Improving maternal health in rural communities requires more than inadequate short term funding that the RHTP provides. This brief highlights policy recommendations to strengthen access to care through sustainable financing, workforce development, coverage stability and community-based, care delivery model.
Rural Health Transformation Program (Part 1): A Missed Opportunity for Moms & Babies
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) is being promoted as a major investment in rural health, but its funding level, design and priorities fall short of what rural communities need. This brief examines why the program is a missed opportunity to support rural maternal health.
OBBBA is Threatening Women’s Health Care Access
Maternal and reproductive health care was already facing severe strain, but OBBBA funding cuts have worsened the crisis. Over 65 L&D units and clinics have closed, forcing patients to travel further for care and deeply destabilizing the healthcare safety net.
Four Years Post-Dobbs, Clinic Closures and Attacks on Medication Abortion Harm Women of Color Nationwide
Four years post-Dobbs, anti-abortion extremists are attacking abortion access on every front to make it more difficult for pregnant people to get the reproductive care they need: banning abortion outright, defunding and shuttering reproductive health clinics, blocking telehealth abortion, and restricting medication abortion pills.
Listening to Mothers IV
The Fourth National Survey of Women’s Childbearing Experiences. This report covers responses of more than 3,800 mothers who gave birth in 2023-2025.
Putting Patients at Risk: Extremist Attacks on Emergency Abortion Care
All people deserve access to the abortion care they need, including pregnant people experiencing a medical crisis who need abortion care as emergency treatment.
Commercial Data Practices for Reproductive Privacy
Consumers and employees want accountability, transparency, and control over their data. We outline best practices and realistic case studies that will help inform business leaders on why and how they can take proactive measures related to data privacy to protect both consumers and employees, specifically as it relates to reproductive health.
State Momnibus Scan
Thirteen states have partially or fully passed Momnibus legislation. Two of these states brought forward new Momnibus 2.0 legislation in the 2025 state legislative session that has not advanced.
Republican’s New Health Care Law Will Impact Over 130 Rural Labor and Delivery Units
NPWF analysis finds that 144 rural hospitals with labor and delivery units across 41 states are at risk of closure or severe service cutbacks under the Republican’s proposal to cut Medicaid. This includes: thirteen hospitals in Kentucky, ten hospitals in Louisiana, three hospitals in Alaska and two hospitals in Maine, among others.
Three Years Post-Dobbs, Abortion Bans & Criminalization Threaten More than 15 Million Women of Color
Despite the ever-changing access landscape, it is clear that anti-abortion policies are harming millions and growing more extreme three years post-Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Policies across the country that ban abortion and threaten to criminalize pregnant people for their reproductive health decisions subject abortion patients to health precarities, policing, and punishment.
Ensuring Primary Care for All: The Urgent Case for RUC Reform
The US. health care system is often described as in crisis – reflecting its complexity, inaccessibility, unaffordability, and inequitable care and outcomes. At the root of this system lies an obscure but influential committee that most people have never heard of – the Relative Value Scale Update Committee, also known as the RUC.
Including a Health Equity Plan is Integral to Achieving Whole‑Person Health
To support Medicaid programs and partners working to transform maternal health in their state, we developed the following Maternal Health Infrastructure Policy Checklist in parallel with the playbook support for all other model elements.
Transforming Maternal Health in Medicaid
Use this Playbook to improve maternal health through Medicaid To assist state Medicaid agencies and maternal health champions in the states participating in the Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) initiative, we developed a playbook that provides concrete checklists,...
State Opportunities for Improving Health for Moms and Babies
The Transforming Maternal Health (TMaH) Model’s initiatives center on three main pillars: access to care, infrastructure, and workforce capacity, quality improvement and safety, and whole-person care delivery.
Supreme Court Case Threatens Access to Critical No-Cost Preventive Services
The Supreme Court held oral arguments on Braidwood v. Kennedy (previously Braidwood v. Becerra), which could determine the coverage of preventive care services that keep millions of people healthy. The Court will decide on whether to eliminate coverage of no-cost preventive services for patients across the country, or just for those employed by the plaintiff in the case (Braidwood Management Incorporated).
At Risk: Critical Medicaid Benefits for Moms
Medicaid is the largest single-payer of maternity care in the United States, financing an estimated forty percent of births and playing a critical role in addressing the current maternal mortality crisis. Critical Medicaid benefits for maternal health are on the chopping block as Congress debates Medicaid cuts that would threaten maternal and infant health in every state.
Seventeen States Attack HIPAA and Reproductive Health Privacy
Four lawsuits from anti-abortion extremists challenging the 2024 HIPAA Privacy Rule to Support Reproductive Health Care Privacy (2024 HIPAA Privacy Rule) are jeopardizing health privacy and threatening to put pregnant people at even greater risk of criminalization for their reproductive care.
Project 2025 Threatens Women and Families’ Health and Freedom
If implemented, Project 2025 would serve as a draconian tool to harm the health and well-being of women and families and decimate our basic freedoms.
Trump’s plan to slash Medicaid will harm older women – and the economy
Medicaid helps Americans thrive, yet Congressional Republican leadership and the Trump administration intend to slash this vital program. New National Partnership and Justice in Aging analyses show the potential impacts on older women.
Patient Advocate Perspectives on Advancing Value-Based, Person-Centered Care
This resource is a summary of the salient themes and recommendations that emerged from the Equity-Centered Payment Reform Learning Collaborative meeting series.