By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,
It’s innately informative that 418,233 Mississippians, nearly 51% of voters, chose to reelect the incumbent governor – Jonathan Tate Reeves – as our state ranks #49 overall in health care and #50 in healthcare quality, per US News & World Report. If our chief executive viewed the health and welfare of Mississippians as a top priority, there is little chance we would be in this position.
Reeves has always opposed Medicaid expansion. He calls it Obamacare, thereby connecting lifesaving health services and an enormous influx of federal dollars to blackness, knowing his dog whistle will be heard by his political base. Two months before the November elections, a Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed “92% of likely voters surveyed are concerned about the hospital crisis, with 70% saying they are very concerned.” The poll also showed that “Medicaid expansion is favored by 72%, opposed by 23%, with 5% not answering.”
New House Speaker Jason White (R-48) says he wants legislators to consider Medicaid expansion as a way to bring up to $1 billion of federal money to the state each year,” per the Associated Press on January 12, 2024.
Mississippi is one of only ten states who have not expanded Medicaid; seven of the ten are former Confederate states. The Department of Health and Human Services said on December 18, 2023, that “the ten states have disenrolled more children than those (states) that have expanded Medicaid combined.” Ten chief executives do not prioritize the health of our children.
For over two years Reeves refused to expand a portion of the state’s traditional Medicaid program to include post-partum mothers. His decisions cost lives, before finally conceding.
As of December 2023, poor uninsured mothers will now receive full health coverage for one year postpartum, instead of sixty days, and 90% of the cost is paid by the federal government.
Data provided by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform “shows that 34 of Mississippi’s 74 rural hospitals are struggling financially and at risk of closure. Twenty-five of those are at risk of closing immediately, or within the next couple of years,” as reported by Mississippi Today last July.
The Affordable Care Act is a life-ring provided by the federal government that became law in 2010 and was to go into effect throughout the nation in 2014, but in 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that making it go into effect in all 50 states was unconstitutionally coercive, therefore states maintain the option to expand or not, per Corey Miller, economist for the State of Mississippi, a panelist at a League of Women Voters (Jackson Area) membership meeting at the Ridgeland Library on February 10, 2024.
He indicated that 24 states initially chose to expand their Medicaid plans, and now that number is 40. No state has elected to disenroll.
Miller shared that President Biden’s America Resue Plan added an even higher share of federal funds to entice the remaining ten states to expand their programs. He made clear that his office does not provide recommendations, just data and analysis.
He estimates that 250,000 people, 19-64-year-olds, between 100-138% of the federal poverty level (a rate that does fluctuate from year to year) would be eligible if the the state expanded Medicaid. He estimated that another group, about 100,000 residents make too much income to be eligible for traditional Medicaid and don’t have enough income to qualify for the federal marketplace, hence the term Coverage Gap.
In response to the moderator’s question as to the cost of expanding Medicaid in our state, Miller indicated a number between $200-230 million per year gross, not net cost. Yet substantial savings would also be realized, including; the increased federal matching rate for the first two years ($600-700 million), shifting groups from the traditional plan to the expanded plan shifts federal matching rates from about 76% to 90%, outside care exceeding 24 for prisoners would be covered where now it is not – equating to millions more savings per year, several taxes would be altered favorably, as well as the decrease in uncompensated care. “We estimate that for the first 7-8 years of expansion, the cost would be offset, and after those 7-8 years the state cost of expansion would have reduced to less than $100 million per year,” per Miller.
The other panelist, Maria D. Morris, Community Health Center Association of Mississippi, and the original director of Mississippi’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), spoke to myriad issues involving rural, poor, children, elderly, disability and other groups in need of services. She also indicated that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services determined that Mississippi was one of those states that needed more in-person assistance in helping eligible citizens learn about and perhaps join the marketplace health plans. She is a certified application counselor and indicates there is now at least one counselor at all 21 community health centers throughout the state. She advocated having a Medical Home – so that patients have continuity of care, choose your own doctor so that the doctor truly gets to know you, leading to a higher level of care within a hub of providers and services that your doctor will help you navigate.
Visit https://lwv-ms.org to learn more about this and many more issues. Disclosure: This writer is a member of League of Women Voters.
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