Mississippi Today
Health care bills to watch in the 2024 Mississippi legislative session
Editor’s note: This list will be updated throughout the legislative session. It was last updated on Feb. 9.
Somewhere around 3,000 bills are expected to be filed for the 2024 session of the Mississippi Legislature. Likely only a third or so will become law. The deadline for introducing general bills and constitutional amendments is Feb. 19. Taxing and spending bills face later deadlines, with the session scheduled to end on May 5.
Mississippi health care — including the intertwined crises of hundreds of thousands of uninsured people and hospitals facing financial disaster — is front and center with lawmakers this year.
Here are some bills filed to date to address health care issues.
Scope of practice, facilities
Senate Bill 2064, authored by Sen. Angela Burks Hill, R-Picayune, would repeal the state’s certificate of need law. CON laws require health care providers to get permission from the state before adding or expanding some healthcare facilities or services. Proponents, including many hospital leaders, say they help control costs, ensure quality of care and availability of services such as emergency rooms. Opponents, including Gov. Tate Reeves, say they stifle free-market competition.
Senate Bill 2140, authored by Sen. J. Walter Michel, R-Ridgeland, would streamline “prior authorization,” the process by which insurance companies decide which medications and procedures are covered for consumers. It already passed unanimously in the Senate, and with a few revisions, also passed unanimously in the House. It will now go back to the Senate for approval of the revisions. But a similar prior authorization bill passed the Legislature last year, only to be vetoed by Gov. Reeves.
Senate Bill 2080, authored by Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, seeks to introduce the state’s first licensed midwifery program. As it stands, anyone can practice midwifery in Mississippi, but those who want certification have to go out of state — meaning Mississippi, a state riddled with health care deserts and the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, loses out on provider care.
Senate Bill 2079, authored by Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, would abolish nurse practitioner collaboration agreements. These agreements are financial contracts whereby NPs who want to practice in Mississippi must pay a physician with whom they are “in collaboration” with. These contracts can be expensive and sometimes have distance limitations, meaning rural areas lose out on care because NPs aren’t allowed to practice too far from their collaborating physicians — who are mostly based in urban areas.
House Bill 976 by Rep. Manly Barton, R-Moss Point, would expand podiatrists’ scope of practice to allow them to perform ankle surgeries, bringing Mississippi’s law in line with 48 other states.
Medicaid
House Bill 539, authored by Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, introduces presumptive eligibility for pregnant women. It passed the full House 117-5 last week and now advances to the Senate. If passed, it would allow low-income pregnant women to receive timely prenatal care while they wait for their Medicaid application to be officially approved — which can sometimes take months. Senate Medicaid Chair Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, has voiced his support of the policy, calling it a “serious issue for a lot of us on this side.”
Lawmakers are expected to address Medicaid expansion to cover the working poor, and several bills have already been filed, but the bills that will actually be used and debated are likely still forthcoming.
Reproductive health and rights
House Bill 32, authored by Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, would direct the Mississippi State Department of Health to have a nurse practitioner available at each county health department at least one day a week to provide and prescribe contraception. The bill would also mandate that contraception be made affordable on a sliding scale, and that it be made available to minors who are parents, married, have the permission of their parent or legal guardian, or have been referred for the service by another physician, nurse practitioner, clergyman, family planning clinic, school or institution of higher learning, or any state agency.
Senate Bill 2163, by Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, would establish legal protections and rights for the parents of children born via surrogacy and in vitro fertilization.
Mental health
House Bill 336, by Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, would require counties to pay for psychiatric treatment for an indigent resident who has been ordered into treatment by a judge through the civil commitment process, if no publicly funded bed is available. It would cap the cost to the county at no more than the Medicaid reimbursement rate, and it would prohibit counties from jailing going through the commitment process someone solely because they lack a payor source.
House Bill 415, by Rep. Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi, would prohibit counties from jailing someone without criminal charges while they go through the civil commitment process unless they are awaiting transportation to a medical facility and it is necessary for protective custody. Any such jail detentions would be limited to 72 hours.
Read Mississippi Today’s coverage of jail detentions during the civil commitment process here.
House Bill 990, by Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, would create a tax on vape products and use the revenue to increase patient housing at the community mental health centers and to create a fund for the Department of Mental Health’s 988 Crisis Response System.
House Bill 1044, by Rep. Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, would provide for the establishment and licensure of long-term adult supportive residential facilities for people with mental illness, and would direct Medicaid to cover the services at such facilities.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1997
Dec. 22, 1997
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.
Mississippi Today
Medicaid expansion tracker approaches $1 billion loss for Mississippi
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.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1911
Dec. 21, 1911
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.
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