Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg visited Montgomery today on his quest for the Democratic nomination for president and promoted his ideas to improve health care and lower the rates of death related to childbirth, especially among poor women and minority women.

The rate of women’s deaths from pregnancy and childbirth is higher in the United States than any other developed country, and Alabama reported the second highest rate in the nation in 2017. The rate for black women is three times the rate for whites.

Bloomberg, who became mayor of New York shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and served 12 years in that position, announced in November he would join the crowded field for the Democratic nomination.

Bloomberg is focusing on the 15 states that will hold primaries on March 3, dubbed Super Tuesday, which include Alabama.

Central to his plan on maternal health, released this morning, is to allow low-income pregnant women to receive enhanced Medicaid coverage free of charge.

“Across our country, black women are nearly four times more likely than white women to die during childbirth," Bloomberg said. "Just think about, four times as likely. The main reason is that black women are far less likely to have access to affordable, quality care. This is completely unacceptable and completely something we are just not going to tolerate and as president I will do something about it."

Another consequence of the lack of access to health care for some women is the increased risk to infants. Alabama’s infant mortality rate for black babies was twice the rate for white infants in 2017.

“We need strong national leadership to end that disparity, as well,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg’s plan also includes requiring training for doctors to understand and reduce implicit racial bias in medical care, standardizing the collection of data on childbirth-related and pregnancy-related deaths, and boosting funding for medical schools at historically black colleges and universities.

In addition, the former mayor wants to protect women’s right to abortion by codifying the Roe v. Wade decision in federal law and by repealing the Hyde amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortion except to save a woman’s life.

Bloomberg’s plan also includes making new scholarship and loan repayment opportunities available to medical students from minority communities and to encourage states to allow nurse practitioners and physicians assistants to perform more sexual and reproductive health procedures to protect women’s health.

Bloomberg said his private foundation is a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood and said as president he would support the organization because it’s important for women’s health.

“If we want to improve preventive care for women, if we want more women to have access to cancer screenings, if we want to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and if we want to save lives, then the smart thing to do is to support and fund Planned Parenthood,” Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg said it was important to campaign in the south, partly because of what he said were attacks on women’s rights and women’s health in southern states. He said Alabama has gone further than any state in that direction, a reference to the Alabama law seeking to ban abortion, which has been blocked by a federal court.

In Montgomery this morning, Bloomberg met with officials from the Alabama Department of Public Health, including OB/GYN Dr. Grace Thomas of the Family Health Services Bureau, and Janice Smiley, director of the Perinatal Health Division. Also in the meeting were OB/GYN Dr. Latoya Clark, Columbia, S.C. Mayor Steve Benjamin, Bloomberg’s campaign co-chair, and state Rep. London Lamar of Tennessee.

Bloomberg toured the city with Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, including a visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, dedicated last year by the Equal Justice Initiative to recognize victims of lynching, as well as the EJI’s Legacy Museum.

Reed and Lamar joined Bloomberg for a press conference about noon today.

Bloomberg is one of 17 candidates who qualified to compete in the Alabama Democratic primary for president, although some have dropped out. Other candidates and former candidates who have visited Alabama include Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, and Beto O’Rourke.

The New York Times has reported that Bloomberg, whose worth has been estimated at about $50 billion, has spent almost $150 million on campaign advertising so far and is likely to spend much more before Super Tuesday. Bloomberg was asked today about the comments by some of his Democratic rivals that he is trying to “buy the presidency.”

“I’m not trying to buy the presidency,” Bloomberg said. “I’m making an investment in the country that I love and that has been so good to me and my family. And so I’m spending a lot of money to try to replace Donald Trump. And for people that don’t want me to do that, I guess they want to keep Donald Trump as president.”

Former Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who is running for the Republican nomination for Congress in Alabama’s 2nd District, issued a statement in response to Bloomberg’s visit to Alabama today and the former mayor’s emphasis on maternal health care. King said the number of women who die from pregnancy and delivery complications, about 700 a year nationally, “pales in comparison” to the number of lives ended by abortion.