Among people with private insurance, Black, Hispanic, and Asian parents tend to pay more out-of-pocket for maternity care than white parents, according to a new study co-authored by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMD SPH).
The study was published Feb. 28 in JAMA Health Forum.
Using five years of anonymized data from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the researchers measured out-of-pocket spending for more than 87,000 pregnancies.
They found that disparities in costs were highest for prenatal care: Black people paid on average 74% more, Hispanic people 51% more, and Asian people 4% more than white people, according to the findings.
The researchers noted that Black and Hispanic people are more likely to be enrolled in insurance plans with high levels of coinsurance (the percentage of the cost of a medical service that the patient must pay).
“Coinsurance often only applies to care provided in the hospital. But for high-cost services like a delivery, paying 10% or more of the cost of the hospitalization can be a lot,” Anna Sinaiko, study senior author and associate professor of health economics and policy at Harvard Chan School, said in a UMD SPH press release.
The researchers wrote that changes to health plan benefit design could reduce maternity care inequities and, as a result, potentially improve maternal health outcomes.
Read Axios coverage: High maternity costs hit Black and Hispanic patients hardest: study
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Anna Sinaiko
