The Nation - News from April 25, 1988

Congress should require states to provide health care for all pregnant women with incomes below the federal poverty standard--$9,690, for example, for a family of three--a House panel urged in a bipartisan report. The House Government Operations Committee said that neonatal intensive care and other health and education expenses resulting from babies born prematurely cost three to 10 times as much as the prenatal care that often prevents premature births. The report also recommended that the federal government ensure that Medicaid reimbursement rates are fair to ease shortages of doctors willing to serve low-income women. Fifteen California counties have no doctors that accept Medicaid maternity patients.