Despite Gov. Reeves’ debate claims, experts say it’s hard to argue that states are ‘better off’ without Medicaid expansion

Gov. Tate Reeves, the state’s most powerful opponent of Medicaid expansion, repeated a familiar claim at Wednesday night’s gubernatorial debate: that the program wouldn’t save the state’s failing hospitals. But health care experts say that was always clear, that the governor’s argument is missing an understanding of the challenges facing the state’s health care system and that expansion, by potentially insuring about a quarter million Mississippians, would allow hospitals to get paid something for the care they provide to uninsured patients versus getting paid nothing.