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New York City, April 3- The New York Academy of Medicine applauds the recent decision by Governor Pataki and the New York State Legislature to continue Medicaid coverage of prenatal care for all immigrant women in New York State. On Tuesday, March 19, Governor Pataki signed into law A.10461/S6536, which provides that New York will use state funds to pay for Medicaid for pregnant immigrants who are ineligible for federally funded Medicaid.
"With this action, the Governor and State Legislature have done the right thing, and demonstrated New York's ongoing commitment to improving the health of women and children," says Tamar Bauer, Director of the New York Forum for Child Health, a policy and research organization at The New York Academy of Medicine.
Reversing a decade-long policy, a May 2001 decision by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Lewis v. Grinker held that federal Medicaid funds cannot be used to pay for prenatal care for undocumented pregnant women, threatening an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 women in New York State with the loss of prenatal care. With this loss of federal funds, state legislation was needed to continue coverage.
A lack of prenatal care is associated with maternal complications, low birth weight and prematurity in newborns, which in turn may lead to weeks of painful neonatal care, permanent birth defects and infant death. In addition to the human factor, the costs of not providing prenatal care are considerable: according to a January 2000 study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, one dollar spent on prenatal care was shown to reduce three dollars in care soon after birth and four dollars in longer-term medical costs. These figures would ultimately add up to millions of dollars in statewide costs.
Studies have shown that women who are uninsured are less likely to receive prenatal care. A 2001 study by SUNY Health Science Center/Brooklyn and the Academy found that lack of coverage reduces use of prenatal care 10-fold; in that study, 30 percent of undocumented pregnant women who were uninsured in Florida received almost no pre-natal care. This figure contrasts sharply with New York's, where only 3 percent of undocumented women on Medicaid received little or no pre-natal care.
To prevent such unnecessary harm to women and their citizen infants, a coalition of health care providers, advocates and unions has urged New York to use state dollars to maintain Medicaid coverage for all pregnant immigrants. On March 19, the Legislature approved Governor Pataki's proposal to allow New York to use state funds to replace the withdrawn federal funds in order to continue Medicaid coverage for all immigrant women. We applaud Governor Pataki and Assemblyman Gottfried, Chair of the NYS Assembly Health Committee, for their leadership in enacting this new law that will improve the health of New York's women and children.
The undersigned organizations were key members of the coalition that worked on this issue:
Posted on April 3, 2002
Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org
Reporters: to arrange interviews with NYAM medical and urban health experts, contact
Andrew J. Martin, Director of Communications
212-822-7285 / amartin@nyam.org
The 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture - The Affordable Care Act: An Insider’s View
Featured Speaker: Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
November 19, 2012 - The NYAM Section on Health Care Delivery welcomes Sherry Glied, PhD, former Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who will deliver the 2012-2013 Duncan Clark Lecture on "The Affordable Care Act: An Insider's View."
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The New York Academy of Medicine with support from the New York State Heath Foundation released a new report, Federal Health Care Reform in New York State: A Population Health Perspective.
This report identifies opportunities that build on both the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (ACA) and New York’s ongoing efforts toward improving the health of its 19 million residents.
Read press release
Read report
