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By Jeanine Valrie

The following is an excerpt from her blog post of December 21, 2011, based on her participation in the December 10 Occupy Chicago teach-in on health disparities in Chicago.

In thinking about access, race, and the current state of affairs for maternal and child health care (i.e. birth justice) I can’t help but have a few questions about how this system [a single-payer health care system] will support low income, mothers of color.

One of my greatest concerns about a single-payer health care system is how will this program increase mothers of color’s access to those “evidence-based” practices that I mentioned earlier?

How will this system make maternal and child health more accessible to our communities (i.e. low income, POC [people of color], limited-no access to services, birth workers, and/or midwives)?

How will it provide options to poor and marginalized women to make decisions about their pregnancy, birth and parenting without the policing of their bodies and/or reproduction?

How will policies change to support birth justice within the medical industrial complex as well be provided to our sisters in the prison industrial complex?

How will a single-payer system allow greater opportunities (including financial) for birth workers (midwives, doulas, lactation specialists, childbirth educators), healers, and practitioners of color to achieve education and/or certification (if they choose) and practice?

How will this kind of health care reform close these gaps in disparities and improve outcomes for Black women thus improving community health?

Will holistic and modestly cost public health interventions and preventative care (i.e. massage, acupuncture, yoga, etc) be accessible and covered under a single-payer system?

To add, will the midwifery model of care and out-of-hospital midwifery practices be seen as an adequate and viable option for consumers or will the “standard of care” continue to be based on profit-driven, insurance company rules and regulations and not based on evidence and research?

Will a single-payer health care system hold space for increased accurate, client-centered, public health promotion and communication around most importantly, breastfeeding, SIDS, nutrition, fathering, postpartum depression, pre-conception health, and accessing prenatal/postpartum services?

Lastly, in contrast, will Obama’s Health Reform fill in any of these gaps and concerns I have mentioned in discussing a single-payer system?

Well, I am waiting… (crickets).

Jeanine Valrie is a mama of color, a doula and a student midwife. While an intern at Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), she wrote the profiles on the Cuban and South African health care systems.