Recent research shows that the national average rate of maternal deaths is now 32.6 per 100,000 live births, with much higher rates seen for Indigenous mothers with 106.3 deaths, and Black mothers with 76.9 deaths per 100,000 live births, respectively. This represents a 27% increase in maternal deaths over the past five years.
Instead of acting to reverse this horrific statistic, massive lay-offs and budget cuts are underway with over 10,000 positions being eliminated in the health sector; over 1,000 of them scientists at the National Institute of Health, which conducts vital research efforts. Workers at The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, a Centers for Disease Control subsidiary aimed at improving the health of high-risk mothers and infants, have been scrapped. Millions of dollars in grants were terminated, including projects in dozens of maternal health research projects, sexual and reproductive health, mental health services and services targeting health disparities by race.
Secretary of the HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has characterized public spending towards health as a waste of taxpayer funds, stating that “all that money has failed to improve the health of Americans.” (Health Policy Watch) It is now clearer than ever that the billionaire’s agenda is to cut government-funded programs that are critical for public health, with the aim to privatize or eliminate them entirely.
Instead of alleviating a worsening issue that jeopardizes the lives of millions, the Trump administration’s focus on privatization and cuts to social spending clearly indicate a preference towards tax-breaks and profits for his billionaire friends.
Maternal mortality around the world
A study by the Commonwealth Fund found that the United States has the highest mortality rate among wealthy countries, with figures that tower over countries like Chile at 14.3, Korea at 8.8, and the U.K at 5.5 per 100,000 live births.
The correlations paint a clear picture: countries with the lowest mortality rates have the most programs, including paid parental leave, for mothers before, during and after birth–critical times in which the question of having health care is no question at all for mothers all across the globe.
In Cuba, with a world-renowned socialized healthcare system, which is under draconian U.S. economic embargo, the maternal mortality rate of 34.8 in 2023 is comparable to the U.S. average rate–and far lower than the rates for Black and Indigenous mothers in the U.S. China, also with a socialized healthcare system, has a maternal death rate of 16 deaths per 100,000 live births. It’s no coincidence that both Cuba and China share legalized, safe access to abortion and declining maternal death rates since the very onset of their socialized healthcare systems in the 1950s and 1960s.
The United States cannot show the same progress, and in fact shows the opposite.
Medicaid limitations: Another link to maternal deaths
Under the Affordable Care Act, states have had the option to expand Medicaid to enroll people making up to 138% of the federal poverty level. However, states such as Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee and others have refused to take advantage of this opportunity to expand care, and also not coincidentally share some of the highest maternal death rates in the country.
Poor and working class women who are pregant can also access Medicaid. However, this assistance is limited, as in some states, healthcare to the mother ends after two months postpartum. After those two months, new mothers can lose their coverage completely, particularly in states where Medicaid has not been expanded.
But one third of maternal deaths occur up to a year postpartum.
Deaths due to complications of pregnancy loss and abortion are not counted as part of the statistics on maternal mortality (which are measured as a ratio of deaths to live birth); however these deaths have skyrocketed since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. After abortion was legalized in the U.S., maternal mortality rates declined. Having the right to decide when to get pregnant and whether to carry the pregnancy to term is essential to supporting the health of mothers.
We need a new system: People over profits
In the face of spiking maternal death rates, Trump’s billionaire agenda only adds insult to injury. DOGE effectively pivots the entire purpose of the government to increasing private sector profits.
Only a socialist society, one that prioritizes the people’s needs, is capable of properly tending to the health of mothers, children and all people; a society which cuts out the parasitic “middle-man” of health insurance companies and replaces them with a universal, socialized healthcare system.
Caring for women’s health before, during and after pregnancy is a job that is being done in China and Cuba thanks to their socialized healthcare system. Working people in the United States can also fight for and win a healthcare system that prioritizes people’s health over profit.