By Melissa Davlin, Idaho Reports

The House Health and Welfare Committee passed a bill Monday that would re-estabish the Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

House Majority Leader Megan Blanksma, R-Hammett, sponsored the bill, which includes a few key changes from the committee that sunsetted in 2023. The new committee would now be under the state’s Board of Medicine instead of the Department of Health and Welfare, and would use existing Board of Medicine funds instead of matching federal funds. The bill also requires the committee to submit an annual report to the legislature. 

During Monday’s hearing, Blanksma pointed out that the Department of Health and Welfare continued to collect that mortality data. The bill authorizes the Board of Medicine to access and analyze that data. 

Blanksma said putting the committee with the Board of Medicine instead of IDHW was a deliberate decision.  

“There was a conscious effort to avoid Health and Welfare when it came to drafting this bill because of the continued problems we have with data collection, and I would point to some of it as far as how our Medicaid system is running right now, and our inability to get data out of Health and Welfare in a timely manner,” Blanksma said. 

In 2023, the House Health and Welfare Committee let the existing MMRC expire, largely due to concerns over growing government and bureaucracy. The move made Idaho the only state in the nation without a panel to review data on deaths in pregnant and postpartum women. 

At the time, the Idaho Freedom Foundation pointed to the committee’s demise as one of its biggest wins of the legislative session. 

“Any death is a tragedy, of course, but the idea that they could be prevented by a taxpayer-funded advisory board is absurd,” wrote Brian Almon in a July opinion piece. “The committee’s recommendations mostly boiled down to expanding Medicaid to more pregnant women as well as providing other government programs.”

In late November, Idaho Kids Covered released a report detailing a rise in infant and maternal mortality rates between 2019 and 2021. In those two years, the maternal mortality rate rose 121%, while the infant mortality rate rose 18%.  

During Monday’s hearing, no one testified against the idea of re-establishing the committee, though some expressed concerns with a lack of protections for first responders, physicians, and women, including women who have experienced miscarriages. 

“If you are here to actually protect people, that would have to be added,” said Carmen Broesder. 

Dr. Melissa Roop told the committee that more information on deaths will help improve care for mothers in the future, testifying that for every maternal death, there are 100 near-misses. 

“Without this guidance, opportunities for life-saving interventions may be missed. These interventions could include clinical protocols, provider training, prenatal and postpartum care access, or support services,” Roop said. “Without an MRC to provide guidance based on accurate and robust case data, health care providers and facilities may miss opportunities to implement quality improvement initiatives that could save lives and improve mortality maternal health outcomes.”

Blanksma sat down with Idaho Reports in January to discuss her MMRC proposal, as well as other proposals to improve maternal health in Idaho. She reiterated that the the state continues to collect the data, but that data needs to be better analyzed; The very existence of a panel wouldn’t help women, she said.

“As a Republican, I guess, we want to make sure that things are streamlined and we’re not having additional bureaucracies,” Blanksma said.

The bill now moves to the full House for consideration.

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