EDITORIAL: To prevent maternal mortality, keep studying and take the Medicaid

Aug. 01--Failure to extend the state's Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity is not an option. Texas' maternal death rate nearly doubled from 2010 to 2014 and is third-world high.

A proposal to extend the task force until 2023 is the one bill that must pass this special session of the Legislature, other than the so-called sunset bill extending the lives of key state agencies that forced the session in the first place.

But there's more to do besides extending the task force if our governor and Legislature are more interested in saving lives than politicking. Dare we say it? Texas should accept the billions of dollars in federal assistance provided by the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid.

That's right: Swallow pride, sew on the nose that Texas cut off to spite its face, and extend Medicaid to more than a million uninsured Texans.

We know how naive it sounds of us to suggest it. We are aware that obstructing the ACA is as automatic to our Republican leadership as breathing. This is, after all, the state that led the successful fight all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right to turn down the expansion, which would have been mandatory had Texas and other Republican-run states not sued.

But there's no ignoring the dramatic turn of events of recent days. The Republicans, like it or not, have failed in their seven-year stated quest to repeal and replace the ACA. We add "stated" because we never fully believed the replace part. Nothing that has transpired in Congress, especially in the Senate in recent weeks, has done anything to ease our suspicion.

The effort to repeal, replace or repeal and replace the ACA is dead for now. That leaves the ACA and its Medicaid funding on the table. Texas might as well grab its rightful share.

Over how many dead bodies must Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican-dominated Legislature keep up their resistance to this? They owe it to the mothers of the state -- those who survived childbirth and the weeks after, and especially those who didn't.

The evidence strongly suggests that throwing money at this problem could improve the situation dramatically. The spike in maternal mortality coincided with Republican-engineered cuts in women's health services. In 2011 the state cut its family planning budget by two-thirds, resulting in a reduction in entry-level health care services to low-income women.

Precious little has been said of the confluence of these events as the Legislature considers extending the maternal mortality task force. Task force members have been resistant to blaming the budget cuts. But, seriously, what did the budget-cutters expect?

Taking the Medicaid expansion could do much, quickly, to undo the harm. When previous Gov. Rick Perry first refused the money, his party line was that Medicaid is unsustainable. If Abbott's resistance to it runs that deep, he should try taking the money, just to test that theory in hopes of proving it correct. Why pass up a chance to be simultaneously spiteful toward the Obama legacy and helpful to Texans at federal expense?

Lives could be saved, even if only temporarily until the incessantly claimed ACA implosion occurs or Medicaid no longer can be sustained, or both. Take the money now, because Texas sure could use it while it lasts, and await the opportunity to say we told you so. Whether it happens or not, it would be a GOP win-win.

In the meantime, the task force extension is a must. No one appears opposed. But no one was opposed during the regular session, either, when it fell victim to ugly political gamesmanship. It was among the hundred bills killed in a late parliamentary maneuver by a far-right 12-member group called the House Freedom Caucus out of spite for not getting a full House vote on extremist measures such as the hateful transgender bathroom bill.

The Freedom Caucus pulled its stunt three days before Mother's Day. The Legislature, including that deplorable dozen, must right this wrong.

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