Mississippi Today
Is Mississippi Medicaid stalling on timely health care for Mississippi moms?
After the head of Mississippi Medicaid said his agency needed more time to research a policy that would make it easier for poor moms to receive timely health care, a medical advisory board said it would meet in January to decide whether to recommend that the Legislature establish it.ย
However, with just a few days left this month, the committee has not met. And documents show the board and agency have been aware of the policy, presumptive eligibility for pregnant women, for months if not years.
The state Medicaid director, Drew Snyder, and CEO of Memorial Health System, Kent Nicaud, thwarted efforts at the Mississippi Medical Care Advisory Committee’s December meeting to make a decision on recommending pregnancy presumptive eligibility.
Pregnancy presumptive eligibility allows people to receive health care when they’re pregnant, even if they’re not on Medicaid because it’s presumed that they qualify. It makes receiving timely health care easier, which is an important part of safe pregnancies and deliveries. In Mississippi, most births are covered by Medicaid.
According to Mississippi Medicaid, a person can qualify by attesting they are pregnant, but many doctors and expecting people are under the impression a pregnancy test from a health care provider is required to be covered. Some doctors won’t see patients without health insurance, and for those people who can get appointments with Medicaid coverage, they have to pay out-of-pocket until their Medicaid application is approved.
The Mississippi Medical Care Advisory Committee, composed of 11 people appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House, advises the Division of Medicaid.
Though lawmakers say they will move forward on pregnancy presumptive eligibility regardless of any bureaucratic impasse, the committee is influential. Last year, its recommendation to the Legislature to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage was instrumental in its passage.
At the December meeting, two doctors presented research showing that presumptive eligibility for pregnant women would positively impact perinatal health in Mississippi.
The latest maternal mortality report shows Mississippi is still one of the most dangerous places in the country to give birth, and one of just three states that has neither expanded Medicaid nor established presumptive eligibility for pregnant women. Research shows that preterm births are less likely for low-income people when they live in a state with presumptive eligibility and expanded Medicaid.
However, Snyder, a lawyer reappointed to his position by Gov. Tate Reeves, suggested at the meeting that his agency needed more time to research the policy. Nicaud, one of Reeves’ top donors, then pushed for a January meeting to discuss presumptive eligibility.
โTwenty minutes of discussion from two presenters is not enough on this complex issue,โ Snyder said at the meeting.
But documents show that the Division of Medicaid has had ample time to research presumptive eligibility for pregnant women.
Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, emailed officials from the board and Medicaid on August 31, 2023, a records request revealed.
โI have come to believe presumptive eligibility would be very beneficial for health outcomes for both expectant mothers and babies in our State,โ she wrote. โI am contacting you today to request the Medical Advisory Board for Medicaid offer an opinion on this issue and to ask you to add this to your agenda in a coming meeting. Your opinion would be very helpful as we begin preparations for the 2024 legislative session.โ
The board has been hearing about this measure long before McGee’s August email.
Dr. Anita Henderson, a pediatrician from Hattiesburg and one of the presenting doctors at the December meeting, told committee members about pregnancy presumptive eligibility’s benefits at a meeting in 2022, and again in 2023.
And the approval of presumptive eligibility for pregnant women is recommended in a report released by the Mississippi State Department of Health in January 2023.
โState leaders can facilitate early initiation in prenatal care by implementing presumed eligibility for Medicaid or expanding Medicaid such that people enter pregnancy with necessary insurance and primary care,โ the 2017-2019 Maternity Mortality Report reads.
It’s not clear whether Medicaid has the power to establish presumptive eligibility on its own or the policy needs legislative action. Snyder has said previously that the Division of Medicaid wouldn’t utilize pregnancy presumptive eligibility unless directed to by the Legislature.
The board’s next meeting has not been scheduled โ the current board members’ terms expired at the beginning of the year.
โOnce new appointments are made, the Division of Medicaid will facilitate the scheduling of the next meeting,โ said Matt Westerfield, spokesperson for the Division. It’s not clear when new committee members will be selected.
Regardless of the committee’s actions, McGee, who was recently named chair of the House Medicaid committee, has once again introduced legislation this session to establish pregnancy presumptive eligibility.
โI believe we have strong support for this measure in the Mississippi House and look forward to taking it up in the weeks to come,โ she said.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: โIt was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.โ
A federal grand jury concluded: โFraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Todayโs NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
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Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday lifeโwhether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.
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We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction โoverly broadโ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ โ especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
โBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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