OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act of 2023

Floor Speech

Date: March 5, 2024
Location: Washington, DC

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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. As Dr. Burgess said, we are facing a maternal health crisis in this country.

From 2018 to 2021, the overall maternal mortality rate in the United States nearly doubled. We are simply failing American women as they become mothers, and we are particularly failing Black Americans, who in 2021 were nearly three times as likely than White Americans to die becoming mothers, irrespective of education or socioeconomic status.

This is exactly the trend that the former gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler) and I sought to address when we passed the original Preventing Maternal Deaths Act in 2018.

Through the programs developed by that legislation we now have a much greater knowledge of what is causing this crisis and the infrastructure we need to build further understanding and drive solutions.

Data generated by the Maternal Mortality Review Committees have provided us with the insight that 80 percent of maternal deaths are preventable. This understanding is the first step toward solutions, and we have to ensure that we not only don't lose but that we strengthen the process we have made in building, understanding, and standardizing data so that we have a clear picture across the country of why this is happening.

The Preventing Maternal Deaths Reauthorization Act will continue and bolster our support for the Maternal Mortality Review Committees. It will also ensure the timely and frequent dissemination of best practices to prevent maternal mortality.

Make no mistake, further action is needed, and this reauthorization in itself will not solve the crisis, but that further action depends on the critical insights that we can get from this legislation. It is the foundation on which the solution stands.

I am very grateful that my friend, Dr. Burgess, has taken up the mantle on this legislation. I also thank my dear friend, Kathy Castor, and our ranking member here, Ms. Schrier, for their work on this legislation, and I urge a ``yes'' vote on this legislation.

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