Medicaid Expansion and Severe Maternal Morbidity During Delivery Hospitalizations

The authors aimed to investigate the impact of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act on severe maternal morbidity (SMM) during delivery hospitalizations. Their analysis, which included nearly 12 million delivery hospitalizations, found that while Medicaid coverage increased by 5.2% in states that expanded Medicaid, there was no statistically significant change in the SMM rate. The findings suggest that simply expanding access to public health insurance may not be sufficient to improve maternal health outcomes, indicating a need for additional interventions.