A BILL for an Act to provide for a legislative management study relating to maternal care services.
HB 1464 would have directed the North Dakota Legislative Management to conduct a study during the 2025-26 interim on maternal care services across the state. The study scope is broad and includes prenatal, childbirth, and postnatal care availability; the distribution of medical and nonmedical services by community and region; the number of OB-GYNs and family practitioners delivering babies; and the role of public assistance, private insurance, and pregnancy resource centers in supporting maternal care.
The bill also would have required the study to examine ways to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, including potential policy changes, pilot projects, service-gap mapping, and strategies to increase the number of obstetrician-gynecologists, family practitioners, doulas, and midwives in North Dakota. It specifically calls for consultation with a wide range of stakeholders, including the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, maternal and infant mortality review bodies, medical associations, WIC, Health Tracks, and care providers such as doulas and midwives.
As a study resolution, HB 1464 would not have directly changed substantive health-care law or created new benefits, licensing rules, or reimbursement requirements. Instead, it would have tasked legislative management with gathering data, evaluating existing programs and service gaps, and returning findings and any recommended legislation to the 70th Legislative Assembly. Its practical effect would have been to place maternal care access, workforce shortages, and coverage policy under formal legislative review, potentially setting up future statutory or budget changes.
The bill appears to have had generally favorable support in the House, where it passed second reading 72-13, suggesting broad interest in examining maternal care needs. It ultimately failed in the Senate on second reading by a 19-26 vote, indicating that support did not carry through the full legislative process. The voting pattern suggests the concept of studying maternal care was acceptable to many lawmakers, but not enough senators agreed to advance the measure.
The main points of contention likely centered on whether a legislative study was the right vehicle and whether the state should devote interim resources to another study rather than immediate policy action. The bill’s inclusion of public assistance, private insurance, pregnancy resource centers, doulas, midwives, and workforce expansion may also have raised differing views about the best approach to improving maternal outcomes and which providers or programs should be emphasized. The Senate’s rejection indicates that at least a majority of senators were unconvinced that the proposed study should move forward.