Republican Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann continues his 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which the state’s values match the state’s policies – and that getting hung up over the term “Medicaid expansion” is an outdated obstacle to that goal.
The context of that stance is that hospitals are struggling to keep their doors open in the state and those that remain open are cutting key services. Over the summer, Delta Health System's The Medical Center in Greenville closed its neonatal intensive care unit citing $1 million in annual losses – the only NICU serving four Mississippi Delta counties. The Greenville hospital also closed its cardiac rehab unit.
Likewise, financial and infrastructure issues have reduced some services, closed others and seen layoffs at the Greenwood Leflore Hospital in Greenwood. Merit Health Central hospital in Jackson is struggling as units and services are closed. 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.
In January, just before the 2022 regular session, Hosemann said in response to a reporter’s question about Medicaid expansion: “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.”
Repeating that theme, Hosemann told a Starkville Rotary Club crowd last week that the state was fiscally prepared for the current global economic uncertainties which he believes likely will include recession – and that on top of ongoing inflation, the impacts of the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
With $2.5 billion in hand in the early part of the current fiscal year, Hosemann said the state is prepared and can move forward on several fronts – and that after a $246 million teacher pay hike and the state’s $525 million income tax cut.
“We have positioned Mississippi, in just three years, to where we have paid down our debt, we’ve given the largest teacher pay raise, cut taxes, have $2.5 billion in the bank and we are prepared for the next three years,” Hosemann said.
Hosemann said the state had cut the total number of state employees by 3,000 over the last three years and had retired $295 million in state debt – with a plan in place to cut another $305 million in debt this fiscal year.
That litany of conservative economic policy paves the way, Hosemann asserts, for the state to make a logical decision on Medicaid in a key area – postpartum care.
In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade and triggered abortion bans, Hosemann argues that more babies will be born to the poor who will need postpartum care in Mississippi – which has historically struggled with infant mortality issues.
Hosemann said: “We had a study group… on what to do about mommas of children from zero to three … assuming that we will have more now that we are a strictly a pro-life state. We are anticipating more life, so how are we going to take care of them and how healthy are they going to be?”
The lieutenant governor advocates spending $7 million to expand postpartum Medicaid from the present two months to include up to a year of coverage.
“Do you all know what the cost is for moms that are working to be able to go to the doctor for longer than two months, for up to 12 months? It costs $7 million. We have $2.5 billion in the bank, and we can’t take care of our children for working people? That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me.”
The fiscal and moral realities of the Dobbs case – more babies born into poverty, shrinking health care opportunities for them – may well resonate with state lawmakers. It should.
43 comments:
He’s right. There’s no other way to look at it sensibly. The poor are already covered. But our hard-working log truck drivers, tire shop workers, convenience store clerks, small church pastors, and many others are making too much to get help, but not enough to pay medical insurance premiums. Working people need help and there are literally billions sitting in a pot for us to use to help them. Our federal tax dollars are going to other states and their Medicaid programs, but Mississippi’s leadership is keeping our tax dollars from coming back into the state. This makes zero sense. All we have to do is say yes to allowing the money that we already pay the federal government to come back to us to help hard-working Mississippians.
Delbert is right.
Man I hope he runs for governor next year!
"a more realistic Medicaid program in which the state’s values match the state’s policies"
This is good, needs to be addressed.
"Hosemann said the state had cut the total number of state employees by 3,000 over the last three years"
Actually, this is bad, very bad. One of the biggest complaints from Mississippians is the lack of services. Long wait times, cannot get a hold of a live person when issues arise. Additionally, this is affecting the PERS retirement fund in a negative way. Plus those workers, actually help the states economy.
He’s right. Here we are funding expanded Medicaid programs for states all over the country, but none of it is coming home to us. There are billions of dollars sitting at the state line ready to help those that a right now making too much money for the current Medicaid programs but not enough to afford private insurance. These are the hard-workers driving log trucks, working at tire shops, working as clerks in convenient stores, and all over Mississippi. They need help. And we need our tax dollars to come home. Our state leaders have turned their back on blue collar Mississippi.
I prefer kids having fathers in their lives-
@9.22 AM
I agree with your first point that the State should employee enough people to provide adequate (at a minimum) and good (preferable) service to its citizens across all departments. I would argue that "good" service has more to do with hiring and management of the employees than it does with the number of employees, but clearly there is a base level of employment required to provide services. What/where that level is - that's the magic question.
Your other two points are flawed:
1. You are not the first (or maybe you were many years ago) person to argue that increasing the number of state employees helps PERS. Okay, yes, it helps fund PERS. But, it increases the burden on the budget and the taxpayers by 5x the amount that it helps PERS. If the state hires an additional employee for $50,000/year, here is the math:
Salary $50,000
P/R tax 3,825
EmployER contribution to PERS 8,700
Total cost to taxpayers 62,525
EmployEE contribution to PERS 4,500
Total contribution to PERS 13,200
Money spent / PERS funding 4.7x (not including benefits)
So, you've spent over $62K of taxpayer money (not including benefits, so actually more than that) to add $13,200 to PERS.
2. You say, "Plus those workers, actually help the states economy." How is that? In the example above, the State took $62,525 out of the pockets of taxpayers and put it into the pockets (and PERS) of a State employee. No new dollars were created or injected into the economy. It was simply moved from one place to the other.
Delbert is exactly right.
Wait, so a program that WE are paying for with our federal tax dollars, that is also funding programs in other states, is being prohibited from helping Mississippians that actually work and pay taxes? What’s next? Politician’s in the Capitol decide they don’t like Social Security and start the try to keep those benefits out of Mississippi? Geeeze!!! This is mind numbingly stupid!
This is how the LtGov gets beat in a primary.
A Republican who does his due diligence ( he can READ), can do math and tells the truth.
It's a miracle!
Short term costs to State of expanded Medicaid are low, long term high. Better for MS to have better educated populace (school Choice & Vouchers, sans teachers'unions), and generate prosperity for people to buy private group insurance.
Plus many good docs won't accept Medicaid because it only pays a small fraction of treatment costs.
Conservatives want all boats lifted whereas bureaucrats want minorities to remain slavishly dependent.
@12:15
Even if we could just snap our fingers and get vouchers, school choice, etc in place in all districts, you're talking a generation before we have a better educated populace (and that's assuming we plug the brain drain).
You can do both. Left the boats by investing for the longterm in education. But the family of a sick 4 year old doesn't have insurance doesn't give a damn about education outcomes 20 years from now, and you know that.
Q: Why not fund expanded contraception education and availability instead?
A: Because it won't buy votes.
You that are opposed to expansion keep wanting to play this as if this is for the “welfare crowd.” This expansion is for those hardworking people who are out there busting their jumps to make a living doing the things that we want them to do for little to no money so that we don’t have to pay more for their goods and services. The “welfare crowd” are ALREADY ON MEDICARE AND MEDICAID! This is for working stiffs! Find a better argument than “they need a better education!” If they got a better education and stopped doing these jobs, who would do it? Let’s get these people healthier and more secure with the easiest fix to come along in decades.
@1:34. Thank you for stating the realistic truth.
Buy votes? The people that this will help are working class and very likely Republicans.
@1:34
It won't buy votes, but it also won't do any immediate good at all. You know this. Doesn't do a damn thing to help someone already in a bad situation.
Medicaid is despised and refused by very good doctors in MS. By flooding Healthcare with demands that docs subsidize their patients, quality is eroded.
Bring good jobs and prosperity, not more free stuff that is worthlrss and a burden. Those who voted for Jackson's marxist despot deserve to taste the bitter fruits of his piss poor economy and the broken infrastructure he has rotted into ruin.
@ 9:58am
"2. You say, "Plus those workers, actually help the states economy." How is that? In the example above, the State took $62,525 out of the pockets of taxpayers and put it into the pockets (and PERS) of a State employee. No new dollars were created or injected into the economy. It was simply moved from one place to the other."
Let me say this much, I get your perspective. You are looking at it from a tax /R.O.I angle. And that is fair.
I am looking at it from the human capital angle and just having people working. The one saving grace for the Jackson, Mississippi metro area - is the fact the state is the largest employer. Mississippi does not have a Fortune 500 company headquartered in the state.
Yes, we have Nissan, Toyota, Continental, and Ingalls. However, they are not headquartered here. So by the state filling those positions, those are people earning a check, paying into their local municipalities buying groceries, cars, clothes, shoes, and of course contributing to PERS. Last but not least, by working for Mississippi - they remain in Mississippi.
Until we can attract a Fortune 500 company to make Mississippi home base, we need the state to pick up the slack until that time, as being the major employer.
That's my personal take. But I think you made a good argument otherwise.
"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."
When Sid starts defending a Republican, we might want to check our pockets. First, Delbert's a lawyer; there's no moral standpoint. Second, yes, he's NOT a bleeding heart liberal; he's a RINO who has capitulated to the left and trying to backdoor as much of the liberal agenda as he thinks he can get away with and still get elected governor. Third, you're right Sid: most of us are just too dumb to see that continuing to expand an already bloated federal welfare system can only be good for the country. I'm glad we have Delbert (and you) to help us see things rightly.
"Hosemann said the state had cut the total number of state employees by 3,000 over the last three years"
9:22 says: One of the biggest complaints from Mississippians is the lack of services. Long wait times, cannot get a hold of a live person when issues arise
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That's because of the internet, smart phones, earbuds.. but mainly ATTITUDES... they think or know they won't get fired?
Went to MHP this summer to renew my DL and the workers (workers?) there were either playing (audible) music at their stations or had earbuds in talking with someone else as you walk up to them. Slow...slow...... to call "next" after someone left their window... and slow...... slow........slower............... handling biz at hand when you did get called up. In the REAL business world the whole lot would be fired.. INCLUDING whoever is over them.
You could've kept those 3000 & added another 3000... it wouldn't make a bit of difference.
Wyatt Emmerich, editor-owner Northside Sun, a longtime diehard cultist proponent of Medicaid expansion, thinks socialized medicine can improve access for the poor and is likely among its supporters, proselytizing inanely above.
Once the Feds get their rapacious hands on any "program", it grows continuously and becomes weaponized, strengthening bureaucrats and robbing "beneficiary" victims.
Our healthcare is high quality and expensive: a more prosperous economy would not need to turn it into thin sour milk from a withered gray government teat with guns and prison threats, as it has, e.g., in DOE and DHS.
Strive to generate jobs in a better economy, better nutrition and more exercise and then leave medical care to the best docs in the world, market forces and competitive group insurance plans.
When these midterms put more conservatives in office and dump the commies, perhaps free market forces will boost the economy and lift all boats that want to be lifted.
F the Federal government!
2:49 "The one saving grace for the Jackson, Mississippi metro area - is the fact the state is the largest employer... Until we can attract a Fortune 500 company to make Mississippi home base, we need the state to pick up the slack until that time, as being the major employer."
Here, Ladies & Gentlemen, is where the problem lies. Folks like 2:49 EXPECT government to be employment agencies - the larger/the better.
Somehow, something needs to mandate solutions for obesity in MS. Perhaps dropping chips, coke, etc. being covered by EBT cards? Delbert is a true statesman, but he will be 76 next year.
Delbert is going to be the Bill Waller candidate this time. And he will have the same result.
"You could've kept those 3000 & added another 3000... it wouldn't make a bit of difference".
That technically falls on Sean Tindal and his management staff.
Here, Ladies & Gentlemen, is where the problem lies. Folks like 2:49 EXPECT government to be employment agencies - the larger/the better.
Some of you really have selective hearing. Totally missed the part of, Until we can attract a Fortune 500 company to make Mississippi home base
Best economic drivers in Jxn are hospitals and their trained and professional staff, including techs, nurses and doctors. To keep them in place, dump the emperor mayor, elect civil servants worthy of the name and the office.
4:24 Nope, didn't miss it.
@4:15
That’s because we don’t have legitimate elections in Mississippi. Instead we have rigged pantomimes that we call elections.
“Thank you for stating the realistic truth.”, the realistic truth was posted at 1:52.
The truth is in Mississippi there are many small businesses that employ less than 50 people. They don't meet the minimum number of employees to be required to offer insurance.
Even if they did offer insurance, it would be too expensive for the workers to buy. That leaves the individuals to go it alone. The bottom line, they can't afford it. Neighbor, that ain't right.
We can send Billions of dollars overseas, but yet we have people, in the richest country ever know, going without healthcare. I say again, neighbor, that ain't right.
These are hardworking decent people that play by the rules, doing what's right, but are getting a shitty deal when it comes to healthcare.
You can call me anything you want, I don't care, but what 1:52, and I said ain't nothing but right.
Healthcare is not an enumerated right in the Constitution. It's for sale, so prepare yourself to not need much of it and to pay dearly for it when you do. Jackson has wonderful, talented doctors who deserve to be highly paid and to perform in excellent facilities.
I have lived better and survived bad luck and bad choices because of their excellent care which I sacrificed to pay large sums for, in addition to expensive insurance.
If the socialists whining here had their way, the procedures would have cost less but wait times would have quadrupled and the quality of care deteriorated. The excellent physicians would have left for Austin, Nashville or Florida. Further, a federal dept of health would have let un-woke people die, untreated, at home.
Some grammar brooming around here: please use "who", subjective case pronoun and "whom", objective case, never a person "that".
After a hundred+ violations on this site, I can't take it any more. A pronoun referring back to a person is not "that", it is correctly either "who" or "whom".
Thank you and feel free to call out my grammatical sins that offend you.
@3:01, yes. When a sniveling commie totes water for a republican that republican is not a republican.
@3:49 Delbert is a politician, not a statesman, and there is a big difference. His age has nothing to do with this. A statesman does what he says he will do; a politician will say whatever is convenient, and when pressed to deliver, will politely tell you to go fuck yourself.
@8:59 While I agree with your definition of a statesman and politician, it appears that you probably have been screwed somewhere along the line an elected official whose campaign you financially supported. You are not the first, nor will you be the last. Your contribution just was not as large as you thought it was. Such is life in the fast lane.
Run, Delbert, Run!
Pretty please. We need results, and we aren't getting them with Tater and Feel Jr.
October 12, 2022 at 7:56 PM, do I need to tell you where you can put your grammar broom?
There is Medicaid abuse all across the country, so that is not a legitimate reason not to expand Medicaid like the rest of the country. Thousands of Mississippians have no alternative to secure health care. Only the elites oppose expansion. Delbert is right.
@8:18 and 3;01. —You guys need to find some new words. Commie and RINO shows your 4 th grade playground bullying background.Delbert is one of the most intelligent and caring person to ever hold high office in Mississippi. We need him to stay where he is because that’s where we need the most leadership. I laugh when I hear folks campaign that they are not politicians. If you run for office you are all a politician or you will be a loser.
October 12, 2022 at 7:23 PM, quit counting your money for a minute and pay attention. This is about giving medical help to those that need it.
This isn't about you and the money you have to cover your ignorance. This is about people that are struggling to survive. Your selfish ass probably can't get past your inflated ego.
I recently read an article stating the US military budget is $800 billion dollars, thanks to the US fighting a proxy war with Russia. That doesn't include the cash that has been given directly to the Ukrainian government.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm against this warmongering ignorance. I don't have the time, and I won't take up Kingfish's space to enumerate the trillions wasted on a supposed war on terrorism, and nation building.
We should care for our own, first. That includes those that went and fought in these needless wars. No one said it was a right enumerated in the constitution, but it is the right thing for a supposed civilized nation to do.
@7:23
So you're argument is that if we expand, we'll have worse health outcomes on the whole? We're freaking 50 out of 51 in life expectancy, and only a month better than West Virginia in last place. And your argument is that if we offer services to more people it will get worse?
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" Karl Marx
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