STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A program that helps new and expecting mothers provide a safe, healthy environment for their babies is one step closer to being extended for five more years.
The Healthy Start Reauthorization Act of 2025, a bipartisan bill cosponsored by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, unanimously passed out of the House Committee on Energy & Commerce.
“I thank Chairman Brett Guthrie, Ranking Member Frank Pallone, and the House Committee on Energy & Commerce for unanimously passing this important piece of bipartisan legislation to extend the Healthy Start program through 2030,” said Malliotakis, a Republican who represents Staten Island and South Brooklyn.
The legislation would extend the federally-funded Healthy Start program, which provides grants to community-based organizations to reduce infant mortality rates and improve perinatal outcomes.
Organizations that receive the grants provide low-income residents with a wide range of services, including care coordination, breastfeeding and childbirth education, parenting support, smoking cessation assistance, nutritional counseling, psychosocial services, home visits and support groups.
Last month, Malliotakis rallied for the legislation at Community Health Center of Richmond in Stapleton, the only federally qualified health center on Staten Island, which has benefited greatly from the program in recent years.
“It will ensure families across the country continue receiving the support they need. Just over the past two years, this program has delivered more than $2 million to the Community Health Center of Richmond in my district to support women, infants, and families in low-income communities. Reauthorizing this important program will continue improving maternal health and reducing infant mortality nationwide. I look forward to building on this momentum and work towards bringing the bill to the House floor,” Malliotakis said.
During the August event, Deirdre McDaniel, who holds a doctorate, the interim senior manager at the National Healthy Start Association, stressed that should funding not be approved, the strides the program made in preventing deaths of mothers and babies would slide.
“I would like to say that a decrease in funding or lack of funding at all… will impact outcomes immediately within a two-year time frame. We can see the outcomes will go back to before this [program] even starts,” McDaniel explained.
Dr. Henry Thompson, the chief executive officer of the Community Health Center of Richmond, joined Malliotakis at the podium to explain what it is the staff does for those expecting.
“We have a tremendous group of not only case managers, but behavioral health specialists, doulas, [and] community health workers… They’re on call, just like the providers are on call. They’re in the labor and delivery room. They’re going to appointments; they’re coordinating hospital tours. Anyone trying to navigate this system, they’re right there, right by their side,” Thompson explained.
When discussing her work with Ocasio-Cortez, Malliotakis emphasized, “This is a human issue.”
“It is the one issue we’ve agreed on so far,” she said at the time. “I always say that I will work with anybody, regardless of political affiliation, if it’s for something that’s in the best interest of the people I represent.”