JACKSON, Miss. (AP) _ Gov. Haley Barbour said Tuesday that he believes Democratic leaders in the Mississippi House are playing politics with his plan to fill a $90 million hole in the state’s Medicaid program.
Barbour spoke with The Associated Press on a range of topics during an interview in Jackson. He wouldn’t give details of how he hopes to solve budget problems with the health care program for the poor, though he filed a plan July 11 outlining about $375 million in proposed cuts _ enough to account for the $90 million shortfall in state money, plus the federal contribution.
During the AP interview, the governor also stood by his decision to suspend the sentence of a convicted murderer. He said he believes Republican Sen. John McCain will have no problem winning Mississippi in November. Barbour also said he has no regrets about moving Republican Roger Wicker from the U.S. House to the Senate, even after Democrat Travis Childers won the northern Mississippi House seat during a special election.
Former Democratic Gov. Ronnie Musgrove is challenging Wicker for the Senate seat this year.
Barbour spoke candidly about the Medicaid crisis. The House so far has refused to pass the governor’s plan for a hospital tax to fill the shortfall. House Democrats, including Speaker Billy McCoy, say they want to consider a tobacco tax increase to help pay for Medicaid.
“I can’t impugn people’s motives or look into their hearts, but you can’t walk 50 feet in the Capitol without being told that the House leadership doesn’t want a solution _ that they want the governor to have to cut Medicaid,” Barbour told The AP. “That this is not about health policy, it’s about politics.”
In a separate interview Tuesday, McCoy responded: “That is absolutely the most absurd statement I have ever heard. It’s absurd and it even borders on ignorant.”
Legislators are scheduled to return to the Capitol on Monday to restart a special session. Medicaid budget cuts are set to take effect two days later, and some hospitals have warned they might have to lay off employees if the cuts are made.
McCoy said Barbour did not have to make cuts only weeks after the budget year started.
“I think the governor’s been studying dictators over the last 500 years,” McCoy said. “I don’t know which one he’s trying to emulate, but he’s definitely on the path of trying to be a dictator.”
Barbour said if cuts are made in August, about $34 million a month will have to be trimmed from Medicaid services. He said if cuts are delayed, the monthly reductions will be dramatically larger to remove $375 million by June 30.
Barbour said he will discuss federal elections Thursday when he appears at the Neshoba County Fair. The fair features two days of political speeches.
Asked about his own political ambitions, the 60-year-old governor said he simply wants to be successful in the final 3 1/2 years of his second term. He said he still plans to do some sort of work because he has trouble imagining himself retiring.
“I have no current intention of ever running for anything else. And, candidly, I doubt if I ever will,” Barbour said. “I’m just saying that out of just realism, not because I’ve given it a lot of thought.”
Barbour, a former Republican National Committee chairman, was a high-profile Washington lobbyist before returning to his home state and unseating then-Gov. Musgrove in 2003.
Barbour’s name often appears on lists of possible GOP running mates for McCain, but the governor plays down that talk, saying Mississippi will go Republican without having someone on the ticket.
“There’s an expression, you know,” he said, “‘Never turn down a job you haven’t been offered.”’
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