Midlands Voices: Protection of prenatal care urgent policy for Nebraska

Allen is president of Voices for Children in Nebraska, and Moore is the organization's executive director.

As a state, we want our babies to be born healthy. For nearly 30 years, Nebraska has recognized the importance of prenatal care to the health of babies, providing access through Medicaid to affordable prenatal care for low-income mothers regardless of citizenship status.

Nebraska has long recognized that babies born in Nebraska are citizens of this state and that providing the best possible care to the soon-to-be child gives him or her the best possible start in life and ultimately saves the state money:

>> Without prenatal care, a baby is two to three times more likely to be born too soon and too small.

>> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated a savings of $14,755 for each low birth weight prevented if all U.S. women received adequate prenatal care.

>> The Institute of Medicine found that $1 spent on prenatal care for women at high risk of delivering a low-birth-weight infant could save $3.38 in direct medical care expenses.

>> The Nebraska Hospital Association reports that charges associated with low birth weight are $5,872 per day on average and that an average hospital stay of 46.2 days is required.

With the cost of an entire course of prenatal care at approximately $800, it is far more cost effective to provide prenatal care and address health concerns and complications before the child is born than it is to pay for the lasting effects of inadequate care.

There is a simple solution. Nebraska could continue to provide prenatal care and receive a higher federal reimbursement rate through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), called Kids Connection in Nebraska. Unfortunately, Gov. Dave Heineman's administration has failed to take advantage of this simple solution and has passed the responsibility on to the Legislature.

While we wait for our state's leaders to lead, Voices for Children remains concerned about the health of thousands of babies who will be born to low-income women in our state without access to prenatal care. Our concern is so great that we have created a separate Web site, BabiesBornHealthy.com. This site provides the research utilized and stories gathered to determine the impact of this policy decision.

More low-income women will be forced to make impossible choices about the health and life of their soon-to-be-born baby because affordable prenatal services are no longer available to them. Recent news reports about these impossible choices are shocking to say the least, yet the governor and the Legislature have, so far, failed to take action.

Voices for Children in Nebraska urges Gov. Heineman to take advantage of a simple solution: Shift prenatal services to Kids Connection, save the state money and restore prenatal coverage for all babies who will be born to low-income women in our state.

This step would ensure that every baby born in Nebraska will be as healthy as possible.

Should the governor decline to take this action, we would ask the Legislature to act courageously and put good policy and the health of babies above politics. We would urge the Legislature to stand together to protect prenatal care, as we have done for nearly 30 years.

We make this request on behalf of the thousands of babies who deserve a healthy start yet will be born without access to good-quality and consistent prenatal care.

We make this request on behalf of the health clinics and hospitals struggling to find ways to provide services to patients they care about.

And we make this request on behalf of every Nebraska taxpayer who should be able to see that denying prenatal care to soon-to-be Nebraska babies is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

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