Connect with us

Mississippi Today

Brandon Presley says he would not change Mississippi trans athletes and health care laws

Published

on

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley said if he is elected this year, he would not work to reverse state laws placing restrictions on transgender Mississippians.

“Tate Reeves knows that I won’t work to overturn these laws, and this issue is settled in Mississippi, but he’s busy pushing the same old false political attacks to cover up his career of corruption,” Presley told Mississippi Today this week. “As a man of faith who is pro-life, I’ve never once had an issue disagreeing with my party when they’re wrong, so I’ll be clear: I don’t think boys should be playing against girls, and girls shouldn’t be playing against boys. I don’t think minors should be getting surgery to change their gender.”

Reeves has signed bills into law in recent years to ban trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports and to prohibit gender affirming health care for trans minors. The Republican governor has blistered his Democratic opponent this year for not addressing trans issues, which Reeves has made a focal point of his campaign.

“So far in Mississippi, my opponent — he won’t say a word,” Reeves told journalists in June. “Y’all spilled a lot of ink over the legislation when I signed it.”

Presley’s recent comments to Mississippi Today are an expansion of what he had said earlier in the campaign when asked about a Mississippi law that bans gender affirming health care for minors.

At that time, Presley said, “I trust families. I trust mamas, I trust daddies to deal with the health care of their children.”

When asked this week whether his recent comments squared with his previous ones, the Presley campaign said he stood by the earlier comments and that he was both opposed to gender affirming surgeries on minors and trusts parents.

Presley’s recent comments could perhaps address the politics of the state and the powers of a governor. The Republican supermajority in the Legislature that overwhelmingly passed the bills to ban the gender-affirming care for minors and to prohibit trans women from competing in women’s sports will still be in control the Capitol after the November elections. It is highly unlikely any governor could usher repeals of those same laws through the legislative process.

These issues have been heavy focuses in other states’ governor’s races. In Kansas and Kentucky, Republican gubernatorial candidates have criticized their Democratic counterparts for not supporting efforts to ban trans women from competing in women’s sports.

In Kansas, competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been vocal in her opposition of having to compete against a trans woman, was featured in an ad opposing the Democratic incumbent in the 2022 election. Anti-trans ads also were run in Kentucky in the 2019 gubernatorial campaign.

In both states, the Republican candidates who were supposed to be boosted by the ads lost their elections.

Andy Beshear, Kentucky’s Democratic governor who is running for reelection this year, is again being attacked for his position on trans issues. This year, Beshear vetoed legislation prohibiting various gender affirming medical treatments for minors, but like Presley said he opposed gender affirming surgeries for minors.

According to the Louisville Courier Journal, there has been no such surgeries performed in Kentucky. Supporters of the Mississippi law dealing with banning gender affirming care for minors also could not cite any similar surgeries being performed in state on minors.

Presley, in the recent comments to Mississippi Today, chalks up Reeves’ focus on trans rights issues to political deflection.

“Tate Reeves will come up with any smokescreen to hide the fact that he’s at the center of the largest public corruption scandal in state history by directing $1.3 million dollars in illegal payments to his personal trainer and canceling his personal trainer’s deposition by firing the former federal prosecutor leading the investigation,” Presley said.

That statement is a reference to the ongoing welfare scandal investigation of the state’s misspending of at least $77 million in federal welfare funds that occurred while Reeves was lieutenant governor. Reeves, who has not been charged with any crime and denies any wrongdoing, has been a focus of public scrutiny in the scandal.

Well-known Mississippi fitness trainer Paul Lacoste, a close ally of Reeves, is being sued by the state to recoup $1.3 million in welfare funds he received. Mississippi Today reported in its “The Backchannel” investigation that Lacoste met in 2019 with Reeves and John Davis, the former state welfare director who has since pleaded guilty to charges related to the scandal. Two days after that meeting, Davis asked his deputy to find a way to fund Lacoste’s boot camp with welfare funds. Davis called the project in a text message “the Lt. Gov’s fitness issue.”

And the Reeves administration did not renew the contract of Brad Pigott, a former U.S. attorney who was hired by the state’s welfare agency to recoup the misspent money. The governor publicly accused Pigott, who was targeting many of Reeves’ campaign donors and supporters in the civil lawsuit, of having a “political agenda” in his handling of the case.

The state’s lawsuit to recover the funds is continuing under a new firm hired by the Reeves administration, and a federal investigation into the broader misspending continues.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=271032

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1997

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-22 07:00:00

Dec. 22, 1997

Myrlie Evers and Reena Evers-Everette cheer the jury verdict of Feb. 5, 1994, when Byron De La Beckwith was found guilty of the 1963 murder of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers. Credit: AP/Rogelio Solis

The Mississippi Supreme Court upheld the conviction of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers. 

In the court’s 4–2 decision, Justice Mike Mills praised efforts “to squeeze justice out of the harm caused by a furtive explosion which erupted from dark bushes on a June night in Jackson, Mississippi.” 

He wrote that Beckwith’s constitutional right to a speedy trial had not been denied. His “complicity with the Sovereignty Commission’s involvement in the prior trials contributed to the delay.” 

The decision did more than ensure that Beckwith would stay behind bars. The conviction helped clear the way for other prosecutions of unpunished killings from the Civil Rights Era.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2024-12-22 06:00:00

About the time people ring in the new year next week, the digital tracker on Mississippi Today’s homepage tabulating the amount of money the state is losing by not expanding Medicaid will hit $1 billion.

The state has lost $1 billion not since the start of the quickly departing 2024 but since the beginning of the state’s fiscal year on July 1.

Some who oppose Medicaid expansion say the digital tracker is flawed.

During an October news conference, when state Auditor Shad White unveiled details of his $2 million study seeking ways to cut state government spending, he said he did not look at Medicaid expansion as a method to save money or grow state revenue.

“I think that (Mississippi Today) calculator is wrong,” White said. “… I don’t think that takes into account how many people are going to be moved off the federal health care exchange where their health care is paid for fully by the federal government and moved onto Medicaid.”

White is not the only Mississippi politician who has expressed concern that if Medicaid expansion were enacted, thousands of people would lose their insurance on the exchange and be forced to enroll in Medicaid for health care coverage.

Mississippi Today’s projections used for the tracker are based on studies conducted by the Institutions of Higher Learning University Research Center. Granted, there are a lot of variables in the study that are inexact. It is impossible to say, for example, how many people will get sick and need health care, thus increasing the cost of Medicaid expansion. But is reasonable that the projections of the University Research Center are in the ballpark of being accurate and close to other studies conducted by health care experts.

White and others are correct that Mississippi Today’s calculator does not take into account money flowing into the state for people covered on the health care exchange. But that money does not go to the state; it goes to insurance companies that, granted, use that money to reimburse Mississippians for providing health care. But at least a portion of the money goes to out-of-state insurance companies as profits.

Both Medicaid expansion and the health care exchange are part of the Affordable Care Act. Under Medicaid expansion people earning up to $20,120 annually can sign up for Medicaid and the federal government will pay the bulk of the cost. Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not opted into Medicaid expansion.

People making more than $14,580 annually can garner private insurance through the health insurance exchanges, and people below certain income levels can receive help from the federal government in paying for that coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation championed and signed into law by President Joe Biden significantly increased the federal subsidies provided to people receiving insurance on the exchange. Those increased subsidies led to many Mississippians — desperate for health care — turning to the exchange for help.

White, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, Gov. Tate Reeves and others have expressed concern that those people would lose their private health insurance and be forced to sign up for Medicaid if lawmakers vote to expand Medicaid.

They are correct.

But they do not mention that the enhanced benefits authored by the Biden administration are scheduled to expire in December 2025 unless they are reenacted by Congress. The incoming Donald Trump administration has given no indication it will continue the enhanced subsidies.

As a matter of fact, the Trump administration, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is looking for ways to cut federal spending.

Some have speculated that Medicaid expansion also could be on Musk’s chopping block.

That is possible. But remember congressional action is required to continue the enhanced subsidies. On the flip side, congressional action would most likely be required to end or cut Medicaid expansion.

Would the multiple U.S. senators and House members in the red states that have expanded Medicaid vote to end a program that is providing health care to thousands of their constituents?

If Congress does not continue Biden’s enhanced subsidies, the rates for Mississippians on the exchange will increase on average about $500 per year, according to a study by KFF, a national health advocacy nonprofit. If that occurs, it is likely that many of the 280,000 Mississippians on the exchange will drop their coverage.

The result will be that Mississippi’s rate of uninsured — already one of the highest in the nation – will rise further, putting additional pressure on hospitals and other providers who will be treating patients who have no ability to pay.

In the meantime, the Mississippi Today counter that tracks the amount of money Mississippi is losing by not expanding Medicaid keeps ticking up.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

On this day in 1911

Published

on

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-12-21 07:00:00

Dec. 21, 1911

A colorized photograph of Josh Gibson, who was playing with the Homestead Grays Credit: Wikipedia

Josh Gibson, the Negro League’s “Home Run King,” was born in Buena Vista, Georgia. 

When the family’s farm suffered, they moved to Pittsburgh, and Gibson tried baseball at age 16. He eventually played for a semi-pro team in Pittsburgh and became known for his towering home runs. 

He was watching the Homestead Grays play on July 25, 1930, when the catcher injured his hand. Team members called for Gibson, sitting in the stands, to join them. He was such a talented catcher that base runners were more reluctant to steal. He hit the baseball so hard and so far (580 feet once at Yankee Stadium) that he became the second-highest paid player in the Negro Leagues behind Satchel Paige, with both of them entering the National Baseball Hame of Fame. 

The Hall estimated that Gibson hit nearly 800 homers in his 17-year career and had a lifetime batting average of .359. Gibson was portrayed in the 1996 TV movie, “Soul of the Game,” by Mykelti Williamson. Blair Underwood played Jackie Robinson, Delroy Lindo portrayed Satchel Paige, and Harvey Williams played “Cat” Mays, the father of the legendary Willie Mays. 

Gibson has now been honored with a statue outside the Washington Nationals’ ballpark.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending