Expensive Governor Hochul,
Firstly of 2024, you rightly declared the dire want to handle a maternal and toddler mortality disaster within the State of New York. Whereas we’ve got taken steps to assault this disaster, we should be certain that pregnant ladies and new moms can afford to take obligatory day off and take care of themselves and their kids within the course of. To do that, we should present fairness in paid go away.
As you identified, for the primary time in twenty years, maternal and toddler mortality is on the rise in New York. Information from the CDC reveals that from 2018 to 2021, maternal deaths elevated 33% in New York, the state comptroller’s workplace stated in a latest report. The U.S. is the least protected rich nation to have a child, and New York ranks twenty third within the nation in toddler mortality, based on the state Division of Well being. In a state the place the maternal mortality fee for Black ladies is greater than 4 instances the speed of white ladies, the rise, and the inequity, are merely unacceptable. That is much more unacceptable once we hear from the Well being Division that 78% of those deaths had been avoidable.
We’re grateful that you simply’ve taken on this disaster. Final month, you signed into regulation a invoice that expands the data offered to expectant sufferers about maternal healthcare services and one other invoice that gives Medicaid protection for maternal telemedicine procedures. In January, the paid prenatal go away coverage that we included in final yr’s funds will go into impact, offering 20 hours of paid go away for prenatal care along with present sick go away.
These steps ought to all be applauded, however we nonetheless have a spot in our social security internet that we should mend so as to actually confront this disaster.
At the moment in New York, a mom who’s recovering bodily from childbirth, which about 32% of the time features a surgical C-section, will get paid a most good thing about $170 every week. In the meantime, a companion staying at dwelling to take care of the mom or bond with the brand new baby will get paid as much as $1,177 per week via the Paid Household Depart program. In different phrases, the one that is sick will get simply 10% of the advantages of the one that is caring for them. That should change. Quick-term medical advantages that present assist to New Yorkers who’re sick or have been harm off-the-job have been caught beneath a cap of $170 per week since 1989, and the time to behave is now.
Nobody on this state can afford to reside on $170 per week. On account of this frozen cap, hundreds of girls annually are pushing themselves to work to allow them to keep housed and put meals on the desk when their docs are telling them they need to keep dwelling and relaxation.
We all know that you simply’re properly conscious of the circumstance as final yr you launched in your Government Funds a proposal that may align the short-term medical profit with these supplied via paid household go away.
We agree that creating fairness between these two applications is the correct strategy, and whereas it was not included within the last funds, we fought arduous to go an analogous measure in June. That proposal would have carried out this improve over 4 years, making a stability by offering time for companies and staff alike to organize for the change. We had been near passing it, however time merely ran out within the chaos of the ultimate hours of a busy legislative session.
We hope that you’ll decide up the place we left off and introduce an analogous proposal in your Government Funds as soon as once more. This might assist velocity us towards an answer, serving to to make sure that we’re doing all we will to deal with the maternal and toddler mortality disaster that you simply so aptly declared. We stay up for partnering with you on this.
Sincerely,
Senator Jessica Ramos and Meeting Member Michaelle Solages
