A new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll showed wide support for Mississippi expanding Medicaid to cover the working poor, including 70% support from Republican respondents.
The numbers appear to show a continued shift of voter sentiment in what has long been a partisan battle. Mississippi’s elected Republican governors and other leaders for the last decade have blocked Medicaid expansion via the Affordable Care Act and the billions in federal dollars that would have come with it. This resistance continues even as struggling hospitals and more citizens in the poorest, unhealthiest state cry for help.
Several poll respondents agreed to talk with Mississippi Today about their support or opposition to expanding the federal-state health care program to cover people making up to 138% of the poverty level, or the working poor.