After the 2023 statewide elections – in which the fiscal plight of Mississippi’s hospitals and the working poor populations many of them serve were front and center issues – the leadership of both houses of the Mississippi Legislature has signaled that they are ready to discuss a change in the state’s healthcare strategies.
At the executive level, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves is still opposed to Medicaid expansion and calls that path “welfare.” But during the 2023 campaign as Democratic gubernatorial contender Brandon Presley pounded him in speeches and digital media ads over the state’s failure to expand Medicaid, Reeves successfully put forth a Medicaid reimbursement plan that would bring state hospitals an additional estimated $689 million that the Biden Administration approved.
Anyone who is particularly surprised that the state’s legislative leadership is empowering discussions of some form of significant reform of Mississippi’s health care policies as a means of keeping rural hospitals open and viable simply hasn’t been listening. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and new House Speaker Jason White in great measure reflect the views of the majority of the legislators they represent.
Over the last several years, Hosemann has honed a consistent message that the state he helps to lead needs a more realistic Medicaid program in which the state’s values match the state’s policies – and that getting hung up over the term “Medicaid expansion” is an outdated obstacle to that goal.
Hosemann often tells the story of a low-wage working woman in Greenwood who died of cancer because she had no health insurance or available health monitoring.
It bothers him from both a moral and fiscal standpoint. No one’s bleeding heart liberal, Hosemann is a fiscal conservative who happens to believe taking a hard look at Medicaid in the poorest state in the union makes more fiscal sense than most realize.
Asked in 2022 about Medicaid expansion, Hosemann said: “What does that mean? What is the expansion of Medicaid? That is a lazy question. What you need to be thinking about is how we are going to cover people that are working in Mississippi that have catastrophic illnesses. That’s the real question.”
New House Speaker Pro Tempore Jason White, R-West, lives about 17 miles from the hospital in Kosciusko and about 20 miles from the hospital in Lexington. The state’s larger trauma hospitals are a long ambulance ride away from West in any direction. In other words, White understands the plight of rural hospitals, and like Hosemann, is willing to entertain substantive legislative discussions of solutions to those challenges.
What is also coming into focus is that any legislative solution will be aimed at providing health coverage for the working poor – people who hold jobs but don’t earn enough to afford health insurance. A work requirement will meet with strong opposition, but it appears to be one of the points necessary to get the Medicaid expansion question off-center in the state.
Public health care for Mississippi’s poor, working poor, uninsured or underinsured is an expense that will ultimately be borne by the taxpayers. The only real mystery is whether the lion’s share of those costs is paid by federal, state or local taxpayers or a combination of all three.
Mississippi taxpayers are helping to fund expanded Medicaid programs in 40 other states, the latest being North Carolina. But like taxpayers in fellow non-expansion states like Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming, Mississippians are unable to assist the working poor in our state and at the same time enhance the viability of struggling rural hospitals.
Despite the stereotypes and the longtime racial imprint that critics of Medicaid have fostered, in North Carolina the majority of the 273,000 new Medicaid enrollees there are white, female and 58 percent are under the age of 39.
Mississippi’s a long way from expanding Medicaid, but a Republican-led Legislature is initiating a serious conversation about what can be done to strengthen the state’s hospitals and better serve the state’s working poor. That conversation is long overdue in our state.
26 comments:
"Working poor?" How about just "poor?"
...another opine from Zzzid Zzzalter...zzzz.
The liberals and entitlees in this state will never be happy until this passses
and then it will be something more.
I tend to agree with Hoseman that 'it's a lazy question' and isn't about expanding medicaid as much as it's about providing coverage for working people who are still low income.
However, Sid seems to offer a contradiction in terms when he talks about the change to the system being about people who are working...then he launches off into the ills of requiring that they be working. Can't be both.
Quoting: "...any legislative solution will be aimed at providing health coverage for the working poor – people who hold jobs but don’t earn enough to afford health insurance. A work requirement will meet with strong opposition..."
If several hundred thousand are suddenly eligible for coverage, as a result of new legislation, what happens to their coverage when/if they either lose a job or quit working? Does the family drop out of the safety net? I'm sure the legislature doesn't want to be found guilty of causing that to happen.
So, under that scenario, we will have more thousands who are NOT working while taxpayers pay for their coverage. I believe that also concerns the governor. In that event, the governor is right...it does become a welfare program.
Working for a living is no longer a requirement in our new work society. It is called Socialism.
"Jason White, R-West, lives about 17 miles from the hospital in Kosciusko and about 20 miles from the hospital in Lexington."
Just like community colleges and universities, we have way too many too close together in rural areas. How about consolidating some of these? There's a hospital in Greenwood, Grenada and Winona, three hospitals within 30 miles of each other in a sparsely populated area.
Comparing the demographics of North Carolina to those of Mississippi is ridiculous, and does nothing to support his argument.
Medicaid expansion won't fix population loss. Just like PERS, no surprise that they'll seek to treat the symptoms and not the illness.
In case some of you didn't know it, we are already socialists. To varying degrees, we always have been. We have socialized roads, fire protection, police protection, water service, sewer service, garbage pickup, Medicare, Social Security, national defense, and a variety of other things depending on where in the United States that you happen to live. Federal tax dollars even pay for farm subsidies to ensure that farmers, the backbone of Mississippi, remain viable businesses in lean times. If you support ANY of those things, then using the word "socialism" to object to assisting poor people with health care is hypocritical.
What you should be complaining about is the non-stop escalation of medical costs caused by the medical industry and the insurance companies. It has reached the point where only the very wealthy can afford to pay out-of-pocket for health care. Did you think that this was an accident?
Here's a clue. The profit margin of an insurance agent is a percentage of the premium. Our insurance premiums are based on the cost of medical care for the group. As medical costs go up, our premiums go up, and so do the profits from selling insurance. As rising costs have forced all but the very rich to buy insurance or go without, health insurers win again.
There is a very simple solution to this problem, but the industry with the $20 Billion annual profit is going to make sure that all you hear when someone says "universal health care" is SOCIALISM! Big, scary, socialism...which you already participate in. In 2021, health related companies (insurance, pharmaceutical, etc.) paid over $700 Million to lobby (buy) congress. It's a small price to pay to make sure that their cash cow, which is You, keeps on paying your premiums and co-pays and deductibles, which, coincidentally, just keep going up. But, hey, you stopped those darn socialists, didn't you!
The reality of knowing this whole thing is in the hands of The Mississippi Legislature is akin to knowing that three high-school graduates are in charge of spending multiple millions of dollars in Madison County taxpayers' money.
Anyone can obtain Health Insurance at healthcare.gov with subsidized rates by the federal government. But like most things in Mississippi, citizens don’t want to pay ANYTHING for their healthcare, their prescriptions, their food, their rent, their utilities, their taxes, their student loans….
Sigh.
It'd be nice if before writing or speaking, some of you bothered to actually know how the government policy under consideration actually works and who qualifies.
Beyond that, you might try finding out the percentage of Mississippians who are unemployable and why.
Now some of you might just think it'd be a good idea to shoot them or put them in a "work camp". That's been done before. But please don't pretend at the same time that you are " Christians". It's making me SICK.
@10:17 AM
Jesus told many parables about denying charity to the lazy and worthless.
Yes, he multipled the loaves and fishes for those who came to hear him preach.
Every church in this state will do the same thing if you come to them.
No they don’t want you to show up drunk or to get high in their restroom.
Apparently, rigged elections are just fine and dandy when they are rigged in your favor.
Yes! It is great to live in a state where you have to incur several thousands of dollars of debt just to get a job earning $15-20 an hour, which is no longer a living wage!
Let me break it down for the conservitards.
Migrant refugees (illegals) are flooding in and getting housing/welfare checks and SNAP/EBT for every member of their growing brood!
Trying to get a job right now is hard enough. Now every company has to check their DEI checkboxes.
Now the young (non-POC) newly college educated individuals earning $35-55k (salaries not adjusted for inflation in decades) pays for their replacement who will have 4-8 kids who are paid for with federal dollars. This is while the those college educated taxpayers can barely afford rent while earning too much to get federal assistance raising kids.
Therefore, they won’t have kids.
Therefore, you won’t have grandkids.
Therefore, you will see an enormous demographic shift by 2040.
But you have all been conditioned that you can’t do anything to save yourself or you are a racist.
@12:17, just FYI, all of the problems you described were brought to us by Democrats:
Illegal Immigration = Biden
DEI = Biden
Inflation = Biden
Stagnant Wages = Biden
Welfare for Illegals = Biden
@12:17
Yeah your best bet right now, if you want to have kids, is to get a job that will let you work remote from somewhere overseas in an ex-pat enclave where you can put your kids in an international school and live like a king. Ironically Latin America is a great place to do this!
@1:22
Yeah, and? It’s literally a uniparty.
That’s why you will never elect a Ron/Rand Paul or Vivek Ramaswamy as POTUS.
Instead you NPCs would prefer some geezer with questionable morals regarding his own daughter.
Now tell me uniparty president I’m talking about?
I love how the most angry and desparate folks claim to be most proud of America. These same people bitch about taxes while living on disability and move their parents property to a life estate to avoid medicaid "gettin it". Gosh, if we could trade all you old angry people for immigrants that are happy to be here.
If you’re not writing checks every year to the IRS and State of Mississippi for taxes, please don’t comment on whether we need Medicaid expansion. If you don’t pay taxes, we already know you’re for any and all welfare to improve your life.
The “hospital” in Winona can barely be considered a hospital. Grenada and Lexington hospitals are both UMMC branches. Kosciusko is a Baptist affiliate. So let’s just move everyone to within 30 miles of Jackson, Southaven, Tupelo and Hattiesburg and board up the rest of the state, right 8:58? I have taken both of my parents to the ER in Kosciusko where they were stabilized so that they could be safely transported to more intensive care in Jackson. But we hicks don’t deserve emergency care I guess. Having an emergency room within 30 miles can make a huge difference in an emergency situation. I think Jason has a pretty close relationship with rural medical workers and has a good grasp on what is needed.
...Beyond that, you might try finding out the percentage of Mississippians who are unemployable and why.
What the hell has that got to do with the conversation of 'Medicaid expansion'. Every soul who would be included would be employed or a family member of an 'under employed' parent.
Too many Millsaps grad-types opining. There's another thread for those opinions.
@11:25, yeh I know why the majority of Mississippians are unemployed, they are TOO DAMN LAZY! Jobs are everywhere and available in this state, work ethic and efforts are not. If they want to sit around and live off the government, i shouldn’t have to pay taxes to subsidize their freaking free Medicaid insurance. If rural hospitals go broke bc a majority of their local patients are too lazy to work and buy health insurance at healthcare.gov, so be it.
@ 2:26 - It hurts...it really hurts doesn't it...knowing your little progressive kingdom is about to be slid into the sea off the coast of Californication?
I'll take a silly rumor about Trump's admiration of his daughter any day over reams of video and print evidence of your pedophile president sniffing up and feeling up children.
@10:01, maybe if the uninsured hicks in rural Mississippi prioritized buying health insurance before buying 4wd’s, side-by-sides, RVs, fishing boats and deer camps, those rural hospitals wouldn’t be going broke. Just a thought.
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