HB3762, titled the Supporting Healthy Moms and Babies Act, would expand the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits to explicitly include comprehensive prenatal, labor and delivery, neonatal, perinatal, and postpartum care and screenings. The bill specifies that these services must include items such as ultrasounds, care related to miscarriage or pregnancy loss, delivery-related services like anesthesiology and fetal monitoring, postpartum treatment for conditions worsened by pregnancy, and behavioral health services for new parents who do not physically give birth.
The bill also creates a federal prohibition on cost-sharing for these maternity and newborn services. It would amend the ACA, ERISA, and the Internal Revenue Code so that group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual coverage must cover these benefits without deductibles, copayments, coinsurance, or similar out-of-pocket charges, beginning with plan years after enactment. The bill states that these amendments should be treated as if they were part of the original ACA framework.
Impact
If enacted, the bill would directly change federal health insurance requirements by broadening the maternity and newborn care benefits that must be covered under ACA-related plans and by eliminating cost-sharing for those services. It would affect group health plans, individual and group health insurance issuers, and employer-sponsored coverage regulated under the ACA, ERISA, and the Internal Revenue Code. The measure would likely increase mandated coverage obligations for insurers and plans while reducing out-of-pocket costs for pregnant and postpartum patients and new parents.
Sentiment
The available context suggests generally favorable treatment of the bill, as reflected by its bipartisan introduction from members of both parties. The bill’s title and structure indicate a health-access measure aimed at reducing financial barriers to maternity care, which typically attracts support from advocates for maternal and infant health. No committee debate or recorded votes were provided, so there is no evidence in the supplied materials of formal opposition or amendment activity.
Contention
The main policy issue is the mandate itself: insurers, employers, and plan sponsors may object to the requirement that all covered maternity and newborn services be provided without any cost-sharing, because that can increase premiums or plan costs. Another possible point of discussion is the breadth of the covered services, including behavioral health services for postpartum conditions and for non-birthing legal parents, which expands the bill beyond traditional delivery-related care. Because no transcripts or votes are available, specific arguments for or against these provisions cannot be identified from the record provided.
Requires licensed health care professionals providing prenatal care to offer and screen, upon request, pregnant patients with history of depression for postpartum depression.
Requires licensed health care professionals providing prenatal care to offer and screen, upon request, pregnant patients with history of depression for postpartum depression.