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Republicans vowed a robust post-Roe agenda. Here’s how it’s going.

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Republicans vowed a robust post-Roe agenda. Here’s how it’s going.

After leading the charge to overturn Roe v. Wade and outlaw abortion in Mississippi, Republican leaders promised to address the inevitable fallout and prioritize support to pregnant women and babies.

Yet many bills filed this legislative session to strengthen the social safety net, fund child care for low-income parents and increase access to resources like contraceptives have all died before lawmakers had a chance to vote on them.

While debate rages over the most visible piece of legislation to improve outcomes for expectant moms, postpartum Medicaid coverage, the help pledged by Mississippi’s politicians in the wake of Roe extends far beyond health care. It considers financial and economic stability, improved public assistance policies, family stabilization, streamlined adoption processes and more.

Gov. Tate Reeves has called this an “ambitious new pro-life agenda.” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who historically defended Mississippi’s abortion ban in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization before the U.S. Supreme Court, described her mission to “support the whole life and the whole woman.” Speaker of the House Philip Gunn called it “an opportunity to lead the nation in protecting, promoting, and supporting life.”

The programs and initiatives, many of them at the discretion of the Legislature, aim to ensure that women who feel unprepared to become mothers are supported and have access to resources to successfully care for their child. They also try to address the reality that these unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and births could result in more children in the state’s plagued foster care system, without homes or families.

For Republicans, these goals are met by funding private pregnancy centers, typically faith-based organizations focused on anti-abortion advocacy as opposed to professional social work; cracking down on child support enforcement; and making it easier for people who do not want to be parents to give up their children for adoption.

More Democratic lawmakers and family advocates believe these objectives would be better accomplished by expanding Medicaid; reforming the state’s welfare agency; increasing workforce development and workplace protections for women; and funding more child care vouchers for low-income parents. Most of this legislation died without a vote, including more than 15 bills introduced to expand Medicaid.

There is one niche but impactful policy change that both Reeves and advocates for low-income families support: to remove the child support enforcement requirement within the child care voucher program. Mississippi’s Child Care Payment Program, which provides child care vouchers to low-income working families, is funded by the annual federal Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and administered by the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Mississippi’s child care block grant was about $94 million in 2023.

The Legislature has not proposed legislation to do this, but legal experts say that because the requirement is not mandated by state or federal statute, Mississippi Department of Human Services could make the rule change on its own.

Reeves has also thrown his support behind new child care tax credits, increased corporate tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers and a special partnership with an adoption agency called Lifeline Children’s Services.

“We must be willing to prove that being pro-life is not simply being anti-abortion,” Reeves said on the Paul Gallo Show on conservative talk radio network SuperTalk on Jan. 11. “Because of that we’ve initiated a very aggressive new pro-life agenda in our state. We’ve proposed establishing child tax credits for child care, increasing the first of its kind across America pregnancy resource center tax credit. We want to partner with Lifeline Children’s Services to ensure that we’re helping the moms and newborn babies.”

Mississippi Today compiled and analyzed more than 60 pieces of legislation that could satisfy politicians’ stated post-Roe agenda. Twenty-six were still alive by early February after the first round of legislative deadlines for general bills.

Access to resources

Republicans are looking to crisis pregnancy centers as the primary support system for women facing an unplanned pregnancy.

House Bill 468, introduced by Gunn, R-Clinton, would increase an existing tax credit for corporations who donate to pregnancy centers from an annual aggregate total of $3.5 million to $10 million. While lawmakers have not taken action on the bill, it remains alive because it is considered a revenue bill, which lawmakers don’t have to take up until a Feb. 22 deadline.

The tax credit, which Gov. Reeves supports, was initially created by legislation last year.

Only centers that align themselves with the statewide organization Choose Life Mississippi, run by ardent anti-abortion activist Terri Herring, are eligible for the tax credit. But the companies that benefit from the program are a mystery – the Mississippi Department of Revenue does not release a list of those that claimed the credit.

Reeves also supports direct taxpayer contributions to these centers.

House Bill 983, which died in committee, would have created the Pregnancy Resources Grant Program under the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services to award competitive grants to crisis pregnancy centers. A separate appropriations bill to fund the CPS grant program, House Bill 1546, is still alive.

Senate Bill 2781 would create the Mississippi Access to Maternal Assistance Program within the Mississippi State Department of Health. The program would serve as a resource hub, coordinating and promoting information about services for expectant mothers, such as adoption assistance, child care, domestic abuse protection, early intervention, food, clothing, job training and placement, paternity, parenting skills, prenatal and postpartum care. That bill is still alive.

Other bills to actually pump resources through the health department, instead of just coordinating them, died. House Bill 1085 and House Bill 506 would have required a nurse practitioner to be present at each of the county health departments weekly to provide contraceptive supplies, either for free or on a sliding fee scale. House Bill 1263 would have required county health departments to provide free menstrual hygiene products. House Bill 1372 would have added a line item to the health department’s budget for funding to the Child Advocacy Centers, community-based resource centers for children and mothers experiencing abuse, which have recently faced large budget cuts. None of these bills received noticeable attention.

Economic health

Opponents to legal abortion have also acknowledged the need to improve the economic position of mothers, as well as people who choose to adopt.

One policy that national advocates have recommended for years – a state Earned Income Tax Credit – would provide an income boost to low-income working Mississippians. State Auditor Shad White, who investigated the welfare scandal, supports the tax credit and said the state could use welfare funds to implement the program at no new cost to the state.

“Economists agree that EITCs are one of the best ways to improve the economy and help working people,” White wrote in a column last year. “The EITC would directly attack a critical problem facing the state. More people working means stronger families, more tax revenue, and a better economy. Policymakers should put money into the hands of working people and get Mississippi moving forward.”

The Mississippi Legislature has routinely ignored any legislation to start offering a state Earned Income Tax Credit, which models an existing tax credit on the federal side.

House Bill 321 and Senate Bill 2897, both authored by Democrats, are the two Earned Income Tax Credit bills before the Legislature this year.

Other bills introduced by Republicans to create tax credits for child care and adoption expenses might have an easier road ahead this session.

House Bill 130, House Bill 322 and Senate Bill 2898 would provide a new income tax credit to parents for child care expenses.

“As long as we have an income tax, we should use it to incentivize the responsible raising of children,” Reeves wrote in his budget recommendation. “These policy changes are tangible ways to reduce the costs of raising a family in America today.”

Similarly, House Bill 1268 and Senate Bill 2696, which passed the Senate, would increase tax credits for adoptive parents to pay for adoption-related expenses.

Fitch supports House Bill 505 and Senate Bill 2335, which incentivize employers to offer additional benefits to parents. House Bill 505 provides tax credits to employers who provide maternity and paternity leave for its employees and Senate Bill 2335 provides tax credits to employers who pay for their employees’ child care.

All of these are considered revenue bills, so they are still alive, awaiting the later deadline.

Two bills to strengthen women’s standing in the workforce – the Mississippi Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the Mississippi Paid Family Leave Act – died without consideration.

House Bill 1361 would have prohibited employers from discriminating against women because they are pregnant, and Senate Bill 2286 would have required employers with more than 50 employees to offer 12 weeks of paid leave for childbirth.

Mississippi has among the lowest wages and median household income of any state in the country. Minimum wage in the state, which follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25, has not increased since 2009.

Seven bills to increase the minimum wage – House Bill 96, House Bill 323, House Bill 583, House Bill 810, Senate Bill 2284, Senate Bill 2288 and Senate Bill 2439 – died without a vote.

Welfare policies

Following revelations about widespread abuse within Mississippi’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, or welfare, Democratic lawmakers filed several reforms to the Mississippi Department of Human Services.

Currently, Mississippi has over $100 million in TANF funds sitting idle. The department has not answered repeated questions from Mississippi Today about how it plans to use the reserve.

  • House Bill 463, House Bill 774, Senate Bill 2794 would have moved tens of millions of the state’s annual TANF block grant to supplement the state’s child care voucher program, potentially providing child care to thousands of working parents who might not have it otherwise. The federal government allows states to use 30% of its block grant this way.
  • House Bill 1431, a perennial bill from Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, would have required the state to use unspent TANF funds on tuition and expenses for nursing students, simultaneously providing workforce training to low-income Mississippians and addressing the state’s nursing shortage.
  • House Bill 612 would have required the welfare agency to provide transportation and child care to TANF recipients, to assist them with completing the application process and participating in the required work program.
  • House Bill 613 would have limited TANF programs to serve people below 200% of the federal poverty line.
  • House Bill 502 would have increased the monthly TANF cash assistance by more than $200.
  • House Bill 970 would have prevented the state from using TANF funds for college scholarships to families who are not receiving TANF benefits. Historically, the state has reported its annual appropriations to the state’s scholarship programs as TANF spending in order to match the federal grant and pull down the funding. The effect of this is that money that should be going towards anti-poverty programs is actually being used to benefit middle-class families, Mississippi Today first reported in 2019.
  • House Bill 971 would have loosened eligibility for TANF, removing the upfront job search requirement, which presents significant barriers to applicants.
  • Senate Bill 2331 would have removed the requirement that single moms sue their child’s father for child support – the same restriction Reeves supports dismantling in the child care voucher program – in order to qualify for TANF or food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
  • Senate Bill 2806 would have removed the drug testing requirement from the TANF program.

Though all of these bills died without consideration, Democratic lawmakers took the opportunity to discuss these policies when a repealer bill for the Mississippi Department of Human Services – standard legislation that comes up every few years to extend the life of an agency – reached the Senate floor Tuesday.

While presenting his amendment to the repealer bill, Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, criticized MDHS for using $30 million in TANF funds each year to supplement the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, which he argued should be funded with state appropriations. This is just one example of how the state fails to use these dollars in the most effective way to fight poverty.

“It’s all legal but it’s wrong,” Blount said. “And we need to fix it.”

Blount’s amendment would have moved $30 million in TANF funds to the child care voucher program. Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, also introduced an amendment to remove the drug testing requirement for TANF applicants. Sen. Rod Hickman, D-Macon, noted the extremely low approval rate of TANF applications – as low as 2% in some years – when he introduced a bill that prohibits MDHS from denying assistance to families under 130% of the federal poverty level.

Republican senators killed all three amendments.

“The question posed by the amendments today is: In response to the biggest public scandal involving a state agency in the history of this state, what did the Legislature do? The answer expressed today is nothing. We do nothing. We make no changes,” Blount said. “That attitude is the reason we got in this problem in the first place, because it is the disregard for the politically powerless.”

Mississippi Department of Human Services Director Bob Anderson has asked the Legislature to make one important reform to the department to ensure it runs smoothly so that it can serve all eligible applicants: Remove the bureaucratic red tape created by the Medicaid and Human Services Transparency and Fraud Prevention Act, dubbed the HOPE Act, passed in 2017.

A bill this session to do this, House Bill 503, died.

Conversely, Republican lawmakers have filed bills to increase restrictions or make it harder still for low-income families to access public assistance.

Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, introduced a bill to require the welfare department to include photo identification on Electronic Benefit Transfer (known as “EBT”) cards — the cards recipients use to spend their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, benefits. The bill, which died, would have prevented more than two people in the family from being able to use the card.

Two other dead bills, filed by Sen. Melanie Sojourner, R-Natchez, would have prohibited TANF funds from going to people convicted of several felonies and require TANF recipients to participate in community services.

Child support & fatherhood

“The Republican Party Platform affirms ‘our moral obligation to assist, rather than penalize, women who face an unplanned pregnancy,” reads a 2022 column in the Hill co-authored by Fitch. “At the urging of then-Treasurer Lynn Fitch, the platform that stands today supports ‘legislation that requires financial responsibility for the child be equally borne by both the mother and father.’”

The strict ban on abortion has brought renewed attention to the state’s long-troubled child support program, which provides legal services to help separated custodial parents secure court orders against the noncustodial parent for monthly child support payments. Many of the single moms in the child support program are forced into the system as a condition for receiving public assistance from the state.

The enforcement side of the program, which is run by a private contractor, then helps enforce the order by locating the noncustodial parent, establishing paternity if necessary, garnishing wages, intercepting tax refunds, and in extreme cases, suspending driver’s licenses or filing criminal charges in the case of unpaid support.

(The child support privatization contract with Young Williams has come under scrutiny in recent years for failing to require that the contractor meet certain performance-based metrics, something MDHS says it solved in its existing contract. House Bill 177 would have eliminated the contract and brought the program back in-house. It died.)

Lawmakers filed several bills to tweak the child support program to, as Fitch said, “require fathers carry their equal share of the financial needs of childbearing and child-caring.”

  • House Bill 6, House Bill 1046, House Bill 1083, and Senate Bill 2385 would set up procedures to allow the child support enforcement program to intercept gambling winnings for unpaid child support.
  • House Bill 1114 would increase the cap of how much a person’s income goes towards child support. Currently, a person with five or more children under support orders must pay 26% of their income in child support payments. The bill would revise the law so that a person with six or more children pays 30% of their income. Reeves publicly supports this policy change.
  • House Bill 320 and House Bill 1117 would revise the law so that monthly child support payments begin when a woman becomes pregnant, instead of after birth. HB 1117 would also include prenatal and post-natal expenses as part of the order.
  • House Bill 1183 would require Mississippi Department of Human Services to publish the names and photos of people in child support arrearage.

All of these bills died.

The only bills to crack down on child support that remain alive are Senate Bill 2634, filed by Sen. Joey Fililngane, R-Sumrall, on behalf of Fitch’s office, and House Bill 1490 by Speaker Gunn.

Fillingane’s bill increases the statute of limitations for criminal charges against a person who refuses to pay child support. Currently, a person can be charged with desertion of a child if they are found to have wilfully neglected or refused to pay child support while the child is under 18. The bill would increase that age to 21 and also allow for charges to be pursued for three years after the child turns 21.

A nearly identical bill in the House, House Bill 1112, died.

Gunn’s bill requires the Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to suspend the license of any person who has not paid child support.

“For too many families, regular and reliable child support payments can be the difference between steady meals and going hungry,” Fitch wrote in her most recent column for World News Group last week. “As four out of five custodial parents are women, too often this falls heavily on the mother. Fathers simply must be held equally responsible for their children financially. Women have borne this burden alone for too long.

Legislation that takes a more punitive approach to child support collections – which some advocates warn may lead to the criminalization of poverty – appears to reverse the national trend.

In 2016, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement implemented a rule change that required states to enact safe guards so that before a parent is jailed for unpaid child support, there must be evidence that the parent has the funds and is willfully refusing to pay. The federal government gave states until 2022 to comply. The rule in part helps to ensure that states are following the 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Turner v. Rogers, which said states must determine whether a parent is able to pay the ordered child support before incarcerating them for nonpayment.

The 2016 rule also prohibits states from allowing child support debts to accrue while a parent is behind bars, but the practice still continues today. As a result of not complying, human services director Bob Anderson told lawmakers that Mississippi is at risk of losing its federal match for the operation of the child support enforcement program – about 66% of the program’s budget.

To deal with this, Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, introduced Senate Bill 2082, which suspends child support arrears from accruing when a person is in prison or involuntarily institutionalized for longer than 180 days. House Bill 1215 would do the same thing. Both are still alive.

Another bill that would have offered leniency to people dinged for not paying child support is Senate Bill 2218, introduced by Sen. Hill, which would have provided temporary driver’s licenses for the purpose of employment and worship to people whose licenses were suspended due to unpaid child support. That bill died.

National child support experts have long acknowledged that a punitive approach to child support collections is not necessarily the most beneficial for families. If a father loses his license or goes to jail, for example, he might lose his job, only making it less likely he’ll be able to make the monthly payment.

“It’s a very complex question when you’re trying to force a parent to do what he or she ought to do anyway. And you can’t legislate everything, but we try to do the best we can,” said Filingane. “Let’s take the example of the driver’s license being suspended. Well, then, if you’re gonna follow the law, and you no longer have a driver’s license, how do you expect that person to get to their job to earn the money to then turn around and pay the child support? … There’s all these sometimes unintended consequences that happen.”

“And when you criminalize behavior and you end up throwing them in jail, sometimes it does the trick,” he continued. “It’s fascinating that sometimes the person who swears up and down that he or she doesn’t have a hundred bucks to their name and can’t pay it cause they just don’t have it, they end up in jail and less than eight hours later it’s paid in full.”

The state’s efforts to either force or incentivize fathers to participate in child rearing extend beyond the child support program. But information about the efficacy of those efforts is lacking.

Every year for the last several years, Mississippi has spent anywhere from $9 million to $39 million in TANF funds on grants to “Fatherhood and Two Parent Family Formation” programs, according to federal reports, but the department does not provide much information about what those programs entail, nor does it gather any records to show what outcomes the programs achieved.

House Bill 1146, authored by Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven – the lawmaker who introduced the abortion ban that overturned Roe v. Wade – would have created the “Mississippi Fatherhood Initiative Fund” to distribute grants to local organizations providing parenting resources to fathers. The bill died.

Auditor White has placed a heavy focus on “fatherlessness” in recent months, releasing a report that aimed to demonstrate the cost of one-parent households on Mississippi taxpayers. One example: the report estimates that 50% of the state’s prison population are men who come from “fatherless” homes, and the state spends $180 million annually to incarcerate them. (A bill to provide workforce training to inmates, House Bill 640, died).

The report lays out the purported problem – positioning “fatherlessness” as the root cause of societal ills associated with poverty, as opposed to the other way around – but the proposed solutions are sparse.

White makes one recommendation: expand the JROTC military program in high schools across the state.

“Countless studies prove our communities and families — along with the average taxpayer — would benefit from strong, engaged fathers and father figures in the lives of Mississippi’s children,” the report reads. “One program interrupting the cycle of fatherlessness is the Junior Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (JROTC).”

White points to the 100% graduation rate of students in the program. The cost of expanding the program to all high schools is $185 million, according to White’s separate 2020 report on JROTC. There has been no legislation introduced this session to do this.

But there have been bills – House Bill 1360, House Bill 1413, House Bill 1414 and House Bill 1419 – to implement various high school dropout prevention and academic performance improvement programs in struggling districts. They all died without consideration.

Reeves supports at least one initiative in this arena: Placing career coaches in high schools across the state. His workforce cabinet began the program last year with $8 million in pandemic relief funding. Reeves recommends doubling it.

“These coaches will especially be directed toward low-income areas, helping to inspire young Mississippians with the abundance of pathways available for fulfilling careers,” Reeves said.

House Bill 274, authored by Speaker Gunn, would provide $12 million to the Office of Workforce Development, called Accelerate MS, to fund more coaches. The bill is still alive, awaiting the appropriations deadline.

Baby drop off, foster care, and adoption

After the Dobbs ruling, health professionals in Mississippi estimated that the state should prepare itself to handle an additional 5,000 births each year. There are already about 4,000 kids in the state’s foster care system – which is still under a decades-long federal court settlement because of its failure to properly care for kids in its care.

Reeves proposes several measures he believes will alleviate issues caused by unplanned births, including increasing the amount of time a parent is allowed to “drop off” a baby without facing consequences; increasing subsidies to adoptive parents; and making modest budget increases to the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services to hire more personnel and reduce adoption backlogs.

The court settlement, referred to as Olivia Y, has required Mississippi to periodically increase the public subsidy foster families receive to care for foster children. But the state failed to make similar increases to the adoption subsidy, meaning families are facing a scenario where it makes more financial sense to foster than to adopt.

“It creates an artificial incentive for courts to keep children in state custody for the sole purpose of making sure that family has adequate funding to take care of the child,” Child Protection Services Commissioner Andrea Sanders said at a Legislative appropriations hearing last month.

She asked for an additional $12 million appropriation to fund increases to the adoption subsidy, as recommended by Reeves.

House Bill 510 would create versions of a “Foster Parents Bill of Rights and Responsibilities,” adding several provisions to existing statute that give foster care parents the opportunity to participate in various areas of the child’s care, including communicating with the child’s school, doctors, guardian ad litem, and others. The Senate version of the bill, Senate Bill 2191, which died, would have also required the court to notify the attorney general’s office when changes to a child’s long-term care plan occur.

House Bill 533, which is alive in the house, and Senate Bill 2611, which died, were introduced to ease requirements for parents seeking adoption in hopes to hasten the process. Instead of a compulsory home study before a child is placed for adoption, the bills would leave it up to a judge to determine if a home study is necessary. Additionally, Gunn’s House Bill 1342 would create the “Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Adoption Licensure Authority” to regulate adoptions in the state and add new adoption procedures to state statute.

Senate Bill 2377 would enact the Mississippi Safe Haven Law, adding exhaustive measures to the existing statute, spelling out step-by-step the process for a parent to relinquish her child to an emergency medical services provider. This law, as well as House Bill 244, would increase the age a baby may be relinquished from seven days to 30 days. House Bill 1318, which passed the full house, takes this a step further, increasing the age to 90 days. If enacted, Mississippi would have one of the most lenient Safe Haven Laws in the nation with the exception of New Mexico (90 days) and North Dakota (one year), according to a 2021 Charlotte Lozier Institute analysis.

House Bill 634, which died, would have removed the age limit altogether and added “baby box” to the list of allowed drop-off destinations.

Children removed from their families often face challenges into adulthood. A bill to waive tuition at state schools for foster or adopted children, House Bill 127, died.

The Legislature still has time to find the additional appropriations requested by CPS. But lawmakers face an even bigger budget question if it ever wants to stop using its federal TANF grant to fund the foster care agency – a financial maneuver that has prevented the state from being able to pull down unlimited dollar-for-dollar federal matching funds offered by the 2018 federal Family First Prevention Services Act.

Study Group on Women & Children

Several bills during the 2023 session came out of the Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families, chaired by Sen. Nicole Boyd, an outspoken proponent of postpartum Medicaid extension.

Senate Bill 2781, Senate Bill 2898, Senate Bill 2696, Senate Bill 219 and Senate Bill 2377, described above, originated from the study group.

The group, which examined a broad range of issues affecting Mississippi families, also resulted in the following legislation, all of which remains alive:

  • Senate Bill 2167: Create the Mississippi Early Intervention Pilot Project at Mississippi State University’s TK Martin Center and create an Early Intervention Task Force to work on issues related to early childhood screenings and therapeutic services for children.
  • Senate Bill 2384: Create the Mississippi Task Force on Foster Care and Adoption to study and make recommendations for improving state laws related to foster care and adoption.
  • Senate Bill 2485: Revise qualifications for personnel under the Early Intervention Act for Infants and Toddlers to address shortages.
  • Senate Bill 2192: Clarify circumstances under which a presumed father cannot further contest paternity.

Finally, a bill to repeal Mississippi’s abortion ban and put the issue to a statewide vote, House Bill 1385, died.

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

Crooked Letter Sports Podcast

Podcast: The Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Class of ’25

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mississippitoday.org – @rick_cleveland – 2025-07-09 10:28:00

The MSHOF will induct eight new members on Aug 2. Rick Cleveland has covered them all and he and son Tyler talk about what makes them all special.

Stream all episodes here.


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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‘You’re not going to be able to do that anymore’: Jackson police chief visits food kitchen to discuss new public sleeping, panhandling laws

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-04 13:00:00


Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade visited Stewpot Community Services to discuss new Mississippi laws addressing homelessness, which ban public sleeping, panhandling without permits, and camping on public property. The laws include the “Safe Solicitation Act,” requiring permits for panhandling with misdemeanor penalties, and the “Real Property Owners Protection Act,” expediting squatter removal. Wade emphasized respecting constitutional rights while enforcing the laws and noted challenges like managing belongings of those removed and jail capacity concerns. Community leaders support the laws for safety but oppose criminalizing homelessness. Locals highlighted the need for more employment opportunities to address homelessness root causes.

Diners turned watchful eyes to the stage as Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade took to the podium. He visited Stewpot Community Services during its daily free lunch hour Thursday to discuss new state laws, which took effect two days earlier, targeting Mississippians experiencing homelessness.

“I understand that you are going through some hard times right now. That’s why I’m here,” Wade said to the crowd. “I felt it was important to come out here and speak with you directly.”

Wade laid out the three bills that passed earlier this year: House Bill 1197, the “Safe Solicitation Act,” HB 1200, the “Real Property Owners Protection Act” and HB 1203, a bill that prohibits camping on public property. 

“Sleeping and laying in public places, you’re not going to be able to do that anymore,” he said. “There’s a law that has been passed that you can’t just set up encampments on public or private properties where it’s a public nuisance, it’s a problem.”

The “Real Property Owners Protection Act,” authored by Rep. Brent Powell, R-Brandon, is a bill that expedites the process of removing squatters. The “Safe Solicitation Act,” authored by Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson, requires a permit for panhandling and allows people to be charged with a misdemeanor if they violate this law. The offense is punishable by a fine not to exceed $300 and an offender could face up to six months in jail. Wade said he’s currently working with his legal department to determine the best strategy for creating and issuing permits. 

“We’re going to navigate these legal challenges, get some interpretations, not only from our legal department, but the Attorney General’s office to ensure that we are doing it legally and lawfully, because I understand that these are citizens,” he said. “I understand that they deserve to be treated with respect, and I understand that we are going to do this without violating their constitutional rights.” 

Homeless encampment located in the 1700 block of S. Gallatin Street in Jackson, Wednesday, June 2, 2025.

Wade said the Jackson Police Department is steadily fielding reports of squatters in abandoned properties and the law change gives officers new power to remove them more quickly. The added challenge? Figuring out what to do with a person’s belongings. 

“These people are carrying around what they own, but we are not a repository for all of their stuff,” he said. “So, when we make that arrest, we’ve got to have a strategic plan as to what we do with their stuff.” 

Wade said there needs to be a deeper conversation around the issues that lead someone to becoming homeless. 

“A lot of people that we’re running across that are homeless are also suffering from medical conditions, mental health issues, and they’re also suffering from drug addiction and substance abuse. We’ve got to have a strategic approach, but we also can’t log jam our jail down in Raymond,” Wade said. 

He estimates that more than 800 people are currently incarcerated at the Raymond Detention Center, and any increase could strain the system as the laws continue to be enforced.

“I think there’s layers that we have to work through, there’s hurdles that we are going to overcome, but we’ve got to make sure that we do it and make sure that my team and JPD is consistent in how we enforce these laws,” Wade said.

Diners applauded Wade after he spoke, in between bites of fried chicken, salad, corn and 4th of July-themed packaged cakes. Wade offered to answer questions, but no one asked any.

Rev. Jill Buckley, executive director of Stewpot, said that the legislation is a good tool to address issues around homelessness and community needs. She doesn’t want to see people who are homeless be criminalized, but she also wants communities to be safe.

“I support people’s right to self determine, and we can’t impose our choices on other people, but there are some cases in which that impinges on community safety, and so to the extent that anyone who is camping or panhandling or squatting and is a danger to themselves and others, of course, I fully support that kind of law. I don’t support homelessness being criminalized as such,” Buckley said. 

One of the homeless in Jackson panhandles at the intersection of U.S. 80 and Gallatin Street, Wednesday, June 2, 2025.

Many of the people Wade addressed while they ate Thursday said they have housing, don’t panhandle, and shouldn’t be directly impacted by the legislation. But Marcus Willis, 42, said it would make more sense if elected officials wanted to combat the negative impacts of homelessness that they help more people secure employment.

“There ain’t enough jobs,” said Willis, who was having lunch with his girlfriend Amber Ivy.

The two live in an apartment together nearby on Capitol Street, where Ivy landed after her mother, whom Ivy had been living with, suffered a stroke and lost the property. Similarly, Willis started coming to eat at Stewpot after his grandmother, whose house he used to visit for lunch, passed away.

Willis holds odd jobs – cutting grass, home and auto repair – so the income is inconsistent, and every opportunity for stable employment he said he’s found is outside of Jackson in the suburbs. The couple doesn’t have a car.

Making rent every month usually depends on their ability to find someone to help chip in, said Ivy, who is in recovery from substance abuse. She said she’s watched problems surrounding homelessness grow over the years in Jackson. Ivy grew up near Stewpot and has lived in various neighborhoods across the city – except for the times she moved out of state when things got too rough.

“There was just moments where I just had to leave,” Ivy said. “Sometimes if you hit a slump here, there’s almost no way for you to get out of it.”

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

The post 'You're not going to be able to do that anymore': Jackson police chief visits food kitchen to discuss new public sleeping, panhandling laws appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

This article primarily reports on new laws in Jackson, Mississippi, targeting public sleeping, panhandling, and squatting, focusing on statements by Police Chief Joseph Wade and community perspectives. The coverage presents the legislative measures—authored by Republican and independent lawmakers—with a tone that emphasizes law enforcement challenges and community safety, reflecting a conservative approach to homelessness as a public order issue. While it includes voices concerned about criminalization and the need for social support, the overall framing centers on law enforcement and property protection. The article maintains factual reporting without overt editorializing but leans slightly toward a center-right perspective by highlighting legal enforcement as a solution.

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Mississippi Today

Medicaid cuts could be devastating for the Delta and the rest of rural America

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mississippitoday.org – @GanucheauAdam – 2025-07-03 16:41:00


East Carroll Parish, Louisiana, and neighboring Delta regions face devastating impacts from recent federal Medicaid cuts included in President Trump’s tax and spending bill. Medicaid expansion in Louisiana dramatically lowered uninsured rates, offering a vital lifeline in areas with extreme poverty and scarce jobs. The bill’s cuts and new work-reporting requirements threaten to push millions off coverage, disproportionately harming rural communities struggling with limited transportation, jobs, and internet access. Mississippi, which never expanded Medicaid, could lose billions in funding, risking rural hospital closures. Locals fear losing essential healthcare, worsening poverty and health disparities entrenched by historical neglect and systemic barriers.

Note: This story first published in Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

LAKE PROVIDENCE, La. — East Carroll Parish sits in the northeastern corner of Louisiana, along the winding Mississippi River. Its seat, Lake Providence, was a thriving agricultural center of the Delta. Now, the town is a shell of its former self. Charred and dilapidated buildings dot the small city center. There are a few gas stations, a handful of restaurants — and little to no industry.

Mayor Bobby Amacker, 79, says at one point “you couldn’t even walk down the street” in Lake Providence’s main business district because “there were so many people.”

“It’s gone down tremendously in the last 50 years,” said Amacker, a Democrat. “The town, it looks like it’s drying up. And it’s almost unstoppable, as far as I can tell.”

Now, East Carroll residents stand to lose even more. Like many people in Louisiana, they received a lifeline when the state expanded Medicaid to more low-income adults in 2016. Expansion drove Louisiana’s uninsured rate to the lowest in the Deep South, at 8% in 2023 for working-age adults, according to state data, despite it having the highest poverty rate in the U.S. that year.

This week, both chambers of Congress approved President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill. It includes more than $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance program for poor families and individuals, to help pay for tax cuts that mostly benefit the rich. The legislation would cause 11.8 million more Americans to become uninsured by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The bill includes new work rules for Medicaid recipients and would require them to verify their eligibility more frequently. It also would limit a financing strategy that states have used to boost Medicaid payments to hospitals.

Republicans say enrollees are taking advantage of the Medicaid program and getting benefits when they shouldn’t be. They say the program costs too much and states are not paying their fair share.

The Delta region, which includes communities in both Louisiana and Mississippi, would suffer under such large cuts. But in Louisiana — where almost half of the state depended on Medicaid in 2023, the Louisiana Department of Health reported — the cuts could be ruinous. Louisiana could lose up to $35 billion in federal Medicaid support over the next decade, according to KFF, a health policy research group. Mississippi, which never expanded Medicaid, could still lose up to $5 billion.

Residents are watching with apprehension, fear and, sometimes, anger, wondering how Congress could be so blind to how much they are struggling.

“If they take that away from us and everyone that really needs it, that’s going to be bad,” said Sherila Ervin, who lives 20 minutes up the road from Lake Providence in Oak Grove and has Medicaid coverage.

Medicaid work requirements and other health care provisions in the bill ignore the reality of living in poorer rural communities, where people struggle to find the jobs, transportation and internet access required to meet the rules, according to interviews with people and providers in the Delta region.

Even though Louisiana and Mississippi have taken very different approaches to Medicaid — one expanded eligibility under the 2010 Affordable Care Act and the other didn’t — both rely heavily on the program to sustain access to medical care for all their residents.

On a hot summer day in June, Ervin walks into the bare-bones 99-cent store in downtown Lake Providence. As she looks over some clothing, she says she’s heard about the potential Medicaid cuts. But she hadn’t heard about the work requirements, and is shocked they’re even on the table.

“I don’t like that. I don’t think they should put a stipulation on that,” Ervin says, exasperated that she would have to report her work hours. It’s hard enough as it is, she says, to thrive in this community.

READ MORE: In the Deep South, health care fights echo civil rights battles

Ervin, 58, has been working at Oak Grove High School in the cafeteria, serving hot plates to children for two decades. She says it’s one of the good, steady jobs available in this area, but her income is only around $1,500 per month.

Ervin’s job offers health benefits, but she can’t afford the premiums on her salary. She relies on Medicaid for care, including medications for her high blood pressure.

In East Carroll Parish, around 46.5% of people live below the poverty level, meaning the area is overwhelmingly poor, at over four times the national poverty rate, with a median income of $28,321. For Black households, the figure is a mere $16,690.

Expansion was a lifeline for people such as Ervin. Louisiana offers Medicaid to people who earn below 138% of the federal poverty line — currently about $22,000 a year for an individual.

“Sometimes you can work, but then when you work, you still can’t pay to get help,” Ervin said.

It’s a similar economic situation an hour away across the river. Poverty is about three times the national rate in Washington County, Mississippi, where residents in the city of Greenville lament the consequences of not being able to avoid destructive medical debt, which can keep them stuck in a cycle of gig work and of living paycheck to paycheck.

Greenville, the county seat, is among the fastest-shrinking cities in the U.S. It’s still one of the larger rural cities in Mississippi, with coffee shops, restaurants, hotels, a regional hospital and several big-box stores. But the downtown has just a few small businesses and a bank, and residents say jobs are hard to find.

Greenville resident April McNair, 45, remembers giving birth 17 years ago, long before Mississippi extended postpartum Medicaid to a full year. She had Medicaid coverage during pregnancy, but was kicked off shortly after giving birth, despite having post-delivery complications.

April McNair, 45, is a resident of Greenville, Miss. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)

The result was a trip to the emergency room and a $2,500 bill she couldn’t cover. Right after giving birth, McNair looked for work. She said potential employers often told her that she was overqualified because she had a master’s degree.

“I had to kind of figure out how to make my ends meet,” McNair said. “I ended up with a significant bill, all because I did not have Medicaid.”

McNair feels like Mississippi leaders are making a mistake by continuing to reject full Medicaid expansion.

“That’s a selfish move. To me, they’re selfish,” McNair said, adding that now she’s worried for neighbors in Louisiana who may lose the lifeline she wishes she had.

“God forbid, hypothetically speaking, what if one of them meets their demise because of this bill that [Congress] passed?”

Hard to thrive

Mississippi experienced its first taste of equalized access to medicine in the late 1960s.

Delta Health Center, the first federally funded health center in the nation, opened during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the all-Black town of Mound Bayou, about an hour north of Greenville. The center vowed to care for anyone regardless of race or ability to pay in a region plagued with poverty, poor health and discrimination — and continues to do so to this day.

It was a significant opportunity for generations of African Americans who had gone without health care, in a place where people had no access to clean drinking water, running sewage systems or even food, said Robin Boyles, chief program planning and development officer at Delta Health Center.

But it wasn’t easy for the clinic to mobilize support, even though it was clearly needed. Before its opening, it faced pushback from politicians and even doctors. In a 1966 clipping from a local newspaper, the white-owned Bolivar Commercial, the editorial board railed against the new clinic, saying it would “lead further to socialized medicine.”

The situation is certainly better in Mississippi and Louisiana than it was in the 1960s, but critics say the Medicaid cuts could reverse hard-fought progress.

People who live in the Delta are fiercely proud of their communities, but conditions there make it hard to thrive.

Black residents, who are the overwhelming majority, have had a particularly hard time. After the Civil War, many were relegated to sharecropping of cotton and corn for subsistence. Meanwhile, an elite white class of plantation owners and investors amassed enormous amounts of wealth.

A 2001 report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights described the area as one with “limited economic resources; inadequate employment opportunities; insufficient decent, affordable housing; and poor quality public schools.”

“We have a lot of patients that are one health issue away from either being out of a job or being bankrupt because of a trip to the emergency room,” said Dr. Brent Smith, a physician at a primary care clinic at Delta Health System in Greenville.

Even some of the most vulnerable people, such as new moms in Mississippi, still struggle to get basic care, in part because the state has left billions of dollars in federal funding for Medicaid expansion on the table, said Dr. Lakeisha Richardson, an OB-GYN at Delta Health System.

“There are a lot of maternal [care] deserts in Mississippi where women have to travel 60 miles or more just to get prenatal care and just to get to the closest hospital for delivery,” Richardson said. “And I don’t see that getting any better in Mississippi and in rural areas.”

Richardson says nearly all her patients are working moms, many of whom would really benefit from having Medicaid expansion.

“America doesn’t realize that there are people out here struggling for no reason of their own,” she said.

That’s why Medicaid expansion in Louisiana in 2016, much like the community health center movement in Mississippi, was a bright spot in the rural South, said Smith.

“Louisiana expanded Medicaid, a surprising move in the South to see any state expand,” Smith said. “They saw it for what it was, which was a very real opportunity to assist this specific group of patients.”

Dr. Brent Smith, left, a physician at a primary care clinic at Delta Health System in Greenville, laughs with a co-worker. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)

In Mississippi, 20 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closure, according to a recent report, more than double the number at risk in Louisiana. In many cases, Medicaid is the largest and most reliable payer for rural hospitals. While Louisiana’s overall uninsured rate plummeted to 8.3% by 2023, in Mississippi it was 10.5%.

“Unlike a lot of our Southern peers, we have not had the same level of closures of facilities,” said Courtney Foster, senior policy adviser for Medicaid, with the nonprofit Invest in Louisiana.

“Medicaid was like a real lifeline for people in transition. Oftentimes it was people who had lost their jobs and were just looking to get back on their feet.”

Now, the new work and reporting requirements could put that progress at risk.

In East Carroll Parish, finding a job — let alone a good-paying one with health benefits — is difficult, says Rosie Brown, executive director at the East Carroll Community Action Agency, a nonprofit that helps low-income people with their rent and utility bills. Many of the jobs available in town pay minimum wage, just $7.25 an hour.

Brown loves living in Lake Providence; this is where her family is. She doesn’t want to move but wishes the government would invest more in her community — not take away benefits that help people who are hanging on by a thread.

“We have one bank. We have one supermarket,” she said. “Transportation isn’t easy either.”

Local infrastructure is so limited, she’s even heard of some people charging residents $20 for a ride to Walmart. Some people have to hitch a ride an hour away to go to work, she said.

“There’s nowhere to go,” Brown said.

Dominique Jones works at the local library, where she helps roughly 75 to 85 people per month apply for programs such as Medicaid and food assistance. Many of the residents she helps don’t have access to the internet or even a computer, a real barrier for people who’d be required to report their working hours to state Medicaid officials.

“This town right here is made up of a lot of old people that need Medicaid and Medicare. And without it, they wouldn’t have any kind of health care at all,” Mayor Amacker said.

Even a job in local government in Lake Providence doesn’t offer affordable health insurance.

Nevada Qualls, 25, sits across from Amacker’s office. She earns just $12 an hour as a cashier at city hall. The low pay means she qualifies for Medicaid expansion coverage, which is good because she can’t afford the premiums for private insurance.

“I feel like there should be a higher threshold for people that can get Medicaid, because they’re still struggling,” she said.

At the 99-cent store, school district worker Ervin wonders whether state and federal leaders understand what it’s like to live in her community, urging them to visit and see for themselves.

“They want to do stuff for the rich people that’s already rich,” she said. “What are they doing? It’s almost like there’s no common sense with them.”

‘The tremble factors’

While leaders in the U.S. Senate were working into the night this past weekend debating Trump’s tax and spending bill, Greenville resident Jennifer Morris was praying for the pain to stay away.

Morris, 44, has hemicrania continua, a headache disorder that causes constant pain on one side of her head. There’s no underlying trigger and no cure. Her doctors help her keep the pain to a minimum with regular treatments that include dozens of injections into her head.

“It doesn’t take the pain away,” she said during a late-night gathering in Greenville’s Greater Mount Olivet Missionary Baptist Church in June. “It does reduce the pain so that I’m able to function. But it’s rough.”

Morris is worried about the looming Medicaid cuts. She qualifies for Mississippi Medicaid because her condition counts as a disability, and she depends on the coverage to afford her medications.

Morris’ Medicaid may be safer than that of her Delta neighbors in Lake Providence, as some of the most dramatic Medicaid changes being considered — such as work requirements — target Medicaid expansion states only.

But Mississippi could be hurt by a provision in the Senate bill that would target a strategy states have used to boost the Medicaid dollars they get from the federal government.

Mississippi could see a major hit to its Medicaid funds, which “would be a tremendous decrease in revenue for the state,” harming “services and access to care,” says Mitchell Adcock, executive director at the Center for Mississippi Health Policy.

“It would be just the opposite of expansion. It would be a contraction for the Medicaid program in the state,” he said.

Leonard Favorite, a pastor who was attending the same event at Mount Olivet Church, as Morris, says he grew up on a plantation in Louisiana and worked his way out of poverty by joining the Air Force. This type of journey is hard, he said, when you’re already starting from so far behind. He thinks the “big, beautiful bill” will create more roadblocks for poor people.

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“You have people who are already living below the poverty line and they will certainly be submerged into poverty at unspeakable levels,” said Favorite, 70.“ That seems to be the trend of this administration from the point of view of looking from the outside.

“Poor people are beginning to feel the tremble factors of an administration that caters toward the rich.”

National researchers estimate that up to 132,000 Louisianans who gained health insurance under expansion could lose it under work rules.

But national reports that rely on census data likely underestimate the potential Medicaid losses. For example, while 2023 census data show 47% of East Carroll Parish was on Medicaid, state health data reviewed by Stateline and Public Health Watch suggests the number is more like 64%. Similarly statewide, census data showed about a third of Louisianans were on Medicaid. State data shows that percentage is closer to 46.5%.

Experts such as Joan Alker at the Georgetown Center for Children and Families say the undercounts nationally are a well-known issue among researchers, but it’s difficult to correct because the quality of state reporting can be so uneven.

State Medicaid funding is also at risk. For years, both Mississippi and Louisiana have relied on revenue generated through a financing tool — known as a provider tax — to draw down more federal dollars and boost Medicaid reimbursements to providers. But congressional Republicans hope to limit states’ ability to collect those taxes.

Depending on how Congress restricts provider taxes, Mississippi could lose hundreds of millions in federal Medicaid funding, crucial in a state with such a high uninsured rate, said Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association.

“It’s unavoidable that when you’re taking that much money out of the system, that there’s not going to be some repercussions felt even in non-Medicaid expansion states like Mississippi,” Roberson said.

Last week, the Louisiana Hospital Association signed a statement calling the package of Medicaid cuts before Congress “historic in their devastation.”

From her small, sunny office in East Carroll Parish, nurse Jennifer Newton can’t understand the attacks on Medicaid.

Newton, who grew up one parish over in West Carroll, is executive director of the Family Medical Clinic, a community health center in Lake Providence and one of the few health providers in town. She says 50% of the clinic’s patients have Medicaid insurance.

Newton has worked in health care in the area for decades and watched as Medicaid expansion made it possible for more patients to access and afford health care they desperately needed, including preventive services. “It’s absolutely helped,” she said. “Absolutely.”

In 2015, the year before Louisiana expanded Medicaid, the uninsured rate among working-age adults in East Carroll Parish was nearly 35%. By 2021, that number was 12.7%.

“Why are we going back?” Newton asked. “We’ve made so much progress.”

Republican supporters of work requirements, including Louisiana representative and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, argue they will encourage people to find jobs and ensure Medicaid goes to people who need it most. But according to KFF, a majority of Louisiana adults with Medicaid — 69% — already work.

Brian Blase, president of the Paragon Health Institute, a conservative policy group that is working with Republicans to formulate Medicaid cuts, is not concerned about eligible people losing coverage, as has happened under previous work requirement efforts. He says the bill has built in exceptions for certain people and requirements “can be met by not just work,” so “concerns seem pretty overstated.”

Medicaid recipients also can meet the requirement by volunteering or attending school for 80 hours per month.

“It’s hard for me to understand that there are areas in the country where there’s not jobs. There’s always work to be done,” Blase told Stateline. Blase said he believes Medicaid is “the government conditioning welfare for able-bodied working-age adults.”

But advocates and experts predict East Carroll, where internet access is notoriously bad, would experience results similar to when Arkansas instituted Medicaid work requirements in 2018: People disenrolled because of lack of awareness and confusion over the policy, as well as paperwork errors — not because they weren’t working enough.

“Unless the beneficiary can navigate that red tape, they’re going to lose coverage and become uninsured,” said Benjamin Sommers, a health economist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Data shows Arkansas’ experiment did not increase employment, Sommers said, and instead led to more people reporting medical debt and delaying care because of cost.

‘Take a step back’

People in the Delta — where the legacy of government neglect and discrimination are all around — want politicians to visit their towns and see the barriers people face trying to improve their lives and stay healthy.

“People spent their lives uninsured,” said Amy Hale, a nurse practitioner at East Carroll Medical clinic. “Medicaid expansion allowed them to get in here and be treated.”

Lake Providence residents are scared they may find themselves in a similar situation as McNair and other people across the river in Greenville: working, uninsured, and too poor to access health care.

Recent estimates show up to 317,000 Louisianans could lose Medicaid health insurance under Trump’s tax bill. Nearly 33,000 in Mississippi.

“People are actually trying,” McNair said. “I really wish [lawmakers] would look at it from a different lens. What if it was their kid? Or they didn’t have the salaries they have now and your baby is ill. … Like really take a step back and think about what it is that you’re doing.”

This story is part of “Uninsured in America,” a project led by Public Health Watch that focuses on life in America’s health coverage gap and the 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org. Public Health Watch reporter Kim Krisberg can be reached at kkrisberg@publichealthwatch.org.

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

The post Medicaid cuts could be devastating for the Delta and the rest of rural America appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article presents a clear perspective sympathetic to low-income and rural communities affected by Medicaid cuts. It highlights the hardships faced by residents in Louisiana’s and Mississippi’s Delta regions, emphasizing poverty, limited job opportunities, and the critical role Medicaid plays in health access. While it reports Republicans’ arguments for work requirements and cost control, the language and framing focus more on the negative consequences of cuts and the struggles of vulnerable populations. This tone and focus suggest a center-left bias, favoring expanded social safety nets and critical of policies perceived to harm the poor.

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