[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Welcome back to the show.
America loves babies.
So much so, we even chose a 70-year-old baby
to be our leader.
And despite that particular baby's claims that Obamacare
is slowly killing us all, the truth
is that infant death rates in America
have dropped to historic lows.
That is good news, which I urge you to cherish.
It's one of the few pieces of good news in this story
because there's a major shortcoming
in America's maternal health care,
specifically, the maternal part.
While American newborns are safer, the--
what do you call them-- the women
who bring them into the world are
in the most danger in decades.
(ON VIDEO): The United States has the worst rate of mothers
dying during pregnancy, childbirth,
or postpartum, than any country in the developed world.
(ON VIDEO): The number of women in the US
who die in childbirth is nearing the highest
rate in a quarter century.
A woman giving birth here is twice as likely
to die than in Saudi Arabia, and three times as
likely than in the United Kingdom.
Those statistics are especially
shocking because the US spends more per capita
on maternity care than any other nation.
But most of that is focused on the child's health.
We're kind of meh about those nagging husks
that incubate them.
And one subgroup of nagging husks
is particularly overlooked.
(ON VIDEO): The rate at which rural women die
of pregnancy-related complications is 64%
higher than in large cities.
God damn it!
Rural areas should only have higher concentrations
of good things, like Waffle Houses
and hot farmhands named Clem.
You may be asking, how can so many of these rural mothers
be dying in our modern 21st century hospitals?
To which I answer, what hospitals?
(ON VIDEO): It's a growing problem across the country--
limited access to maternity care and obstetricians
for women in rural areas.
NARRATOR (ON VIDEO): In 2004, 45% of rural counties
lacked hospital obstetric services.
A decade later, it jumped up to 54%.
(ON VIDEO): Eight labor and delivery units in rural parts
of Georgia have closed in the past three years.
(ON VIDEO): Around a third of Alabama's delivering
hospitals have been forced to close
their labor and delivery units.
NARRATOR (ON VIDEO): Nine rural hospitals
have closed across Tennessee.
Jesus!
Can't we just turn all OB units into Confederate monuments,
so people will actually protect them?
Even if a rural county is lucky enough to have a hospital,
maternal care is frequently the first department
to go when budgets tighten, which is fair,
since a mere 100% of Americans are
the result of female pregnancy.
The only possible exception is Ted Cruz, who may
have hatched from a lizard egg.
We're looking into it.
So what effect do these closures have on pregnant women?
NARRATOR (ON VIDEO): This small hospital in Louisville,
Georgia, is one of the few facilities
within a 60 mile radius where women
can receive prenatal care.
Women must travel an hour to Augusta for anything that
requires specialized equipment, such as diagnostic imaging,
and to deliver.
(ON VIDEO): Transportation is our biggest issue.
And it's kind of a 50/50-- some have cars, some--
most don't.
A lot of them carpool.
And then when they do get to the hospital,
that sad music is playing.
Such a bummer.
Being forced to travel out of town for medical care
isn't just an inconvenience.
It can be dangerous.
NARRATOR (ON VIDEO): Come January, Bryant
will have to travel 45 minutes to deliver in Morganton,
since Blue Ridge will be closing its maternity ward
doors for good on Saturday.
(ON VIDEO): It's a straight shot
once you get down the mountain, if you
can get down the mountain.
NARRATOR (ON VIDEO): The long drive
to Grace Hospital, down State Road 80, takes an hour,
descending 1,400 feet through curves so tight
that some call it the devil's whip.
Oh, my god, the devil's whip!
You don't want either of those words
near your baby's delivery!
Yes, we are living in a society that's outraged by problems
with the Domino's delivery tracker app,
but we're totally chill about problems with the delivery
of new human lives.
Maybe we'd care more if each baby
came with a side of cheesy bread and a 2 liter of Jolt.
Like any crisis, this one has many fathers, the rise of HMOs,
skyrocketing malpractice insurance
costs, demographic shifts, the recession, Medicare cuts--
and yes, even Obamacare, or more precisely,
the right wing freak out response to Obamacare,
keep that black sperm away from that white egg!
Go on!
Oh!
Many states refused the Obamacare
Medicaid expansion that could have
offset these other problems.
Of the 83 rural hospitals that have closed since 2010,
3/4 were in states that didn't expand Medicaid.
Oh, by the way, do you know which
group suffers the most from--
- Black people? - No, I--
I didn't even finish the question.
The answer to that question is always black people!
OK, well, let's see what the script says.
Maternal mortality rates among African-American women
are more than triple the rate for white women.
Told you.
And it's not just on farms and stuff.
It's everywhere.
It's extremely shitty.
Hey, I'm sorry.
Yeah, you should be.
Because it's why you're not getting grandchildren.
Oh, [EXHALES].
But it doesn't have to be like this.
For example, in California, maternal mortality
is actually decreasing, thanks to the Maternal
Quality Care Collaborative.
They studied frequent causes of death, like hemorrhaging.
And get this, they tried to prevent those things!
When they found that hospitals lacked a uniform response
to severe bleeding during childbirth,
they made specially designed hemorrhage carts,
inspired, I believe, by the least popular
game in the Mario Kart series.
And they got results.
While the country's maternal mortality rate
has been increasing, California's dropped
to 1/3 of the national rate.
Compare that with Texas, which closed Planned Parenthood
clinics and rejected Medicaid expansion,
despite having the largest uninsured population
in America.
Coincidentally, the state also has
the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world.
I guess the Lone Star State refers to the Yelp reviews
of its maternity wards.
Lack of access to maternal health care
creates horror stories you'd assume
are happening in third world countries,
but are actually happening right here.
In rural Tennessee, Whitney Brown was in labor when
she started having seizures.
It was a three hour scramble to get an ambulance, and then
a 90 minute ride to a hospital with obstetric
and trauma services.
The baby survived, but Whitney did not.
Damn it, American women deserve better than this!
They shouldn't have to wait in fear for their delivery date
just because they live on one of our more remote purple
mountains' majesty.
There are a lot of problems that led to this crisis,
but there is one solution.
And the women in question know what it is, value
their lives more than money.
(ON VIDEO): They're just transferring the risk
of your premiums to our lives.
That is exactly what's happening,
is our lives are being risked now.
Keeping mothers in rural areas alive and healthy
is never going to be profitable.
If it were, Silicon Valley would have disrupted it already.
We need to decide that rural women's lives
are worth saving at any price.
And if you disagree with that, you
can be the one to drive up the devil's whip
and tell them that.
We'll be right back.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]