For Immediate Release
Contact:  Brian Reardon
June 29, 2024
[email protected] 

Statement by Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, President and Chief Executive Officer, Catholic Health Association of the United States

WASHINGTON, DC – The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) applauds the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on its recent announcement of a new funding opportunity for its Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) model, which will focus on enhancing maternal health care for Americans enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Catholic health care has long prioritized a whole-person approach to supporting the health of mothers and babies, with the goal of improving health outcomes for all patients, especially those in vulnerable communities. We are encouraged that state Medicaid agencies will have access to expanded resources under the TMaH model to enhance care and services for mothers during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period to ensure their physical, mental, and social well-being. We are confident that, when implemented, these programs will help reduce disparities in care, particularly among vulnerable and underserved communities, and commend the administration and CMS for their work to improve maternal health.

Members of Congress, in both parties, have also demonstrated a laudable commitment to solutions that would improve how America cares for mothers, including making 12-month postpartum care coverage available under Medicaid a permanent state option, and substantially increasing FY24 funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which helps ensure essential nutrition and support services for pregnant women and new mothers, promoting healthier pregnancies and births nationwide. We encourage lawmakers to build on this positive work by taking the following critical steps to ensure mothers and their babes have access to high-quality, affordable health care services:

• Increase funding for the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant, and the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program.
• Enact the Preventing Maternal Deaths Act to strengthen federal support for Maternal Mortality Review Committees, which passed in the U.S. House.
• Extend critical federal efforts to reduce preterm births and infant mortality by enacting the PREEMIE Reauthorization Act, which passed in the U.S. House.
• Further address inequities in health care quality by enacting the Black Maternal Health Momnibus and the Care for MOMS Act, which will help establish a more sustainable health care infrastructure for mothers of color and in those in rural areas of the United States.
• Support access to maternity and OB care in hospitals in rural and underserved communities by enacting the Keeping Obstetrics Local Act.

CHA looks forward to continuing to work with the Administration, and Members of Congress, to advance a comprehensive approach to improving maternal care, as critical to our mission to bring compassionate, quality health care to all.

To read more about the Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) Model, click HERE.

For details on CMS’ Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) under the TMaH model, click HERE.

Read more about solutions to strengthen maternal care HERE.

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The Catholic Health Association of the United States is the national leadership organization of the Catholic health ministry, representing the largest nonprofit provider of health care services in the nation.

• 1 in 7 patients in the U.S. is cared for in a Catholic hospital each day.
• Catholic health care, which includes more than 2,200 hospitals, nursing homes, long-term care facilities, systems, sponsors, and related organizations, serves the full continuum of health care across our nation.
• Learn more at www.chausa.org.