Six weeks after an emergency cesarean section, with her newborn twins still in neonatal intensive care, Maya Gobara went to a pharmacy in West Little Rock, Arkansas, to fill a prescription. “The pharmacy told me I didn’t have insurance,” Gobara said. This story also ran on .
It can be . Arkansas is the that has not taken the step to expand what’s called postpartum Medicaid coverage, an option for states paid for almost entirely by the federal government that ensures poor women have uninterrupted health insurance for a year after they give birth. Forty-six states now have the provision, encouraged by the Biden administration, and Idaho, Iowa, and Wisconsin either have plans in place to enact legislation or have bills pending in their legislatures.
Federal law requires states to provide pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage through 60 days after delivery. But maternal health advocates say Arkansas often begins the process of moving women out of the program after six weeks, or 42 days. Gobara said she thinks that’s what happened to her: She was transferred to another health plan with a different slate of doctors, and she didn’t receive notice of the change.
Gobara, who is 38 and a freelance copywriter, said the health plan switch happened to her just as a cascade of previous health problems — an autoimmune disorder, postpartum depression, and rheumatoid arthritis — flared up. “Everything that I had before hit me like a ton of bricks at once after I had the boys,�.