is higher than the national average, particularly in high-poverty areas.

North Carolina’s infant death rate is also racially disproportionate. Non-Hispanic Black infants are 2.5 times more likely to die than non-Hispanic white infants. That gap has not closed significantly over the past decade. Black woman are also more likely to receive lower levels of postpartum care, Sandoe said.

The task force had made the expansion one of its legislative recommendations for 2021. Committee Co-chair Sarah Verbiest, a clinical associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Social Work and executive director of the Center for Maternal & Infant Health, said she smiles every time she talks about its passage in the 2021 budget.

“That is amazing. That is my joy, my joy for the holidays,” Verbiest said.

The change was supported by Republican legislative leaders, who described it as “a very limited expansion” of the Medicaid program.

Under the American Rescue Plan, which included the funding for it, the expansion is set to end in 2027. However, Sandoe said, the Biden administration’s Build Back Better bill would make the extension permanent if it passes Congress with that provision still included.

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More Medicaid help for new moms coming in 2022 – WRAL.com