Why many House Democrats say they’ll vote against a bill that is ‘Medicaid expansion in name only’

For a decade, House Democrats have been beating the drum — often when it seemed no one else was listening — to expand Medicaid to provide health care for working poor Mississippians. It looks as though a large majority of those House Democrats as early as Wednesday will vote against and possibly kill a bill that purports to expand Medicaid. They say the agreement reached late Monday between House and Senate Republicans may be called Medicaid expansion, but it is not written to actually go into effect or help the hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who need health care coverage. “It is just like an eggshell with no egg in the middle,” said Rep. Timaka James-Jones, a Democratic lawmaker from Belzoni in her first term. “It does not make sense.”