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‘I can’t figure it out’: Another hospital leaves the state hospital association. Its leader is flummoxed.

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On the heels of several major hospitals departing the Mississippi Hospital Association, the organization’s leader is baffled.

The hospitals’ move comes shortly after the association’s political action committee made a $250,000 contribution to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Brandon Presley, an outspoken proponent of Medicaid expansion.

The state’s largest public hospital system, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, announced in a letter on April 28 that it was leaving the MHA. Days later, three more hospitals — Singing River on the coast, Gulfport’s Memorial Hospital and George County Regional in Lucedale — followed suit.

Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg on Monday became the most recent hospital to leave the organization, as first reported by Magnolia Tribune.

The PAC made the donation – the largest it has ever made – in late April, MHA Executive Director Tim Moore said.

Forrest General’s termination letter said the departure was fueled by “recent events,” while the other four hospitals cited concerns with MHA leadership.

Moore said donating to Presley’s campaign was recommended by the MHA’s board of governors, who are administrators of member hospitals elected by MHA members.

“We all have had these discussions for a number of years now that we support candidates that support hospitals, and here is a candidate that is coming very strongly forward with a complete health care agenda,” Moore said. “It was certainly not just … it was not my decision.”

Presley, a Democrat, is running against incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in the 2023 statewide elections. While Reeves has been an active opponent of Medicaid expansion, Presley has vowed to expand Medicaid if he’s elected governor.

Moore, who’s led the MHA for nearly 10 years, suspects the donation was a catalyst. The hospitals’ departures have left him in disbelief, he said.

“There’s nothing else that has changed. Nothing,” he said in an interview with Mississippi Today last week. “Our strategy has not changed.”

Mississippi hospitals as a whole are struggling amid the pandemic, when labor and operating costs skyrocketed. The struggle is most apparent in the state’s rural hospitals — about a third are at risk of closure.

Experts say Medicaid expansion would bring in millions to Mississippi and insure an additional 200,000 to 300,000 Mississippians. State leaders such as Gov. Tate Reeves, the incumbent candidate, have remained opposed to the policy change, though most Mississippians and lawmakers support it.

“How can anybody blame the hospital association for committing upfront to somebody that has committed to helping hospitals and patients across the state? How can you condemn that?” Moore said. “I can’t figure it out.”

Multiple requests for comment to George County Regional Hospital went unanswered. Spokespeople for UMMC, Singing River, Forrest and Memorial said that hospital administration had no further comment on their decisions to leave the MHA.

A connection to Reeves is clear for at least one hospital.

Memorial’s CEO Kent Nicaud has consistently been one of Reeves’ top donors, leading to an appointment to the state gaming commission earlier this year. Reeves also appointed Nicaud’s wife, Jenny, as an administrative law judge for the Mississippi Workers Compensation Commission in 2021.

While expansion isn’t a silver bullet, experts agree that it would go a long way to increasing the financial viability of Mississippi’s struggling hospitals. Moore previously said that the state’s hospitals run up about $600 million annually in uncompensated care costs.

Moore said that it’s difficult to imagine any hospital CEO in Mississippi as an opponent of Medicaid expansion because of the vast financial benefits.

“It is a good policy, a fair one,” Moore said. “It’s good for the state of Mississippi. It’s good for the patients. It’s good for the providers. It’s an economic stimulus. It just goes on and on. And there’s just no logical reason not to be trying to move forward.

“While I’m sitting in this seat, I’m nonpartisan. I’m looking for folks that will support our hospitals and providers to take care of patients.”

Michael Beyer, Presley’s communications director, said Presley was proud to have earned the support of the MHA and if elected, would work to “end Tate Reeves’ hospital crisis.”

“Tate Reeves needs to answer why there is always enough taxpayer money for pet projects for his celebrity friends and personal trainer but never enough to solve his hospital crisis, which has left many rural hospitals across the state scrambling to keep their lights on and 220,000 working Mississippians without healthcare,” Beyer said in a statement.

Shelby Wilcher, Reeves’ press secretary, said the Governor’s office “does not have any comment on MHA’s internal affairs.”

The MHA, a member of the American Hospital Association, represents the interests of Mississippi’s hospitals and advocates for health care policy change, including Medicaid expansion. They also offer services to member hospitals, like a health information exchange program and educational courses. According to its website, the MHA comprises over 100 hospitals, health care systems and other providers, as well as over 50,000 employees.

While the PAC operates as a separate organization from the MHA, it answers to the same board. And Moore serves on the board, as well as director of both organizations.

Moore said during the nearly 100 years that the MHA has represented the state’s hospitals, hospitals have rotated in and out of the organization, but those departures have not been publicized.

“Hopefully at some point we can reconcile whatever differences these are with members that have become dissatisfied or whatever has been the confusion, because I will say I’ve been extremely disappointed as to how these were handled,” Moore said.

Whether or not hospitals are members of the MHA, they reap the benefits of the changes the organization advocates for, he said, but it’s harder to convince state lawmakers to make policy changes when the hospitals are fractured.

“In a state like Mississippi, with small geography and a relatively small population … if you break them up into segments, you have a much more difficult job in trying to unify the industry and come in one voice,” he said. “If you implement another association … they tend to undermine each other.”

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1939, Billie Holiday recorded ‘Strange Fruit’

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-20 07:00:00

April 20, 1939

Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” about the lynchings of Black Americans.

Legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday stepped into a Fifth Avenue studio and recorded “Strange Fruit,” a song written by Jewish civil rights activist Abel Meeropol, a high school English teacher upset about the lynchings of Black Americans — more than 6,400 between 1865 and 1950. 

Meeropol and his wife had adopted the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were orphaned after their parents’ executions for espionage. 

Holiday was drawn to the song, which reminded her of her father, who died when a hospital refused to treat him because he was Black. Weeks earlier, she had sung it for the first time at the Café Society in New York City. When she finished, she didn’t hear a sound. 

“Then a lone person began to clap nervously,” she wrote in her memoir. “Then suddenly everybody was clapping.” 

The song sold more than a million copies, and jazz writer Leonard Feather called it “the first significant protest in words and music, the first unmuted cry against racism.” 

After her 1959 death, both she and the song went into the Grammy Hall of Fame, Time magazine called “Strange Fruit” the song of the century, and the British music publication Q included it among “10 songs that actually changed the world.” 

David Margolick traces the tune’s journey through history in his book, “Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Biography of a Song.” Andra Day won a Golden Globe for her portrayal of Holiday in the film, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”

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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Mississippi Today

Mississippians are asked to vote more often than people in most other states

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Mississippians are asked to vote more often than people in most other states

mississippitoday.org – @BobbyHarrison9 – 2025-04-20 06:00:00

Not long after many Mississippi families celebrate Easter, they will be returning to the polls to vote in municipal party runoff elections.

The party runoff is April 22.

A year does not pass when there is not a significant election in the state. Mississippians have the opportunity to go to the polls more than voters in most — if not all — states.

In Mississippi, do not worry if your candidate loses because odds are it will not be long before you get to pick another candidate and vote in another election.

Mississippians go to the polls so much because it is one of only five states nationwide where the elections for governor and other statewide and local offices are held in odd years. In Mississippi, Kentucky and Louisiana, the election for governor and other statewide posts are held the year after the federal midterm elections. For those who might be confused by all the election lingo, the federal midterms are the elections held two years after the presidential election. All 435 members of the U.S. House and one-third of the membership of the U.S. Senate are up for election during every midterm. In Mississippi, there also are important judicial elections that coincide with the federal midterms.

Then the following year after the midterms, Mississippians are asked to go back to the polls to elect a governor, the seven other statewide offices and various other local and district posts.

Two states — Virginia and New Jersey — are electing governors and other state and local officials this year, the year after the presidential election.

The elections in New Jersey and Virginia are normally viewed as a bellwether of how the incumbent president is doing since they are the first statewide elections after the presidential election that was held the previous year. The elections in Virginia and New Jersey, for example, were viewed as a bad omen in 2021 for then-President Joe Biden and the Democrats since the Republican in the swing state of Virginia won the Governor’s Mansion and the Democrats won a closer-than-expected election for governor in the blue state of New Jersey.

With the exception of Mississippi, Louisiana, Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey, all other states elect most of their state officials such as governor, legislators and local officials during even years — either to coincide with the federal midterms or the presidential elections.

And in Mississippi, to ensure that the democratic process is never too far out of sight and mind, most of the state’s roughly 300 municipalities hold elections in the other odd year of the four-year election cycle — this year.

The municipal election impacts many though not all Mississippians. Country dwellers will have no reason to go to the polls this year except for a few special elections. But in most Mississippi municipalities, the offices for mayor and city council/board of aldermen are up for election this year.

Jackson, the state’s largest and capital city, has perhaps the most high profile runoff election in which state Sen. John Horhn is challenging incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba in the Democratic primary.

Mississippi has been electing its governors in odd years for a long time. The 1890 Mississippi Constitution set the election for governor for 1895 and “every four years thereafter.”

There is an argument that the constant elections in Mississippi wears out voters, creating apathy resulting in lower voter turnout compared to some other states.

Turnout in presidential elections is normally lower in Mississippi than the nation as a whole. In 2024, despite the strong support for Republican Donald Trump in the state, 57.5% of registered voters went to the polls in Mississippi compared to the national average of 64%, according to the United States Elections Project.

In addition, Mississippi Today political reporter Taylor Vance theorizes that the odd year elections for state and local officials prolonged the political control for Mississippi Democrats. By 1948, Mississippians had started to vote for a candidate other than the Democrat for president. Mississippians began to vote for other candidates — first third party candidates and then Republicans — because of the national Democratic Party’s support of civil rights.

But because state elections were in odd years, it was easier for Mississippi Democrats to distance themselves from the national Democrats who were not on the ballot and win in state and local races.

In the modern Mississippi political environment, though, Republicans win most years — odd or even, state or federal elections. But Democrats will fare better this year in municipal elections than they do in most other contests in Mississippi, where the elections come fast and often.

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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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1977, Alex Haley awarded Pulitzer for ‘Roots’

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On this day in 1977, Alex Haley awarded Pulitzer for 'Roots'

mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-04-19 07:00:00

April 19, 1977

Alex Haley was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize for “Roots,” which was also adapted for television. 

Network executives worried that the depiction of the brutality of the slave experience might scare away viewers. Instead, 130 million Americans watched the epic miniseries, which meant that 85% of U.S. households watched the program. 

The miniseries received 36 Emmy nominations and won nine. In 2016, the History Channel, Lifetime and A&E remade the miniseries, which won critical acclaim and received eight Emmy nominations.

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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