Advocates are warning lawmakers that the proposed cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will leave millions of pregnant Black women at a heightened risk of death, worsening the maternal mortality crisis and its racial disparities.

Last month, the House budget resolution proposed up to $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid over a decade, which would also lead to cuts to Medicare.

But advocates say Medicaid is a vital resource for cutting into the maternal mortality disparities.

“We often see these cuts as: We're making sure that people who ‘don't deserve’ these programs are not getting it. But in actuality, it's disproportionately going to impact people of color, women of color,” Rolonda Donelson, Huber Reproductive Health Equity legal fellow at the National Partnership for Women & Families, told The Hill.

While Medicaid finances about 40 percent of all births nationwide, more than 64 percent of births by Black moms are covered by Medicaid.

Still, Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. Some of these conditions include preeclampsia, postpartum hemorrhaging and blood clotting.

Eighty percent of those deaths are preventable, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For Natasha Ewell, Medicaid allowed her to safely deliver her third child. When Ewell was pregnant with her son, she felt what many Black women feel: excitement, happiness — and worry.

Ewell was over 35, so she was already a high-risk patient. Then Ewell unexpectedly lost her job, and with it, her insurance. Desperate for coverage, she enrolled in Medicaid.

In her first trimester, Ewell was diagnosed with oligohydramnios, a condition characterized........

© The Hill