Black women are three times as likely to die from preventable pregnancy-related complications as white women in the United States. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is that Black women have lower rates of health insurance. Without insurance, they cannot afford the pre-pregnancy and prenatal care they need to reduce their maternal mortality rate. A fundamental way to address this problem is to expand Medicaid.

There is a broad and deep moral conviction that health care should be distributed according to genuine need and not left to the cold mercy of pure market forces or the logic of actuarial fairness. Unfortunately, the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA), passed last week in the House of Representatives, and other legislation threaten to undermine that moral commitment.