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Some worry thousands of Mississippi children will lose health coverage as public health emergency ends

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Some worry thousands of Mississippi children will lose health coverage as public health emergency ends

by Sara DiNatale, Mississippi Today
March 14, 2023

In just over two weeks, the state’s Division of Medicaid will begin the daunting process of determining whether hundreds of thousands of low-income Mississippians are still eligible for health coverage for the first time in three years.

As a result, Mississippians, adults and children, who have had coverage as the result of a federal pandemic-era policy of continuous enrollment could lose health insurance as soon as July, according to the division.

Mississippi’s Medicaid division will begin examining its roughly 890,000 recipients to determine their eligibility starting April 1. But with a staff vacancy rate of 12% and an onslaught of work, national health care experts and local advocates are worried about eligible children, especially, falling through bureaucratic cracks and losing coverage.

Those who work with Medicaid recipients have a litany of concerns: from the division’s ability to effectively communicate with families known to frequently move to the low rate of automatic electronic renewals the state has done in the past.

“It’s nothing new that parents, once they get over a very low income level, they have no coverage because the state hasn’t expanded Medicaid,” said Joan Alker, the executive director and researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “What is new is we might see thousands of eligible children lose coverage during this process.”

The stakes are high.

Mississippi children in low-income families make up more than half of the state’s overall Medicaid recipients. Some have coverage through Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. During continuous coverage, Medicaid rolls in Mississippi have increased by more than 130,000 people – 80,000 of which are children.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said as many as 15 million people nationwide could lose Medicaid or CHIP coverage. About 6.8 million people could be disenrolled even though they are still eligible, the department estimates, because of enrollees struggling to navigate the renewal processes, states unable to successfully contact enrollees or other administrative hurdles.

On its end, the state’s Medicaid division said it’s hired 22 new workers in the past week and has 100 contractors to help manage caseloads. The biggest push from the office so far has been asking recipients to ensure their contact information and mailing addresses are up-to-date.

“To raise awareness about redeterminations and the importance for members to update their contact information, (Mississippi Division of Medicaid) launched a Stay Covered campaign in January and invited community partners to sign up to be Coverage Champions,” spokesman Matt Westfield said in a statement. “Our Coverage Champions partners include a diverse mix of health centers and advocacy groups.”

Posts are all over Facebook. Flyers have been shared both online and in-person with scannable codes that link an online form.

Medicaid coverage is determined by income, but the threshold for children to still qualify in Mississippi is higher than that of their parents and other adults.

Joy Hogge, the director of Families of Allies, a statewide nonprofit that supports children with health challenges, said her office is going to start asking every family who contacts them if they’re aware of the upcoming renewal process.

“We haven’t had families ask questions (on their own),” Hogge said. “So, I don’t know if it’s not reaching them. I’m not sure of what the awareness level is from families being affected.”

So far, Mississippi hasn’t published a detailed unwinding plan. The one document the division was required to upload for the federal government includes a long checklist of measures where the agency could check “already adopted” or “planning or considering to adopt.”

But details of where the state was in the process of adding improvements wasn’t included. That makes it hard to decipher exactly what’s going on, said Garrett Hall, a policy analysis at health advocacy organization Families USA.

Westfield said the state does plan to post a more detailed unwinding plan online once it’s ready. This is something states such as California and Arizona have already done.

Mississippians, for example, don’t have online accounts to easily login into Medicaid – something 48 other states have, according to KFF. In a tweet earlier this month, Mississippi Division of Medicaid Director Drew Snyder said it was something his office was testing and planned to deploy this year.

Mississippi is taking the full 12 months allowed by the federal government to work through its redetermination process. Arkansas, for example, is planning to do the same process in only six months – something that raises major red flags for health care advocates.

While Hall is glad Mississippi won’t rush through the process in half the time, he does point out that Mississippi doesn’t have a high percentage of “ex parte,” or automatic, renewals. The division told Mississippi Today its automatic renewal rate was 24% before the pandemic – though that’s a rate they expect to go up over the next year.

Hall said states should hit a 50% ex parte rate at minimum.

Using state databases – like of families who qualify for food assistance or individuals receiving unemployment – Medicaid divisions can automatically enroll people they know are still eligible. Hall said it’s the most seamless way to ensure people retain coverage who still qualify.

“No one who is still eligible for coverage should lose it because they are subjected to a confusing and cumbersome renewal process,” Hall said. “Looking at Mississippi’s unwinding plan, they have some steps in the right direction but they need to follow through on some of those further steps.”

Alker worries about whether notices will even reach families. Low-income families are often mobile, and may not know they need to update their address. If the letter does find them, she wonders what the language will be like and if it could be misleading. Alker pointed to a prior instance where Mississippi’s Division of Medicaid shifted enrollees’ coverage without making a public announcement.

“Is it going to be clear that even if a parent loses coverage, their child may still be eligible?” Alker said. “Is there going to be adequate support at the call center to work through the renewal process or questions? Sometimes there are just glitches and delays due to short staffing. All sorts of things can go wrong.”

Westfield said when the Mississippi division begins its redetermination process, it will first focus on auto-renewing benefits using state data systems for electronic verification. If someone can’t be approved this way, they will be mailed a renewal form which they will have 30 days to return to the office.

If the Medicaid division determines someone no longer qualified they will receive a notice by mail explaining the decision and how to file an appeal, according to Wesftield. Their information will also be sent to the Health Insurance Marketplace, and they will be notified about their options through the Affordable Care Act.

Michael Minor, the executive director of Oak Hill Regional Community Development Corporation, has been working closely with families who qualify for Medicaid or CHIP since 2019. The initiative is called “Healthy Kids MS,” and it aims to keep kids covered and up-to-date on doctor’s visits.

“We see ourselves as being that unseen, invisible hand there that’s helping folks to work with the system,” Minor said. “It’s a matter of meeting folks where they are.”

That means churches, schools, and doctors offices. Volunteers will even drive forms to Medicaid offices on behalf of families with transportation struggles. Hogge and Minor both said their workers will sit on a phone call to Medicaid with a recipient if that’s the support families need.
Minor and his team of Medicaid navigators are bracing for the surge of questions – but they’re not worried.

‘We’re set up for this,” he said. “And we’re just doing what we normally do.”

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

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Mississippi Stories: Michael May of Lazy Acres

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January 21, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – rlake – 2025-01-21 14:51:00

In this episode of Mississippi Stories, Mississippi Today Editor-at-Large Marshall Ramsey takes a trip to Lazy Acres. In 1980, Lazy Acres Christmas tree farm was founded in Chunky, Mississippi by Raburn and Shirley May. Twenty-one years later, Michael and Cathy May purchased Lazy Acres. Today, the farm has grown into a multi seasonal business offering a Bunny Patch at Easter, Pumpkin Patch in the fall, Christmas trees and an spectacular Christmas light show.  It’s also a masterclass in family business entrepreneurship and agricultural tourism.

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

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On this day in 1921

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January 21, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-01-21 07:00:00

Jan. 21, 1921

George Washington Carver Credit: Wikipedia

George Washington Carver became one of the first Black experts to testify before Congress. 

His unlikely road to Washington began after his birth in Missouri, just before the Civil War ended. When he was a week old, he and his mother and his sister were kidnapped by night raiders. The slaveholder hired a man to track them down, but the only one the man could locate was George, and the slaveholder exchanged a race horse for George’s safe return. George and his brother were raised by the slaveholder and his wife. 

The couple taught them to read and write. George wound up attending a school for Black children 10 miles away and later tried to attend Highland University in Kansas, only to get turned away because of the color of his skin. Then he attended Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, before becoming the first Black student at what is now Iowa State University, where he received a Master’s of Science degree and became the first Black faculty member. 

Booker T. Washington then invited Carver to head the Tuskegee Institute’s Agriculture Department, where he found new uses for peanuts, sweet potatoes, soybeans and other crops. 

In the past, segregation would have barred Carver’s testimony before Congress, but white peanut farmers, desperate to convince lawmakers about the need for a tariff on peanuts because of cheap Chinese imports, believed Carver could captivate them — and captivate he did, detailing how the nut could be transformed into candy, milk, livestock feed, even ink. 

“I have just begun with the peanut,” he told lawmakers. 

Impressed, they passed the Fordney-McCumber Tariff of 1922. 

In addition to this work, Carver promoted racial harmony. From 1923 to 1933, he traveled to white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. Time magazine referred to him as a “Black Leonardo,” and he died in 1943. 

That same year, the George Washington Carver Monument complex, the first national park honoring a Black American, was founded in Joplin, Missouri.

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

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Legislative recap: 2025 tax cut battle has been joined

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January 20, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – Geoff Pender – 2025-01-20 12:00:00

After relatively brief debate and questioning given its magnitude, the state House passed the first meaningful legislation of the new session: House Bill 1, a measure that would eliminate the state income tax, trim taxes on non-prepared food and raise sales and gasoline taxes.

It would mark a sea change in state tax structure, a shift from income to consumption taxation.

“We are at a place where we can finally tell the hard-working people of Mississippi we can eliminate the tax on work,” House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, HB1’s author, told his colleagues.

The measure passed the House 88-24. It gained some Democratic support in the supermajority Republican House, with nine Democrats voting in favor, 24 against and 12 voting present.

The proposal garnered some bipartisan support because it includes at least a couple of items Democratic lawmakers have championed in the past: A gasoline tax to help fix crumbling roadways, and a reduction in the “grocery” tax, or the sales tax levied on unprepared food, of which Mississippi has the highest overall rate in the nation.

It still met with some Democratic opposition in part because it is a sea change toward more “regressive” taxation. Proponents say this is just, people should pay more for state services they use, such as roadways, and for things they buy as opposed to taxing income. Opponents say this places a proportionately higher tax burden on people of modest means.

“I would say the people hurt the most with this would be working people who have to put gas in their car to go to work or those who have to purchase materials to do a job,” House Democratic Leader Robert Johnson said.

Beyond that concern, opponents or skeptics worry that the foundation of the proposed tax overhaul would be built on shifting sands — a state economy that has been so rosy primarily from the federal government dumping billions of dollars in pandemic spending into Mississippi. With the federal spigot being cut off, some worry, the state economy could slump, and the massive tax cuts in this new plan could provide a state budget crisis, of which Mississippi has much experience, and underfunding of crucial services such as schools, roads, health care and law enforcement.

The largest hurdle Republican House leaders face in seeing their tax plan through to law is not in garnering bipartisan support. It’s internecine disagreement with the Senate Republican leadership, which still appears to harbor abovementioned concerns about overhauling tax structure in uncertain economic times and betting on growth to cover massive tax cuts.

Senate leaders have said they want to enact more tax cuts, but their plan has not yet been released. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has provided some details of what he wants to see, but it would appear he wants a more cautious approach on cuts. He has not publicly opined on the tax increases in the House plan.

Quote of the Week

“Have you ever worn a belt and suspenders, lady? It’s a belt and suspenders approach.” — Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, to Rep. Omeria Scott, D-Laurel, during floor debate on Lamar’s bill to eliminate the state income tax and raise other taxes.

“No. I have not worn a belt and suspenders. I don’t know anyone who has worn a belt and suspenders,” Scott replied.

In Brief

House will renew push to legalize mobile sports betting

House Gaming Committee Chairman Casey Eure, R-Saucier, told Mississippi Today he plans on taking another crack at legalizing mobile sports betting in the state. In 2024, the House and Senate passed versions of legislation to permit online sports betting, but never agreed on a final proposal. Some lawmakers raised concerns that gambling platforms would have no incentive to partner with smaller casinos, and most of the money would instead flow to the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s already bustling casinos. Proponents say legalization would undercut the influence of illicit offshore sports betting platforms.

“I’ve been working on this bill for many years and I’m just trying to satisfy any concerns that the Senate may have so we can pass this and start collecting the tax dollars that the state deserves and not allowing everyone to place bets with these offshore accounts,” Eure said. “I feel like the state is losing between $40-$80 million a year in tax revenue.”

Sports wagering has been permitted in the state for years, but online betting has remained illegal amid fears the move could harm the bottom line of the state’s brick-and-mortar casinos. Mobile sports betting is legal in 30 states and Washington, D.C.,  according to the American Gaming Association. — Michael Goldberg

Hosemann makes Senate committee chair changes

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann last week named new chairmen of committees, after former state Sen. Jenifer Branning was sworn into office as a new justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court. 

Sen. Chuck Younger, a Republican from Columbus, previously led the Senate Agriculture Committee and will replace Branning as chairman of the Transportation Committee. Sen. Neil Whaley, a Republican from Potts Camp, previously led the Senate Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Committee, but will now lead the Senate Agriculture Committee. 

Here are the other changes to Senate committees: 

Sen. Ben Suber, a Republican from Bruce, will be the new chairman of the Senate Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks Committee 

Sen. Bart Williams, a Republican from Starkville, is the new chairman of the Senate Public Property Committee

Sen. Scott DeLano, a Republican from Gulfport, will lead the Senate Technology Committee 

Sen. Robin Robinson, a Republican from Laurel, will chair the Senate Labor Committee 

Sen. Angela Turner Ford, a Democrat from West Point, will lead the Senate Drug Policy Committee.  — Taylor Vance

What’s in a name? Democratic Rep. Scott hopes GOP majority will pass ‘Donald J. Trump Act’ bills

Perhaps tired of seeing many measures she authors ignored or shot down in flames by the Republican supermajority in the Mississippi Legislature, Democratic Rep. Omeria Scott of Laurel is trying a new strategy: naming bills after Republican President-elect Trump.

For this session, Scott has authored: House Bill 61, the “Donald J. Trump Voting Rights Restoration Act;” House Bill 62, the “Donald J. Trump Ban-The-Box Act … to prohibit public employers from using criminal history as a bar to employment;” and House Bill 249, the “Donald J. Trump Early Voting Act.” — Geoff Pender

More bills filed to criminalize abortion

Since the 2022 Dobbs Supreme Court decision overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, Mississippi lawmakers have proposed bills to criminalize workarounds to the state’s strict abortion ban – including criminalizing the abortion pill and out-of-state abortions. The 2025 legislative session is no exception. 

Rep. William Tracy Arnold, R-Booneville, filed House Bill 616 that would make it a felony to manufacture or make accessible medication abortion. Anyone convicted of the crime would be subject to a fine between $1,000 and $5,000, as well as imprisonment between two and five years. Last year, about 250 Mississippians each month requested medication abortion from Aid Access, the only online telemedicine service supplying medication abortion via mail in the U.S. 

Helping a minor receive an abortion would also be criminalized under House Bill 148 filed by Rep. Mark Tullos, R-Raleigh. That would include transporting a minor out of state to undergo an abortion, as well as helping a minor procure a medication abortion – both of which would be punishable by not less than 20 years in prison or a fine of not less than $50,000. — Sophia Paffenroth

By the Numbers

$1.1 billion

The estimated net annual cost of the House plan to eliminate the state income tax and raise sales taxes, once fully phased in. Proponents say economic growth would allow the state budget, currently about $7 billion a year, to absorb the cut. Eliminating the income tax would cost the state $2.2 billion in revenue, but the House plan would raise about $1.1 billion in other taxes in offset.

0

The amount of income tax Mississippians would pay after a 10-year phased in elimination of the state income tax. With previous cuts being phased in, state income taxes next year will already be reduced to 4%, among the lowest rates in the nation.

8.5 %

The new Mississippi sales tax, up from current 7%, under the House tax plan assuming most local governments would not opt out of adding a new 1.5% local sales tax.

13 cents more a gallon

The cost of the House’s proposed new 5% gasoline tax, based on last week’s average cost of gasoline in Mississippi of $2.62. The new 5% tax would be on top of the flat 18.4 cents a gallon current state excise on gasoline.

4%

The tax on unprepared food once a reduction of the current 7% would be phased in over a decade under the House plan. The state would over time reduce its sales tax on such groceries to 2.5%, but local governments would add a 1.5% sales tax to such items unless they opt out.

Full Legislative Coverage

Lawmakers must pass new legislation to improve access to prenatal care

Lawmakers will file another bill this session to help low-income pregnant women get into the doctor earlier – after the federal government rejected the program set up under last year’s law, because of discrepancies between what was written into state law and federal regulations for presumptive Medicaid eligibility. Read the story.

Proposal: eliminate income tax, add 5% tax on gas, allow cities, counties to levy local sales tax

House leaders last week unveiled a sweeping tax cut proposal that would eventually abolish the state income tax, slash taxes on groceries, increase local sales taxes and shore up funds for state and local road work. Read the story.

A new Mississippi law aims to limit jailing people awaiting mental health treatment. Is it working?

Officials say a new law to decrease the number of people being jailed solely because they need mental health treatment has led to fewer people with serious mental illness detained in jails – but the data is contradictory and incomplete. Lawmakers plan legislation to make more counties report the data. Read the story.

How soon we forget: Mississippi House push for record tax cuts revives fear of repeat budget crises

Eight years ago, from a combination of dozens of tax cuts the Legislature approved and a slumping economy, the state saw a budget crisis that resulted in severely underfunded schools, government layoffs, a near halt to building new roads and highways and problems maintaining the ones we have, too few state troopers on the highways and cuts to most major state services. Read the story.

NAACP legislative redistricting proposal pits two pairs of senators against each other

The Mississippi chapter of the ACLU has submitted a proposal to the courts to redraw the state’s legislative districts that creates two new majority-Black Senate districts and pits two pairs of incumbent senators against one another. Read the story.

Legislation to send more public money to private schools appears stalled as lawmakers consider other changes

Some top lawmakers in Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Legislature are prepared to make it easier for students to transfer between public schools but remain skeptical of sending more public money to private schools. Read the story.

House passes $1.1 billion income tax elimination-gas and sales tax increase plan in bipartisan vote

A bill that phases out the state income tax, cuts the state grocery tax and raises sales taxes and gasoline taxes passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan vote on Thursday. Read the story.

Tate Reeves and other top Mississippi Republicans owe thanks to President Joe Biden

The tremendous cash surpluses that some state Republicans cite when defending their plan to eliminate the state’s income tax would not exist if not for the billions of dollars in federal funds that have been pumped into the state during Biden’s presidential tenure. Read the story.

Podcast: Mississippi transportation director discusses proposed new gasoline tax

Mississippi Department of Transportation Director Brad White tells Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance he’s staying “in his lane” and out of the politics of a House tax overhaul that would eliminate the income tax and raise sales and gasoline taxes, but that he’s pleased lawmakers are trying to address the long running need for a steady new stream of money to help cover highway maintenance needs. Listen to the podcast.

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

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