ACTION ITEM: Letters to Senator Hatch

This is important!  Senator Hatch's office needs to see a bunch of emails - not one or two, but 100. :-)  Please - help keep midwives at the national table!!

 
Hello friends,

As some of you may already know we (The Big Push for Midwives) just had an amazingly successful week in Washington DC. We had many meetings with key legislators and have an opportunity to be added to an extended list of Medicaid providers in the draft health care bill in the Senate.

We need to keep the momentum going!

Scroll down for a template letter to send to Senator Orrin Hatch, along with suggestions about what to say. So far his staff have been very open and supportive but they need to hear from their constituents. I will be putting a packet together so please send letters directly to me copied into an email.

Please note: this is a new action item, not a repeat of last week’s effort!

Letters should be copied into an email and sent to:

brielle@moonstonebirth.com

Many thanks!
Brielle Epstein,
Director of Federal Advocacy
The Big Push for Midwives Campaign

Letter format:

Please insert the date, your name and address here, followed by:

The Honorable Orrin G. Hatch
United States Senate
104 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.  

Dear Senator Hatch:

First Step:

Thank Senator Hatch’s staff for taking the time to talk to representatives of the Big Push for Midwives Campaign about the cost savings and excellent care outcomes that could be realized by expanding access to Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) and out-of-hospital maternity care.

Next Step:

Pick one or two points to include in your own words:

Certified Professional Midwives are specially trained as experts in out-of-hospital maternity care and deliver babies in private homes and in freestanding birth centers.

Research consistently shows that low-risk women planning to deliver their babies at home under the care of Certified Professional Midwives experience outcomes equal to low-risk women who deliver in the hospital, but with far fewer costly and preventable interventions, including a five-fold decrease in cesarean section.
 
Babies delivered under the care of Certified Professional Midwives have significantly reduced rates of prematurity and low-birth weight, two of the leading contributing factors to infant mortality and the costs associated with long-term care.

The state of Washington reports a savings of $3.1 million dollars over a period of two years to the state Medicaid system when mothers experiencing healthy, low-risk pregnancies give birth with licensed midwives instead of in the hospital.

The recent Milbank Report conservatively estimates savings of $2.5 billion dollars a year if the cesarean surgery rate is brought down to 15% in the U.S.

David Anderson, Professor of Economics at Center College with a specialization in the costs of out-of-hospital maternity care calculates that including CPMs and of out-of-hospital birthing services in Medicaid and other plans would result in savings of $9.1 billion annually, while actually improving outcomes.  

Certified Professional Midwives  are the only providers specially trained in out-of-hospital birth in the event that hospitals become unsafe for healthy pregnant women during a disaster.

Final Step:

Ask Senator Hatch to support the addition of "Certified Professional Midwives" to the expanded list of Medicaid providers listed in Section IV, page 24 of The Senate Finance Committee's policy document entitled, "Description of Policy Options, Expanding Health Care Coverage:  Proposals to Provide Affordable Coverage to All Americans” and thank him for his time and consideration. Please use the exact language in bold so that it is very clear where we are asking to be added.

Thank you to everyone who is reaching out—it only takes a few minutes but it is so very helpful. We are making amazing progress in DC and now is not the time to let up! So please forward this to family and friends who can help, and thank you for doing your part to get CPMs and OOH maternity care included in health care reform.