Sponsors (10)
Introduced November 25, 2025 by Robin L. Kelly · Last progress November 25, 2025
The bill invests federal resources and new programs to expand postpartum coverage, perinatal supports, and data-driven targeting to reduce maternal mortality — especially for low-income, rural, and minority birthing people — while creating significant new federal spending, administrative burdens for states and providers, and potential inequities or shortfalls where pilot funding and grant caps limit reach.
Medicaid/CHIP enrollees who are pregnant or postpartum (especially low-income birthing people) will get continuous full Medicaid/CHIP coverage for 12 months after birth and added dental coverage during pregnancy and postpartum, improving access to postpartum care and preventive oral health.
Pregnant and postpartum people (particularly in underserved and racial/ethnic minority communities) will gain expanded perinatal supports — more doulas, training pathways, perinatal quality collaboratives, and mobile units — increasing culturally competent care and local capacity.
States receive federal funding incentives (temporary 100% FMAP for postpartum coverage transitions to 90%, higher FMAP for rural obstetric services, and targeted grant appropriations) that lower state costs and seed expansions of maternal care services.
Taxpayers and the federal budget face substantially higher spending and potential increases in the federal deficit because the bill expands mandatory Medicaid/CHIP benefits, funds grants and appropriations, and raises entitlements without identified offsets.
States, hospitals, and providers will incur significant administrative, reporting, and implementation burdens (system changes, data collection, grant compliance, maintenance-of-effort rules) that could strain public-health and hospital capacity during rollout.
Program design features — time-limited grants, modest grant caps, pilot-only deployment in participating States, and maintenance-of-effort restrictions — risk producing uneven, temporary, or insufficient benefits for many rural and underserved communities.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Expands maternal health programs and Medicaid/CHIP postpartum and oral-health coverage, funds doula and rural mobile-unit programs, requires obstetric closure notices, and raises tobacco excise taxes.
Creates a bundle of federal actions to reduce maternal mortality and improve perinatal care by funding state perinatal quality collaboratives, expanding Medicaid/CHIP coverage for pregnant and postpartum people (including 12-month postpartum coverage and defined oral health benefits), investing in doula workforce development and rural mobile obstetric units, requiring hospitals to notify the federal government before closing obstetric units, and directing a detailed federal review of maternal health spending. It also raises and restructures several federal tobacco excise taxes and adds an inflation adjustment for those rates.