On Friday, Keith Ellison, the Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking at a training session for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, yelled, “Women are dying because we are losing elections! We don’t have the right to lose a damn election! We have to win! We have to win!” Ellison is pushing single-payer health care.
Ellison reportedly referred to maternal mortality rates in Missouri and Texas; Missouri’s maternal death rate was 19.9 deaths per 100,00 births in 2016. The Hill notes, “That rate places Missouri on par with countries like Belize and worse than poorer countries like Moldova and Costa Rica, the Kansas City Star reported last December.”
Yet the Star also noted, “The leading causes of maternal death in Missouri are all cardiac-related, with embolisms caused by blood clots topping the list. The state’s high rates of smoking and obesity during pregnancy put women at higher risk for those complications.”
So apparently because some women have terrible eating habits and smoke before and while they are pregnant, the nation must pass a single-payer health care plan.
Missouri state data reveal that roughly 27% of Missouri women who get pregnant are obese before they get pregnant; that figure is 23.4% nationally.
In March, Ellison obtained unanimous consent from his House colleagues to take over primary sponsorship of the single-payer health care bill, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act.
Ellison is seemingly unconcerned about the hundreds of thousands of females killed before birth by Planned Parenthood, of which he is a staunch supporter.