Letter: Affordable Care Act important for providing prenatal care

Wes Luckey’s guest column (TCH, Jan. 24) gave several reasons to support the Affordable Care Act. I’d like to focus on one.

In a 1963 speech, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out the high black infant mortality rate. In 2013, African-American babies died at a rate of 11.1 deaths per 1,000 live births, as opposed to 5.06 for white non-Hispanic babies. Fifty years later, the gap has not decreased. African-American babies still die more than twice as often as white non-Hispanic babies.

The reason? Lack of affordable prenatal care. The ACA is changing this:

1. The ACA has increased the percentage of women who have health insurance.

2. The ACA requires insurance companies to offer prenatal care, with no co-pay.

3. The ACA strongly encourages those with insurance to choose a family physician, who will become familiar with their health and help them get preventive care and medical treatment.

Prenatal care prevents and treats complications of pregnancy. Babies are born healthier, and can survive those first few crucial days of life.

If you care about the lives of babies, please call or write your representatives and ask them to support the ACA.

This story was originally published February 1, 2017 at 2:08 AM with the headline "Letter: Affordable Care Act important for providing prenatal care."