Is it a coincidence several hospitals are leaving the Mississippi Hospital Association after the organization made a $250,000 donation to Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley? The Magnolia Tribune reported:
On Thursday, North Mississippi Health Services communicated its intent to withdraw at least four of the hospitals in its system from the Mississippi Hospital Association (MHA), according to multiple sources close to the situation.
The termination of membership includes North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC). NMMC is one of three Level II trauma centers in Mississippi. It is the only one in the northern part of the state.
On the heels of the NMMC decision, Magnolia Tribune learned two other hospital systems have also communicated their intent to leave MHA. Those hospitals include Merit Health and Ochsner Health Systems....
The latest three hospital systems come after a wave of earlier hospitals that chose to disassociate with MHA.
Prior to the hospitals departing, MHA’s PAC made a $250,000 campaign contribution to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley on April 27th. The next day, Magnolia Tribune obtained UMMC’s notice to MHA of its departure. UMMC did not address the donation in its notice.
The MHA PAC also committed $100,000 to Lt. Governor Delbert Hosemann’s re-election bid. Rest of article.
46 comments:
Yeeeesh. Magnolia Tribune? After a few targeted Twitter ads I attempted to read a few articles. As insufferable as Mississippi Today except worse writing.
FAFO
I heard Alissa Heinerscheid is available for a PR fix.
Get into politics and suffer the consequences. Pretty stupid to support the Democrat in a overwhelming Republican state
The hospitals leaving know that Presley is going to lose and don't want to be on the wrong side of the election.
Come on players…you hedge your bets by supporting both! You don’t buy politicians…you just rent them every now and then
I'm far from a political strategist, but going against a sitting guv'nor who's going to easily get reelected seems like a dumb move.
There are times when it is wise to keep quiet.
The vast majority of other states (41) have opted in to the broadened eligibility for Medicaid.
If Mississippi opts in, Mississippi adults earning up to 138% of the Federal Poverty level would be eligible to obtain medicaid coverage. 138% of the FPL is only about $20k.
The state would be responsible for about 10% of the additional cost of adding these low income earners to Medicaid. Yes, it's absolutely reasonable to be concerned about the federal government deciding to shoulder less of the cost but that risk exists for the current program too.
Yes, Medicaid is complicated and could use reform. However, its the only solution available to Mississippi and reform will not be decided by our state's decision to opt in/out. Why are we trying to buck the trend?
We will eventually opt into the program. Yet, in the mean time, patients will get billed and be saddled with medical debt and hospitals will likely recover zero.
The MHA is done and they know it. They are running on fumes at this point. The fallout is slowly choking them.
More proof that Hosemann is a RINO.
Aah I miss the days in my hospital IT career, going on clay shoots at exclusive private shooting ranges and eating quail lollipops grilled up by great Jackson chefs, free beer for everyone, all paid for by the MHA. Good times.
https://nonprofitlight.com/ms/madison/mississippi-hospital-association
Name Title Total Salary
Timothy H Moore PRESIDENT/CEO $601,956
Marcella Mckay CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER $331,238
Thomas Roberson V.P. OF STATE ADVOCACY $265,145
Richard Grimes CFO-MHA; EXEC DIR - MHEFA $260,675
Curnis Upkins V.P. OF HR & WORKFORCE SER $167,543
Paul Gardener VICE PRESIDENT OF RURAL HEALTH $153,583
Steve Lesley DIRECTOR OF DATA SERVICES. $138,705
Shawn Rossi V.P. OF EDUCATION $132,429
Lanelle Weems CLINICAL DIRECTOR OF MCQW $127,589
What a waste of $250,000. If those large hospitals have pulled out, what’s the point of even having the MHA?
Magnolia Tribune is doing excellent reporting in Mississippi. And the writing is excellent. Some may not like Russ Latino’s conservative credentials but he is very bright and an excellent writer. MT offers a counter-balance to some of the less-than-objective reportage by the Mississippi Today outfit on the far left fringe of the political spectrum.
Do NOT expand Medicaid.
1) There is NO free money from the federal government.
2) Pay for your OWN healthcare and stop being a parasite on society.
It is a weird situation. Lobbyists usually support both sides in competitive races and don't climb way out on the limb as MHA has done with Presley and Hosemann. Tate is the likely winner and I have been shocked at the amount of support that McDaniel has so I would not rule out an upset.
You continue to see the federal government abuse its powers and blackmail States over funding, particularly over Covid policies yet someone is really in these comments trying to make an argument that MS should allow the federal government to obtain even more power over it? You aren’t a serious person.
Hosemann is a closet liberal democrat, a true wolf in sheep's clothing.
So the source of this is from a far right wannabe MS Today who is trying to prove that in one of the most red states in the union, more “conservative voices” are missing? KF you can do better.
It’s a bold move, but it’s exactly what we need. We’re tired of the some old good ol boys and their clubs running the state. The national party screwed up, but there is still a such thing as a CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT! Everyone’s views in the Republican Party aren’t straight down center, and neither are dems.
Presley needs to get out here and work! Beating Tator won’t be easy, but not impossible.
7:38 - true, but the MS Hospital Assn has been the outlier during many election cycles over the past two decades. They have supported the Democrat candidate for Governor (whenever they had a legitimate candidate) against the Republican every election.
In those years when there wasn't a possible Republican Governor being elected, and only token members of the legislature (granted, only three or at most four decades ago) MHA was the breeding ground for some of the state's most prolific and successful lobbyists who got their initial training there before going out on their own and creating succssful firms.
But for the past two/three decades, the MHA has played the wrong side in every Governor race, if they played at all (don't remember them supporting the Dem truck driver candidate, but haven't bothered to see if they cut a check even for that losing cause).
Yes, four years ago, because of their hatred for any Republican Governor, especially Reeves, they jumped in and supported a Democrat candidate for the Republican nomination - Bill Waller - hoping to win that way. But alas, they lost again.
THe real fiasco is that while they continue to tilt at Don Quixtoe's windmills, they are paying their ED $750,000 a year for his services. Those dollars, along with his $300,000 plus assistants are coming from their supposed broke association members.
Our Governor gets paid $165k; the head of Medicaid about the same; PERS director $185K. List goes on and on. But the head of the MS Hospital Association is worth $750,000 while he continues to lead the organization down this yellow brick road?
Federal money is nothing but bribing the taxpayers with their own money (after the feds take a 30-50% vig).
Guess who lobbied for MHA several years ago and was recently reported on this site as pleading guilty for his role in steering victims into a large Ponzi scheme?
I listed to the CEO of MHA being interviewed yesterday on Supertalk. He very openly said that the association supports those who mirror or advocate for the goals of the Hospital Association...In this case, Presley and adding children of working parents (not the parents 7:30 and 3:42) to the medicaid rolls.
Curnis Upkins (a diversity hire) making 167K. My lord! I worked with him thirty years ago at the Employment Security Commission. He couldn't pour piss out of a bedpan back then, and I doubt he can now. He has ZERO HR background, only a few years experience with unemployment insurance claims.
Tim will not see Christmas in the offices of the MHA.
Mr. Gibert asked Tim an important question yesterday: "Who made the decision to donate this amount to Presley's campaign?"
Presley was allowed to dodge that question, never did answer it, but rambled on about how much sense it made to donate to a candidate that represents the values of the Association. There was NOT a follow-up to the question. If he were being honest, the answer would have been, "I did!"
The Mississippi Hospital Association is an empire. A business empire.
Boards of Directors of empires don't typically hang on to CEOs who can't meet objectives. The primary objective of the MHA is maintaining contributing members. You lose members, you lose money, you lose your job.
It's not complicated.
Tim's a good guy, But i don't know about 600K good. The salaries for the Association management are excessive. When will the other shoe drop and there be a house cleaning at MHA? Ray Charles could see that Tim's days are numbered.
The MHA pays Tim Moore almost $1 million per year to advise them to support Democrat candidates. They have lost over $2 million a year in dues paying members in the last month.
Yes. They are imploding. Or, they have already imploded.
Curnis Upkins (167K per year salary) is also drawing a state retirement as many of the other MHA employees are doing as well.
Tate sure is giving a lot of money (and bragging about it) to the mainstream media to run his ads. I thought he was opposed to the lying mainstream media?? Do the mainstream media require that his ads be distorted and less than true to be put on the airwaves? No one likes the poor mainstream media but we will give them millions to promote our candidacy. Now, that is irony.
5:49 gets it and explains it succinctly, as does 7:19.
Hardly. Consider the source...
The MHA is a branch of the MS Democratic Party
MHA is not imploding. MHA is being exploded.
MHA is watching while hospitals across the state close. They gave to every candidate who was in favor of Medicaid expansion 4 years ago.
When MHA's PAC did its job of supporting candidates that support hospitals, Tate threw a fit. He's a vindictive, petty little man, and he had his little minions call UMMC and tell them to quit MHA or else. UMMC learned its lesson when Tater vetoed a 50 million dollar expansion to get back at UMMC Admin for the way they handled his COVID response. They fell in line.
Since then Tate's minions have been running around the state telling every hospital administrator that if they stick with MHA, they will regret it. That should be the story here.
Reeves plays hardball? Nothing wrong with that.
8:22 Tate is not "giving" money to the mainstream media, he is doing what people do in a capitalistic society. He is buying what they sell - advertising time.
He is buying from the mainstream media because they are the only source of airtime for his ads. True, I'm sure, he is buying from other sources that are not mainstream, but if one wants to meet the masses, it still even in today's cut the cable society, requires going on air with those 'mainstream' guys.
Hell, its no difference than when Mississippi State bought billboard ads in Oxford - it was the method to reach those you want to see the message.
Hey rural CEOs -
Tim doesn't help you.
Make a change.
Unless BP beats Tate, it’s a monumental
political F-up. And punishment will come.
The smart ones are the ones bailing.
Anheiser Busch: we have made the biggest
misjudgment of our market’s interests
in recent history.
Tim Moore/MHA: hold my beer.
The one thing Moore has done is perpetuate the fantasy that hospitals are broke. There’s a metric butt ton of cash running through MHA with the express purpose of selling the PR myth that they’re broke.
@9:07, they're broke and the expansion of medicaid is the only solution available to avoid insolvency.
9:07, you couldn't be more wrong or uninformed about the actual status of hospitals in Mississippi.
I'm a big fan of the narrative that MHA has enough money to help fix MS's hospitals, but they use it to sell the fact that MS's hospitals are broke. It takes a special type of uninformed, sheepish stupidity to buy that, and MS Republicans are lapping it up.
NO, 4:06 PM and 8:15
Hosemann is NOT a RINO. Perhaps you are. Because Hosemann is a TRUE Republican, not a member of the hijacked party. His leadership is desperately needed in this state. McDaniel would be not only totally ineffective, but dangerous.
Just close hospitals that are broke. I not want to pay for them. People can always just drive a little more for better care.
10:15 AM. Try telling that to someone who is having a stroke or heart attack!!
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