In the News

Roy Mitchell, executive director at the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, which also supports expansion, noted that in a survey his organization conducted earlier this year, nearly three-fourths of respondents said they had difficulty affording care and nearly two-thirds said they delayed care or skipped it because of cost. “Hundreds of thousands of Mississippians are struggling […]

Mississippi’s Medicaid rolls are shrinking. And for thousands, that coverage has been dropped in the last few months. Imagine showing up at the doctor’s office only to find out you don’t have health care coverage anymore. That’s happened to some of you in recent months. More than 81,000 Mississippians have been dropped from Medicaid as […]

Every region in Mississippi ranked higher in infant mortality than the national average of 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, according to the state’s 2021 Mississippi Infant Mortality Report released last week. This report comes one month after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing that Mississippi’s infant mortality rate reached a five-year high while the national rate […]

Nearly 13,000 Mississippians were kicked from Medicaid’s rolls in September during the most recent batch of disenrollments, while the agency’s backlog grows. The latest numbers bring the state’s total disenrollments to 81,454 people, most of whom were dropped for paperwork issues, not because they were found to be ineligible. Medicaid divisions all over the country are reviewing […]

The shroud of mystery has been removed on why Gov. Tate Reeves opposes expanding Medicaid. It is not a matter of cost. The governor simply does not support expanding Medicaid to provide health care coverage for Mississippi’s working poor. Reeves’ recent announcement of his plan to provide additional federal funds for struggling hospitals makes clear […]

“Until Medicaid is expanded, Mississippians will continue to pay the price in lost dollars, lost jobs, and lost lives,” Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, said of Reeves’ recent announcement. “This is a state executive branch, making a health policy decision based largely in myth and an ideological belief structure. The […]

“Healthcare is largely considered by most in the industry as a complete failure by the Reeves administration – most notably, rural healthcare,” Mr. Woodward said. “The announcement of Gov. Reeves’ Medicaid reimbursement reform on Sept. 21 did very little to change that. In fact, it was a slap in the face to most all of […]

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is still refusing to opt in to the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, which would provide health insurance to an estimated 230,000 uninsured adults in the state. Instead, on Sept. 21, Reeves announced plans to boost Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals by hundreds of millions of dollars, directly benefiting his own donors. The first-term governor […]

Medicaid expansion will launch Dec. 1 in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper announced on Monday after achieving what he’s sought for nearly seven years on the job and what’s possibly his biggest policy win. Government health insurance should be available to another 600,000 low-income adults, with roughly half of them receiving coverage on Day One. […]

Gov. Tate Reeves, after months of inaction, has unveiled a plan he says will turn Mississippi’s health care crisis around. However, even some health care experts were stumped by how the Governor’s proposed reforms will work. The plan, which Reeves announced at a press conference Thursday while flanked by state health care leaders, is essentially a complex scheme to […]

In 2002, during the 83-day special session, the longest in state history, members of the Mississippi Medical Association were out in full force in favor of legislation to provide health care providers more protection from lawsuits. The Medical Association, the largest organization of physicians in the state, had members in their white coats at the […]

“Today’s announcement is too little, too late for hospitals who have already cut jobs and services, for KPC Promise Hospital that already shut down and for Greenwood-Leflore that could close down by the end of the month,” Hines said. Kimberly Hughes is the co-chair of the Care4Mississippi Coalition Steering Committee, a nonpartisan health care and […]

As Gov. Tate Reeves announced his plan to save Mississippi’s rural hospitals, the state hospital association’s longtime leader prepared for his last day at the organization. Tim Moore, who’s led the Mississippi Hospital Association for a decade, confirmed to Mississippi Today that the board fired him. His last day in his current position is today. […]

Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves released a proposal Thursday aimed at helping some of the state’s financially struggling hospitals, even as the Democrat who is trying to unseat him has spent months hammering Reeves for opposing Medicaid expansion in one of the poorest states in the nation. Hospitals would pay some higher taxes as a way […]

More than 16,000 Mississippians were dropped from Medicaid in August during the latest round of the agency’s disenrollments. The pandemic-era federal regulations that prevented state Medicaid agencies from disenrolling beneficiaries ended in May. Since then, Medicaid divisions all over the country are reviewing their rolls for the first time in three years.

There is hope. Mississippi may expand Medicaid to cover the working poor sooner than previously imagined. What provides this hope, after nearly a decade of stubborn Republican opposition at the state Capitol? This past week’s comments by state Rep. Jason White, who is widely expected to be this state’s speaker of the House starting in […]

Gov. Tate Reeves, running for a second term this year, is traveling the state vowing he’ll continue to block Medicaid expansion, a policy that would provide health coverage to at least 200,000 working Mississippians and bring at least $1 billion in new annual revenue to the state. A powerful fellow Mississippi Republican Party leader appears […]

Mississippi is one of the most rural states in America, so it should not be surprising that the GOP controls every statewide office there and comfortable majorities in both houses of the legislature. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) once put it, Republicans “pretty much own rural and small-town America.”

In just one interview, the likely new House speaker bucked his party’s leader in a prolific way. But the candor of White’s statement was telling in itself. He acknowledged that his own party was being rightfully criticized for not being willing to even discuss expansion. It was a brutally honest, almost self-deprecating statement, the likes […]

Several Northeast Mississippi representatives say they’re open to the idea of Medicaid expansion after incoming House Speaker Rep. Jason White said he plans to consider it, although some lawmakers remain skeptical on committing money to the program. White, who will wield considerable power if chosen as speaker by fellow House Republicans in January as expected, […]

Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison, Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance talk all things politics, ranging from House Pro Tem Jason White, expected to be elected new speaker, committing to studying Medicaid expansion. Also discussed this week: communications between Tate Reeves’ brother and Auditor Shad White about Brett Favre.

A financially struggling Delta hospital received another bit of bad news: its application for a federal designation that would bring in more money has been initially denied.The regional Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services office in Atlanta has declined to designate the Greenwood hospital as a critical access hospital, according to a letter the agency […]

Mississippi politicians rarely surprise me, but I almost fainted earlier this week when I read that Republican Jason White, the presumptive new speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, was at least open to a discussion about expanding Medicaid in the Magnolia State. The issue is a touchy one for Republicans at both the state […]

Republican Rep. Jason White, heir apparent to the House speakership, said Medicaid expansion, long a bugaboo for the state GOP, will be on the table and at least thoroughly vetted as a solution to Mississippi’s health care crisis next year. “I think we as Republicans have probably earned a little bit of the bad rap […]