Sen. Elizabeth Warren says if hospitals keep letting Black mothers die, they should lose funding
Sen. Warren called out racism as the root cause for Black women's high maternal mortality rates in the U.S. and described a plan to address it.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) while speaking at the She The People conference rolled out a policy plan that would address the racial disparity between Black and white mothers.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says it’s time to move beyond talking about the problem of Black mothers dying and make hospitals find solutions or pay up.
At the She The People conference in Houston on Wednesday, Sen. Warren rolled out a policy plan that would address the racial disparity between Black and white mothers.
“We have failed our mamas, we have failed our babies,” Sen. Warren told the crowd, eliciting loud cheers and applause.
While the United States has an exceptionally high maternal mortality rate across the board, Black women die at 3 to 4 times the rate of white women.
Black moms in our country are dying from childbirth-related causes 3-4 times more often than white moms. Any meaningful solution to our maternal mortality crisis must address structural racism as a root cause of this problem. My new idea would tackle this crisis head on. pic.twitter.com/1YcaVNTedz
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 24, 2019
“If providers deliver quality care to black moms, they’ll make more,” Sen. Warren later tweeted. “If they don’t, they’ll make less. Don’t just observe and debate racism in health care. Make providers pay until this crisis is fixed.”
“Hit health care providers in their wallets. Make it unacceptable for providers to tolerate our high rates of moms dying—especially Black moms,” Warren continued.
Advocates are forcing Black maternal mortality into the conversation. There are important ideas on the table. Here's mine: Hit health care providers in their wallets. Make it unacceptable for providers to tolerate our high rates of moms dying—especially Black moms. #SheThePeople
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 24, 2019
The haunting stories of women like Shalon Irving, a 36-year-old PhD and epidemiologist at the CDC, who died after giving birth and Kyira Dixon Johnson, a married mother of one who died of a hemorrhage at a hospital after giving birth to her second child, remind Black women that we are all vulnerable to a broken healthcare system.
When tennis great Serena Williams gave birth to her daughter, her money, accomplishments, and privilege still didn’t prevent her from experiencing a pulmonary embolism and being ignored by doctors.
Elizabeth Warren rolls out plan to reward hospitals that make childbirth safer for Black Women. Literally financial incentives for them to do right and penalties if they do wrong. I’ll be damned. https://t.co/5ldmYE4PpE
— April (@ReignOfApril) April 25, 2019
Everybody: I’m running for President. I have a black friend.
Elizabeth Warren: I’m canceling student loan debt, making childbirth safer for black women, I’m giving billions of dollars to HBCU’s, protecting sacred lands…oh and here’s HOW I’m going to do it. pic.twitter.com/wd0PrzIXzZ
— Lisa Beasley (@lisabevolving) April 25, 2019
In addition to Warren’s ideas around healthcare, she’s made headlines for other proposed policies— promising to cancel student loan debt, institute universal and affordable childcare, and get rid of the electoral college.
Watch our full interview with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and hit us up in the comments below with your thoughts.
