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Feds approve part of Gov. Reeves’ plan to help Mississippi hospitals

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1 year ago

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A plan championed by Gov. Tate Reeves to draw down more money for the state’s hospitals has been partially approved by the federal government. 

Thanks to the stamp of approval, hospitals could receive payments within weeks.

For years as hospitals across the state have struggled, health care experts and hospital leaders have been asking for help, most calling for Medicaid expansion. Instead, at a press conference announcing his plan in September, Reeves doubled down on his opposition to expansion and pitched a plan to draw more federal money to hospitals.

According to Reeves’ office, the changes are estimated to infuse the state’s hospitals with nearly $700 million in total.

The plan relies on two changes to hospital Medicaid reimbursements that increase supplemental payments to hospitals. This is extra money hospitals receive to offset low reimbursement rates from Medicaid and for uncompensated care, or money hospitals lose caring for people who are uninsured.

The component of that plan approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which reimburses hospitals for low Medicaid payments at an average commercial rate for services, will generate approximately $600 million, according to the press release. It’s not clear what average commercial rate (state, regional or national) the plan utilizes to yield these results — Mississippi has a low average commercial rate, according to experts. 

The second component of the plan, which modifies another form of supplemental payments, has not yet been approved.

“This plan is going to strengthen our state’s healthcare system and I’m glad that we could get it done for the people of Mississippi,” Reeves said in a press release. “This is the product of meetings with a range of medical professionals and healthcare leaders, and I’m truly thankful to all of them for helping to get us to today.”

Experts say the reforms will bring more money to the state’s hospitals, but it won’t insure more people in Mississippi, one of the most uninsured states in America. Additionally, the hospitals that appear to benefit most from the plan appear to be larger facilities, not the small rural hospitals feeling the stress of the health care crisis most acutely.

Former state hospital association director Tim Moore previously told Mississippi Today that Reeves’ proposals do “nothing to help the low-wage earners in Mississippi who do not have the disposable income to pay for medical care.”

Researchers estimate the Medicaid expansion, by increasing the wage level that Mississippians would be eligible for Medicaid, would insure 200,000 to 300,000 people who currently don’t qualify for Medicaid but don’t make enough to pay for marketplace insurance.

While emergency rooms cannot turn down patients regardless of their insurance status, doctor’s offices and clinics can. That means one of the only ways uninsured people can receive health care in Mississippi, one of the unhealthiest states in the country, is through emergency care. Preventative care, though, is inaccessible.

At the press conference, Reeves encouraged the population of Mississippians without health insurance to get a job or a better job and derisively referred to expansion as “welfare.”

In other states that have adopted similar measures, experts say the policy reforms make the biggest difference when combined with Medicaid expansion.

The federal government is still considering the second proposal. It’s not clear why the plan is being considered separately.

The changes are retroactively effective beginning July 1, so the Mississippi Division of Medicaid will deliver the first round of payments to hospitals in the coming weeks, according to the press release.

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

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Mississippi lawmakers end 2025 session unable to agree (or even meet about) state budget: Legislative recap

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8 hours ago

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April 7, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – @GeoffPender – 2025-04-07 11:50:00

by Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today
April 7, 2025

Infighting between Mississippi’s Republican House and Senate legislative leaders reached DEFCON 4 as the 2025 legislative session sputtered to a close last week.

Lawmakers gaveled out unable to set a $7 billion state budget — their main job — or to even agree to negotiate. Gov. Tate Reeves will force them back into session sometime before the end of the fiscal year June 30. At a press conference last week, the governor assured he would do so but did not give a timetable, other than saying he plans to give lawmakers some time to cool off.

The crowning achievement of the 2025 session was passage of a tax overhaul bill a majority of legislators accidentally voted for because of errors in its math. House leaders and the governor nevertheless celebrated passage of the measure, which will phase out the state individual income tax over about 14 years, more quickly trim the sales tax on some groceries to 5% raise the tax on gasoline by 9 cents a gallon, then have automatic gas tax increases thereafter based on the cost of road construction.

The error in the Senate bill accidentally removed safeguards that chamber’s leadership wanted to ensure the income tax would be phased out only if the state sees robust economic growth and controls spending.

The rope-a-dope the House used with the Senate errors to pass the measure also stripped a safeguard House leaders had wanted: a 1.5 cents on the dollar increase in the state’s sales tax, which would have brought it to 8.5%. House leaders said such an increase was needed to offset cutting more than $2 billion from the state’s $7 billion general fund revenue by eliminating the income tax, and to ensure local governments would be kept whole.

Reeves was nonplussed about the flaws in the bill he signed into law (at one point denying there were errors in it) and called it “One big, beautiful bill,” borrowing a phrase from President Donald Trump.

https://youtu.be/8ovOtFj0vFE

Quote of the Week

“Quite frankly, I think it’s chicken shit what they did.” — Gov. Tate Reeves, at a press conference last week when asked his thoughts about the Senate rejecting his nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve as four-year term on the board of Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Full Legislative Coverage

What happened (or didn’t) in the rancorous 2025 Mississippi Legislative session?

Mississippi Today’s political team unpacks the just ended — for now — legislative session, that crashed at the end with GOP lawmakers unable to pass a budget after much infighting among Republican leaders. The crowning achievement of the session, a tax overhaul bill, was passed by accident and full of major errors and omissions. Listen to the podcast.

Gov. Tate Reeves, legislative leaders tout tax cut, but for some, it could be a tax increase

Many of those retirees who do not pay an income tax under state law and other Mississippians as well will face a tax increase under this newly passed legislation touted by Reeves and others. Read the column.

Trump administration slashes education funding. Mississippi leaders and schools panic

Mississippi schools and the state education system are set to lose over $137 million in federal funds after the U.S. Department of Education halted access to pandemic-era grant money, state leaders said this week. Read the story.

Gov. Tate Reeves says he’ll call Mississippi lawmakers back in special session after they failed to set budget

Gov. Tate Reeves on Thursday said he will call lawmakers into a special session to adopt a budget before state agencies run out of money later in the summer and hinted he might force legislators to consider other measures.  Read the story.

GOP-controlled Senate rejects governor’s pick for public broadcasting board. Reeves calls it ‘chicken s–t’

The Senate on Wednesday roundly rejected the nomination of Cory Custer, Reeves’ deputy chief of staff, to serve a four-year term on the board of directors of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the statewide public radio and television network. Reeves reacted to the Senate’s vote on Thursday, calling it “chicken shit.” Read the story.

Early voting proposal killed on last day of Mississippi legislative session

Mississippi will remain one of only three states without no-excuse early voting or no-excuse absentee voting.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature ends 2025 session without setting a budget over GOP infighting 

The House on Wednesday voted to end what had become a futile legislative session without passing a budget to fund state government, for the first time in 16 years. The Senate is expected to do the same on Thursday.  Read the story.

Mississippi Legislature approves DEI ban after heated debate

Mississippi lawmakers have reached an agreement to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs and a list of “divisive concepts” from public schools across the state education system, following the lead of numerous other Republican-controlled states and President Donald Trump’s administration.   Read the story.

Fear and loathing: Legislative session crashes with lawmakers unable to set a budget because of Republican infighting

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and other Senate leaders on Saturday excoriated the Republican House leadership, after the House didn’t show up for what was supposed to be “conference weekend” to haggle out a $7 billion budget. Read the story.

‘We’ll go another year’ without relief: Pharmacy benefit manager reform likely dead

Hotly contested legislation that aimed to increase the transparency and regulation of pharmacy benefit managers appeared dead in the water Tuesday after a lawmaker challenged the bill for a rule violation. Read the story.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Mississippi lawmakers end 2025 session unable to agree (or even meet about) state budget: Legislative recap appeared first on mississippitoday.org

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On this day in 1909, Matthew Henson reached the North Pole

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2 days ago

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April 6, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-06 07:00:00

by Jerry Mitchell, Mississippi Today
April 6, 2025

April 6, 1909

Matthew Henson arrived ahead of the Admiral Peary Expedition to plant the American flag at the North Pole.

Matthew Henson reached the North Pole, planting the American flag. Traveling with the Admiral Peary Expedition, Henson reportedly reached the North Pole almost 45 minutes before Peary and the rest of the men. 

“As I stood there on top of the world and I thought of the hundreds of men who had lost their lives in the effort to reach it, I felt profoundly grateful that I had the honor of representing my race,” he said. 

While some would later dispute whether the expedition had actually reached the North Pole, Henson’s journey seems no less amazing. 

Born in Maryland to sharecropping parents who survived attacks by the KKK, he grew up working, becoming a cabin boy and sailing around the world. 

After returning, he became a salesman at a clothing store in Washington, D.C., where he waited on a customer named Robert Peary. Pearywas so impressed with Henson and his tales of the sea that he hired him as his personal valet. 

Henson joined Peary on a trip to Nicaragua. Impressed with Henson’s seamanship, Peary made Henson his “first man” on the expeditions that followed to the Arctic. When the expedition returned, Peary drew praise from the world while Henson’s contributions were ignored. 

Over time, his work came to be recognized. In 1937, he became the first African-American life member of The Explorers Club. Seven years later, he received the Peary Polar Expedition Medal and was received at the White House by President Truman and later President Eisenhower. 

“There can be no vision to the (person) the horizon of whose vision is limited by the bounds of self,” he said. “But the great things of the world, the great accomplishments of the world, have been achieved by (people with) … high ideals and … great visions. The path is not easy, the climb is rugged and hard, but the glory at the end is worthwhile.” 

Henson died in 1955, and his body was re-interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The U.S. Postal Service featured him on a stamp, and the U.S. Navy named a Pathfinder class ship after him. In 2000, the National Geographic Society awarded him the Hubbard Medal.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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A win for press freedom: Judge dismisses Gov. Phil Bryant’s lawsuit against Mississippi Today

Published

2 days ago

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April 5, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – @GanucheauAdam – 2025-04-04 13:35:00

by Mississippi Today, Mississippi Today
April 4, 2025

Madison County Circuit Court Judge Bradley Mills dismissed former Gov. Phil Bryant’s defamation lawsuit against Mississippi Today on Friday, ending a nearly two-year case that became a beacon in the fight for American press freedom.

For the past 22 months, we’ve vigorously defended our Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting and our characterizations of Bryant’s role in the Mississippi welfare scandal. We are grateful today that the court, after careful deliberation, dismissed the case.

The reporting speaks for itself. The truth speaks for itself.

This judgment is so much more than vindication for Mississippi Today — it’s a monumental victory for every single Mississippian. Journalism is a public good that all of us deserve and need. Too seldom does our state’s power structure offer taxpayers true government accountability, and Mississippians routinely learn about the actions of their public officials only because of journalism like ours. This reality is precisely why we launched our newsroom nine years ago, and it’s why we devoted so much energy and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending ourselves against this lawsuit. It was an existential threat to our organization that took time and resources away from our primary responsibilities — which is often the goal of these kinds of legal actions. But our fight was never just about us; it was about preserving the public’s sacred, constitutional right to critical information that journalists provide, just as our nation’s Founding Fathers intended.

Mississippi Today remains as committed as ever to deep investigative journalism and working to provide government accountability. We will never be afraid to reveal the actions of powerful leaders, even in the face of intimidation or the threat of litigation. And we will always stand up for Mississippians who deserve to know the truth, and our journalists will continue working to catalyze justice for people in this state who are otherwise cheated, overlooked, or ignored.

We appreciate your support, and we are honored to serve you with the high quality, public service journalism you’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today.

READ MORE: Judge Bradley Mills’ order dismissing the case

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s brief in support of motion to dismiss

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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