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‘Moral imperative’: House overwhelmingly passes Mississippi Medicaid expansion

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Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative leaders, passed the House Wednesday 98-20 in less than 15 minutes and now advances to the Senate.

House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, explained the policy as a “moral imperative” and said it “should transcend politics.” She also said that lawmakers have yet to propose a viable alternative to expansion to deal with Mississippi’s lack of health care access and poor health outcomes and that “‘No’ is not a policy that has helped.”

No questions followed McGee’s explanation of House Bill 1725. The bill passed with more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a potential veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, who for years has opposed Medicaid expansion and reiterated his opposition multiple times during his successful reelection campaign last year.

The measure now heads to the Senate, which is also working on its own version of an expansion bill, as lawmakers consider making Mississippi the 41st state to expand Medicaid.

Authored by new House Speaker Jason White, R-West, and McGee, the bill would expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level or about $20,000 annually for an individual. The bill contains a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid expansion, but states that the expansion would go into effect even if the federal government does not approve the work requirement.

“Finding affordable access to health care is not only compassionate, but it is a smart investment in our workforce,” White said in a press conference after the floor vote. “As this bill is transmitted to the Senate for their consideration, I want to acknowledge that they, too, are drafting legislation that will provide health care accessibility options … Today we have sent them a conservative plan that addresses our shared goal to provide health care coverage for hardworking, low-income Mississippians.”

White expressed optimism the governor would sign the bill, saying he believed Reeves recognizes the importance of expanding health care access. Reeves has vehemently opposed Medicaid expansion, calling it “welfare” and “Obamacare.”

“A healthy workforce projects to a healthy economy,” White said. “… I’m not anticipating a veto at this point. I’m anticipating a business-minded, reasonable governor who weighs all options and all things and I think he is just that — in spite of what others may think.”

McGee in the press conference said: “Moving beyond a decade of simply saying ‘no’ to finding a workable solution to health access takes effort. But it’s a task I believe lawmakers from both parties in both chambers are up for … Most importantly I’m excited about the hundreds of thousands of working Mississippians that now and in the future could have a way toward a better, healthier quality of life.”

The federal government pays 90% of the cost for those covered by Medicaid expansion. Various studies have concluded Medicaid expansion in Mississippi would be a boon for the state economy and provide health care coverage for about 200,000 Mississippians — primarily the working poor. For the first four years, there is projected to be no cost to the state because of $600 million in additional federal funds, offered as an incentive to expand Medicaid.

The bill also has a built-in repealer, meaning the program would automatically end after four years — unless the Legislature chooses to renew it. This likely made it more palatable to Republicans on the fence.

McGee called it a “free pilot program” during a committee meeting and said “if it doesn’t work out, if we decide that our health outcomes have not improved, if it costs too much for the state, if for any reason we do not believe that it is doing the things that we want it to do, the program will simply repeal in 2029.”

Unlike the proposal Senate leaders say they are crafting, the House bill would not make expansion contingent on the Biden administration approving the work requirement. That’s important, since during the Biden administration CMS has rescinded work requirement waivers previously granted under the Trump administration, and has not approved new ones.

Every lawmaker who voted against the measure was a Republican. Several of those lawmakers refused comment after the vote, including Reps. Greg Haney, R-Gulfport; Stacey Hobgood-Wilkes, R-Picayune and Timmy Ladner, R-Poplarville.

Rep. Bill Kinkade, R-Byhalia, voted against the expansion bill, but said that could change if the measure is improved.

“I’m not convinced that the work component is as solid as they are saying it is,” Kinkade said. “I think this is a step in the right direction, and the conversation is going in the right direction on what we are trying to accomplish, but I was just not ready to vote for this measure right now. The narrative has got to change.”

Rep. Jill Ford, R-Madison, said, “It was an easy No vote for me … I represent one of the most conservative constituencies in the state, and my constituents do not support this. This was not about me. It was about the will of my constituents.”

On the other end of the spectrum, all the Democrats in the House, such as House minority leader Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, voted for the proposal.

“I kind of felt like it was going to be a great day,” Johnson said. Driving to the Capitol Wednesday morning, he said, he reminisced with former House Democrat leader Bobby Moak about how long they had been working to expand Medicaid.

While Johnson said he wished the bill included components of the House Democrats’ plan to provide more private insurance options for people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid expansion, he said he told his fellow Democrats he would vote for the Republican bill and believed that it would help thousands of Mississippians.

Tamara Grace Butler-Washington, D-Jackson, is a freshman House member who worked years ago for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program touting the need for Mississippi to expand Medicaid.

“It is a momentous occasion, especially for a freshman legislator to see this, knowing for how long it has been an issue,” she said.

Both Johnson and Butler-Washington praised the leadership of the House for passage of the bill.

Speaker White acknowledged his House colleagues for the overwhelming vote, his Republican colleagues for “strong support on an issue we have neglected for so long,” and the Senate for also drafting expansion legislation.

“In most uncomfortable times is where we make our best marks,” White said at the conclusion of the press conference.

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

Mississippi Today

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

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

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

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

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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Meet Willye B. White: A Mississippian we should all celebrate

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mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-04-04 11:09:00

In an interview years and years ago, the late Willye B. White told me in her warm, soothing Delta voice, “A dream without a plan is just a wish. As a young girl, I had a plan.”

She most definitely did have a plan. And she executed said plan, as we shall see.

And I know what many readers are thinking: “Who the heck was Willye B. White?” That, or: “Willye B. White, where have I heard that name before?”

Rick Cleveland

Well, you might have driven an eight-mile, flat-as-a-pancake stretch of U.S. 49E, between Sidon and Greenwood, and seen the marker that says: “Willye B. White Memorial Highway.” Or you might have visited the Olympic Room at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and seen where White was a five-time participant and two-time medalist in the Summer Olympics as a jumper and a sprinter.

If you don’t know who Willye B. White was, you should. Every Mississippian should. So pour yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea, follow along and prepare to be inspired.

Willye B. White was born on the last day of 1939 in Money, near Greenwood, and was raised by grandparents. As a child, she picked cotton to help feed her family. When she wasn’t picking cotton, she was running, really fast, and jumping, really high and really long distances.

She began competing in high school track and field meets at the age of 10. At age 11, she scored enough points in a high school meet to win the competition all by herself. At age 16, in 1956, she competed in the Summer Olympics at Melbourne, Australia.

Her plan then was simple. The Olympics, on the other side of the world, would take place in November. “I didn’t know much about the Olympics, but I knew that if I made the team and I went to the Olympics, I wouldn’t have to pick cotton that year. I was all for that.”

Just imagine. You are 16 years old, a high school sophomore, a poor Black girl. You are from Money, Mississippi, and you walk into the stadium at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds to compete before a crowd of more than 100,000 strangers nearly 10,000 miles from your home.

She competed in the long jump. She won the silver medal to become the first-ever American to win a medal in that event. And then she came home to segregated Mississippi, to little or no fanfare. This was the year after Emmett Till, a year younger than White, was brutally murdered just a short distance from where she lived.

“I used to sit in those cotton fields and watch the trains go by,” she once told an interviewer. “I knew they were going to some place different, some place into the hills and out of those cotton fields.”

Her grandfather had fought in France in World War I. “He told me about all the places he saw,” White said. “I always wanted to travel and see the places he talked about.”

Travel, she did. In the late 1950s there were two colleges that offered scholarships to young, Black female track and field athletes. One was Tuskegee in Alabama, the other was Tennessee State in Nashville. White chose Tennessee State, she said, “because it was the farthest away from those cotton fields.”

She was getting started on a track and field career that would take her, by her own count, to 150 different countries across the globe. She was the best female long jumper in the U.S. for two decades. She competed in Olympics in Melbourne, Rome, Tokyo, Mexico City and Munich. She would compete on more than 30 U.S. teams in international events. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named her one of the top 100 female athletes of the 20th century.

Chicago became White’s home for most of adulthood. This was long before Olympic athletes were rich, making millions in endorsements and appearance fees. She needed a job, so she became a nurse. Later on, she became an public health administrator as well as a coach. She created the Willye B. White Foundation to help needy children with health and after school care. 

In 1982, at age 42, she returned to Mississippi to be inducted into the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and was welcomed back to a reception at the Governor’s Mansion by Gov. William Winter, who introduced her during induction ceremonies. Twenty-six years after she won the silver medal at Melbourne, she called being hosted and celebrated by the governor of her home state “the zenith of her career.”

Willye B. White died of pancreatic cancer in a Chicago hospital in 2007. While working on an obituary/column about her, I talked to the late, great Ralph Boston, the three-time Olympic long jump medalist from Laurel. They were Tennessee State and U.S. Olympic teammates. They shared a healthy respect from one another, and Boston clearly enjoyed talking about White.

At one point, Ralph asked me, “Did you know Willye B. had an even more famous high school classmate.”

No, I said, I did not.

“Ever heard of Morgan Freeman?” Ralph said, laughing.

Of course.

“I was with Morgan one time and I asked him if he ever ran track,” Ralph said, already chuckling about what would come next.

“Morgan said he did not run track in high school because he knew if he ran, he’d have to run against Willye B. White, and Morgan said he didn’t want to lose to a girl.”

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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