In 2024, 649 women died of maternal causes in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The maternal mortality rate that year was 17.9 deaths per 100,000 live births. In Japan, the comparable figure is 4. In Norway, it approaches zero. The United States spends more on healthcare per capita than any other high-income country on Earth. It has the worst maternal mortality rate among all of them.
That combination of high spending and poor survival has been documented for decades. The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law in 2025, just made the underlying problem harder to address.
The Numbers Behind the Crisis
Medicaid is the single largest payer for maternity care in the United States, covering 41 percent of all births nationwide. For low-income women, women of color, and women in rural counties, it is often the only coverage available. The One Big Beautiful Bill cut federal Medicaid and CHIP spending by a projected $1.02 trillion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimates at least 10.5 million people will lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 as a result.
The racial dimensions of the maternal mortality crisis are specific and documented. In 2024, Black women died at a rate of 44.8 per 100,000 live births, more than three times the rate for white women at 14.2. That gap persists after controlling for education and income, a finding documented at every income level. The primary explanation researchers identify is differential access to quality care before, during, and after delivery.
Geography compounds the disparity. Since 2022, more than 100 hospitals have shuttered their obstetric units. Today, 5.6 million women live in counties with no or limited access to maternity care services. In some rural counties, the nearest labor and delivery room requires more than an hour of driving. When a postpartum hemorrhage begins, the nearest labor and delivery room should not require an hour of driving.
"In 2024, Black women in the U.S. died in childbirth at a rate of 44.8 per 100,000 live births, more than three times the rate for white women. The gap persists after controlling for income and education." (CDC, 2025)
What Every Other Rich Country Already Knows
Every G7 country except the United States guarantees coverage for prenatal care, delivery, and postpartum care as a standard benefit, without means testing, network audits, or coverage cliffs at 60 days postpartum. France operates a statutory insurance system with private-practice physicians. Germany runs multi-payer statutory funds with private hospitals inside the network. Japan's national health insurance covers prenatal checkups through a set of subsidized vouchers. All of them record maternal mortality rates below 6 per 100,000 live births. The Commonwealth Fund has catalogued this comparison repeatedly. The finding does not change: the U.S. pays more, loses more.
None of those systems are command economies. France has private delivery rooms. Japan has private clinics. Germany's hospitals are largely private. What those countries share is a legislative decision that childbirth is a covered benefit, not an insurance product to be priced or denied based on employment status or state of residence.
The argument that universal coverage necessarily degrades quality or introduces rationing is not supported by the data from any of those countries. Germany has shorter wait times for specialist care than many U.S. markets. Japan's per-capita health spending is roughly half of America's. France has fewer maternal deaths at every income level. Unchecked market logic in healthcare does not produce efficiency. It produces the 2024 numbers: 649 deaths, a rate of 17.9, and a racial disparity that has persisted for fifty years.
The policy answer requires establishing coverage for maternity care as a floor that survives job loss, a move to a rural county, or a marketplace plan that prices out half the population. Every peer nation has set that floor. The United States funds it through Medicaid, and Medicaid just absorbed $1.02 trillion in cuts. The gap will widen before any political correction arrives.
Sources
- CDC: Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States, 2024
- Commonwealth Fund: U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis International Comparison (2024)
- Georgetown Center for Children and Families: How Medicaid Supports Maternal and Infant Health (2025)
- Commonwealth Fund: Medicaid Cuts Could Increase Maternal Mortality and Jeopardize Women's Health (2025)
- Center for American Progress: The Truth About the One Big Beautiful Bill's Cuts to Medicaid (2025)
- KFF: Racial Disparities in Maternal and Infant Health
Independent. Unfiltered. Unbought.
This is independent, sourced accountability reporting by Impeach 47. No corporate owners, no paywall.
Get new posts delivered free by email: impeachh47.substack.com.
Follow on X: @Impeach_47.
Follow on Threads: @impeach.47.
Follow on Instagram: @impeach.47.
Subscribe on YouTube: @impeach_47.
If this reporting is useful, the way you support us is simple: wear the movement. Every hat, shirt, and sticker from impeach47.earth is a walking billboard and the thing that keeps this research fed.
