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What exactly is Gov. Tate Reeves’ involvement in the welfare scandal?

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2 years ago

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Whether Gov. Tate Reeves was involved in the multimillion dollar welfare scandal has emerged as one of the top issues of the 2023 campaign for governor — and Mississippians across the state are being deluged with advertisements and attacks about it.

Brandon Presley, the Democrat running for governor against Reeves in November, has anchored his candidacy on the scandal, in which at least $77 million in federal funds intended for the state’s poorest residents were misspent or directed to wealthy, politically-connected Mississippians between at least 2017 and 2020.

For weeks, Presley has blanketed the state with a TV advertisement alleging: “Under Tate Reeves, millions were steered from education and job programs to help his rich friends.”

Reeves, the first-term Republican, has strongly denied any wrongdoing related to the scandal. After Presley began airing the TV ad, Reeves quickly responded with his own ad that counters Presley’s claim.

“Tate Reeves had nothing to do with the scandal,” the Reeves ad narrator says. “… It all happened before he was governor.”

Just last week, Presley held a press conference outside the welfare agency office building to reiterate his attacks against Reeves for his involvement in the scandal. And Reeves, who as governor is leading the state’s civil lawsuit and ongoing investigation of the welfare scandal, has not been charged with any crime and maintains he played no role in the misspending.

So who’s right? Was Reeves really involved in the scandal? Is Presley overstating Reeves’ role?

Mississippi Today, which won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into the welfare scandal, compiled key context about Reeves’ involvement.

‘The Lt. Gov’s fitness issue’

When Reeves ran for his first term as governor in 2019, well-known Mississippi fitness trainer Paul Lacoste — a close personal friend of Reeves, Lacoste said at the time — endorsed him. Reeves was one of several state officials who had taken fitness boot camp classes led by Lacoste.

Today, Lacoste is one of dozens of people being sued by the state of Mississippi to recoup millions in misspent welfare funds from the time. The state’s welfare department, in court documents, alleged that Lacoste improperly received $1.3 million in welfare funds.

How Lacoste received that money has been probed by investigators and in court documents, and this is where Reeves’ involvement is being scrutinized.

Mississippi Today reported in its 2022 “The Backchannel” investigation that Lacoste had a 2019 meeting with Reeves, who was then the lieutenant governor, and John Davis, the former director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services who has since pleaded guilty to federal and state charges related to the scandal.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves inspired welfare payment targeted in civil suit, texts show

By 2019, Lacoste had already secured a $1.4 million contract with a well connected nonprofit to receive MSDH funds for his boot camp program. Lacoste says then-Gov. Phil Bryant directed Davis to execute the agreement. But after a few months, MDHS apparently hadn’t provided the nonprofit with the funds to actually pay Lacoste. That’s until Davis met with Reeves.

Two days after the 2019 scheduled meeting — which Lacoste described to Davis by saying, “Tate wants us all to himself!” — Davis texted his deputy at the welfare agency and asked him to find a way to send a large sum of federal welfare money to the nonprofit without triggering a red flag in an audit so that the nonprofit could fund Lacoste’s boot camp.

Davis, in the text message, referred to the project as “the Lt. Gov’s fitness issue.”

The deputy issued the payment to the nonprofit that day, according to an audit that was later used to bring criminal charges against several defendants including Davis.

When Mississippi Today asked Reeves’ office about the text messages and Lacoste’s receipt of federal welfare funds, a staffer replied: “It’s entirely possible that — before the abuse was uncovered — Tate Reeves said nice things in passing about people he is now suing and/or the stated goals of DHS. This was all before the fraud was revealed. How is he supposed to remember inconsequential conversations from years ago?”

Reeves, as governor and statutory head of the welfare agency, is leading the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit that is seeking to recoup the misspent millions. The governor’s decisions about the lawsuit management has also pulled him into the spotlight.

Reeves fired attorney leading state’s welfare scandal lawsuit

In 2021, the welfare agency, which is under the statutory purview of Gov. Tate Reeves’ office, hired well-known attorney Brad Pigott to lead the state’s effort to claw back as many of the millions in misspent welfare funds as possible.

Pigott, a former federal prosecutor who was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi by former President Bill Clinton, has a successful record with high-profile cases. In the 1980s and 90s, he led cases that took down the Dixie Mafia organized crime syndicate.

For about a year, he led the state’s welfare case and brought civil charges against dozens of people who had received federal funds. But in July 2022, shortly after Pigott subpoenaed the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation for communications with former Gov. Phil Bryant, Bryant’s wife Deborah, and former NFL star Brett Favre over $5 million in welfare dollars spent on a volleyball stadium, Reeves’ administration abruptly fired the attorney.

Pigott said plainly that his firing was a politically motivated response to him looking into the roles of former Republican governor Bryant, the USM Athletic Foundation and other powerful and connected people or entities Reeves and others didn’t want him looking at.

“All I did, and I believe all that caused me to be terminated from representing the department or having anything to do with the litigation, was to try to get the truth about all of that,” Pigott told Mississippi Today hours after his firing. “People are going to go to jail over this, at least the state should be willing to find out the truth of what happened.”

Reeves’ welfare agency leader quickly said that Pigott was fired because he blind-sided them with the USM Foundation subpoena. But Mississippi Today obtained records that showed Pigott gave welfare agency leaders a 10-day heads up before he filed the subpoena in court.

READ MORE: Welfare head says surprise subpoena led to attorney’s firing. Emails show it wasn’t a surprise.

A few days after the story had become a full-blown scandal for Reeves, he confirmed to reporters that Pigott’s firing was political in nature.

“I think the way in which (Pigott) … has acted since they chose not to renew his contract shows exactly why many of us were concerned about the way in which he conducted himself in the year in which he was employed,” Reeves said at the 2022 Neshoba County Fair. “He seemed much more focused on the political side of things. He seemed much more interested in getting his name in print and hopefully bigger and bigger print, not just Mississippi stories. He wants this to go national, wants to talk to the press.”

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves says ousted welfare scandal lawyer had ‘political agenda,’ wanted media spotlight

The USM Athletic Foundation is comprised of many business and political leaders, including several large donors to Reeves’ campaign coffers.

To date, Reeves is still the elected official atop the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit. His welfare agency has since hired attorneys at Jones Walker, a law firm that has donated thousands of dollars to his past campaigns.

Favre lobbied Reeves for USM volleyball funds

One of the largest purchases at the center of the scandal is a state-of-the-art volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, a project Favre pushed welfare officials to fund.

Asked about the stadium at Neshoba County Fair in the summer of 2022, Reeves suggested he didn’t support the idea of using any taxpayer funds to build sports facilities.

At the time, Reeves’ staff had opted not to include the volleyball stadium in the MDHS civil suit to claw back misspent funds — and he had just fired Pigott.

“Look, I don’t know all the details as to how that came about,” Reeves said. “What I do know is that it doesn’t seem like an expense that I would personally support for TANF dollars. I don’t even like the state building stadiums with general tax dollars.”

But texts that wouldn’t be made public until months later revealed that Reeves did talk with Favre about finding public funding to finish construction on the stadium early in his governorship, right before the February 2020 indictments. Favre had endorsed Reeves for governor in 2019.

Reeves was apparently eager to please Favre. When Favre asked Reeves to appoint a former classmate of his to the Mississippi Board of Chiropractic Examiners, the new governor readily agreed, according to texts Mississippi Today retrieved through a public records request. In the same text on Feb. 5, 2020, Favre said he and his wife Deanna wanted to show Reeves the volleyball facility “and it would only be us. I want you to see what your (sic) trying to help me for.”

“Oh Todd (Gov. Reeves’ brother) said y’all may go to the concert Friday if so we may tag along and if time permits we show you facility,” Favre added.

It’s unclear how hard Reeves actually pushed to include funding for the facility in a legislative appropriation, but he and his brother certainly gave Favre the impression that he would.

“He (Reeves) said he was gonna get with his team and figure something out,” Favre texted Bryant on Feb. 6, 2020, as the fallout from the arrests was still materializing.

“I think the angle Tate is looking at is a bond bill according to Todd his brother,” Favre texted Bryant on Feb. 7.

Though Mississippi Today requested them, Reeves has not produced any texts he might have exchanged with Favre or other key figures prior to January of 2020 before he became governor.

Lack of legislative oversight of welfare funds

Former Gov. Phil Bryant, who led the state’s welfare department during the height of the scandal, suggested in a 2022 interview with Mississippi Today that the state Legislature, where then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves had an outsized leadership role, failed to meet its statutory obligation to monitor welfare agency spending.

Bryant, who has not been charged with any crime but has faced accusations of wrongdoing from numerous criminal and civil case defendants, did not name Reeves in the interview but did attempt to put the onus on legislative oversight committees.

“I didn’t have the capacity to do that,” Bryant said in 2022 when asked why the misspending was not discovered earlier. “I didn’t have the personnel to go and do that. That’s why we depend on oversight committees from the Legislature. So, every year there was a budget that went to Human Services. Wouldn’t the oversight committee of the Legislature say, ‘Okay, we want to see how your spending is going. Show us where you’re spending your money. Show us all the grants that you have.’ Don’t they do that?”

As lieutenant governor between 2012-2020, Reeves served a pivotal leadership role in the Legislature — including during the years of 2017-2020, when the brunt of the known welfare misspending occurred.

Though Reeves was never a member of the legislative committee created by state law to provide oversight of the Department of Human Services, he has often boasted his direct control of the state budget during his time at the Capitol. Reeves served as chair or vice chair of the powerful Legislative Budget Committee that does provide oversight of agency budgets.

Bryant, in the same interview with Mississippi Today in 2022, said that legislative oversight was not fulfilled when the welfare misspending occurred. He recalled the oversight that he said used to occur during his time in the Legislature as a member of the House and later as lieutenant governor.

“But even the appropriations process,” Bryant said. “When I used to sit on the (House) Ways and Means Committee, and the joint legislative budget process, they would come in with stacks, not just Human Services, but every agency, ‘Here’s my expenditures. Here’s where it’s going. Here’s the cars that we bought.’ And you could review them.

“So, no one caught that during the appropriations process, during the audit process, the attorney general, but I was supposed to catch it? None of them caught it, but I’m, being governor, and I’m supposed to catch it?”

READ MORE: Phil Bryant discusses his nephew, favored welfare vendors, failures and successes

In response to several written questions from Mississippi Today, Elliott Husbands, campaign manager for Reeves, again reiterated that Reeves played no role in the scandal and attacked Mississippi Today as being “a Democrat dark money group.” Husbands did not respond directly to what Bryant said in April 2022.

“Tate Reeves has obviously not been questioned by law enforcement because the scandal in question occurred entirely during the administration of a different governor, and the Reeves administration has worked to recoup the funds, supporting the prosecution and suing the guilty individuals,” Husbands said. “Mississippians deserve honesty, and not the lying fairy tales you publish.”

Reeves’ political connections to other high-profile defendants

In a February 2020 press conference, Reeves acknowledged receiving campaign contributions from people associated with the welfare scandal and ongoing investigation, including Nancy New and her son Zach, both of whom have pleaded guilty to state and federal criminal charges. The News ran the nonprofit that funded Lacoste’s contract and funneled $5 million to construct the volleyball stadium.

“I can tell you right now, anything they gave to the campaign is going to be moved to a separate bank account,” Reeves said in 2020. “… Anything they gave the campaign will be there waiting to be returned to the taxpayers and help the people it was intended for. If that doesn’t happen, the money will go to a deserving charity.”

Mississippi Today and other outlets reported earlier this year, however, that there is no indication that the funds have been transferred to a separate bank account. In response to questions, the Reeves campaign gave no indication that a separate bank account had been established.

“The political donations from anyone who is connected to the TANF scandal will be donated to a worthy cause at the ultimate conclusion of the legal proceedings. Those cases are ongoing,” said Husbands, Reeves’ campaign manager, referring to the continuing investigation of the misspending of $77 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare funds.

In Reeves’ 2019 gubernatorial campaign, he also filmed public education commercials touting his public school teacher pay plan at the News’ now shuttered private New Summit School in Jackson. Private school students and teachers were used for the commercial.

Video from the 2019 New Summit advertisement has been used again this campaign cycle by Reeves in two commercials.

In addition to other charges and guilty pleas, federal prosecutors have alleged that Nancy New bilked the state out of $4 million in public education dollars, of which at least $76,889 that were supposed to pay for teachers at New Summit School she used to purchase a house.

READ MORE: Reeves campaign uses video from shuttered private school linked to welfare scandal

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

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Mississippi Today

If Tate Reeves calls a tax cut special session, Senate has the option to do nothing

Published

15 hours ago

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February 23, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – Bobby Harrison – 2025-02-23 06:00:00

An illness is spreading through the Mississippi Capitol: special session fever.

Speculation is rampant that Gov. Tate Reeves will call a special session if the Senate does not acquiesce to his and the House leadership’s wishes to eliminate the state personal income tax.

Reeves and House leaders are fond of claiming that the about 30% of general fund revenue lost by eliminating the income tax can be offset by growth in other state tax revenue.

House leaders can produce fancy charts showing that the average annual 3% growth rate in state revenue collections can more than offset the revenue lost from a phase out of the income tax.

What is lost in the fancy charts is that the historical 3% growth rate in state revenue includes growth in the personal income tax, which is the second largest source of state revenue. Any growth rate will entail much less revenue if it does not include a 3% growth in the income tax, which would be eliminated if the governor and House leaders have their way. This is important because historically speaking, as state revenue grows so does the cost of providing services, from pay to state employees, to health care costs, to transportation costs, to utility costs and so on.

This does not even include the fact that historically speaking, many state entities providing services have been underfunded by the Legislature, ranging from education to health care, to law enforcement, to transportation. Again, the list goes on and on.

And don’t forget a looming $25 billion shortfall in the state’s Public Employee Retirement System that could create chaos at some point.

But should the Senate not agree to the elimination of the income tax and Reeves calls a special session, there will be tremendous pressure on the Senate leadership, particularly Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the chamber’s presiding officer.

Generally speaking, a special session will provide more advantages for the eliminate-the-income-tax crowd.

First off, it will be two against one. When the governor and one chamber of the Legislature are on the same page, it is often more difficult for the other chamber to prevail.

The Mississippi Constitution gives the governor sole authority to call a special session and set an agenda. But the Legislature does have discretion in how that agenda is carried out.

And the Legislature always has the option to do nothing during the special session. Simply adjourn and go home is an option.

But the state constitution also says if one chamber is in session, the other house cannot remain out of session for more than three days.

In other words, theoretically, the House and governor working together could keep the Senate in session all year.

In theory, senators could say they are not going to yield to the governor’s wishes and adjourn the special session. But if the House remained in session, the Senate would have to come back in three days. The Senate could then adjourn again, but be forced to come back if the House stubbornly remained in session.

The process could continue all year.

But in the real world, there does not appear to be a mechanism — constitutionally speaking — to force the Senate to come back. The Mississippi Constitution does say members can be “compelled” to attend a session in order to have a quorum, but many experts say that language would not be relevant to make an entire chamber return to session after members had voted to adjourn.

In the past, one chamber has failed to return to the Capitol and suffered no consequences after the other remained in session for more than three days.

As a side note, the Mississippi Constitution does give the governor the authority to end a special session should the two chambers not agree on adjournment. In the early 2000s, then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove ended a special session when the House and Senate could not agree on a plan to redraw the state’s U.S. House districts to adhere to population shifts found by the U.S. Census.

But would Reeves want to end the special session without approval of his cherished income tax elimination plan?

Probably not.

In 2002 there famously was an 82-day special session to consider proposals to provide businesses more protection from lawsuits. No effort was made to adjourn that session. It just dragged on until the House finally agreed to a significant portion of the Senate plan to provide more lawsuit protection.

In 1969, a special session lasted most of the summer when the Legislature finally agreed to a proposal of then-Gov. John Bell Williams to opt into the federal Medicaid program.

In both those instances, those wanting something passed — Medicaid in the 1960s and lawsuit protections in the 2000s — finally prevailed.

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

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On this day in 1898

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2 days ago

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February 22, 2025

By

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-02-22 07:00:00

Feb. 22, 1898

Lavinia Baker and her five surviving children. A white mob set fire to their house and fatally shot and killed her husband, Frazier Baker, and baby girl Julia on Feb. 22, 1898. Left to right: Sarah; Lincoln, Lavinia; Wille; Cora, Rosa Credit: Wikipedia

Frazier Baker, the first Black postmaster of the small town of Lake City, South Carolina, and his baby daughter, Julia, were killed, and his wife and three other daughters were injured when a lynch mob attacked. 

When President William McKinley appointed Baker the previous year, local whites began to attack Baker’s abilities. Postal inspectors determined the accusations were unfounded, but that didn’t halt those determined to destroy him. 

Hundreds of whites set fire to the post office, where the Bakers lived, and reportedly fired up to 100 bullets into their home. Outraged citizens in town wrote a resolution describing the attack and 25 years of “lawlessness” and “bloody butchery” in the area. 

Crusading journalist Ida B. Wells wrote the White House about the attack, noting that the family was now in the Black hospital in Charleston “and when they recover sufficiently to be discharged, they) have no dollar with which to buy food, shelter or raiment. 

McKinley ordered an investigation that led to charges against 13 men, but no one was ever convicted. The family left South Carolina for Boston, and later that year, the first nationwide civil rights organization in the U.S., the National Afro-American Council, was formed. 

In 2019, the Lake City post office was renamed to honor Frazier Baker. 

“We, as a family, are glad that the recognition of this painful event finally happened,” his great-niece, Dr. Fostenia Baker said. “It’s long overdue.”

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

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Memorial Health System takes over Biloxi hospital, what will change?

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2 days ago

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February 21, 2025

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mississippitoday.org – Roy Howard Community Journalism Center – 2025-02-21 15:22:00

by Justin Glowacki  with contributions from Rasheed Ambrose, Javion Henry, McKenna Klamm, Matt Martin and Aidan Tarrant

BILOXI – On Feb. 1, Memorial Health System officially took over Merit Health Biloxi, solidifying its position as the dominant healthcare provider in the region. According to Fitch Ratings, Memorial now controls more than 85% of the local health care market.

This isn’t Memorial’s first hospital acquisition. In 2019, it took over Stone County Hospital and expanded services. Memorial considers that transition a success and expects similar results in Biloxi.

However, health care experts caution that when one provider dominates a market, it can lead to higher prices and fewer options for patients.

Expanding specialty care and services

Kristian Spear, Hospital Administrator at Memorial Hospital Biloxi, speaks on the hospital’s acquisition and future goals for improvement. (RHCJC News)

One of the biggest benefits of the acquisition, according to Kristian Spear, the new administrator of Memorial Hospital Biloxi, will be access to Memorial’s referral network.

By joining Memorial’s network, Biloxi patients will have access to more services, over 40 specialties and over 100 clinics.

“Everything that you can get at Gulfport, you will have access to here through the referral system,” Spear said.

One of the first improvements will be the reopening of the Radiation Oncology Clinic at Cedar Lake, which previously shut down due to “availability shortages,” though hospital administration did not expand on what that entailed.

“In the next few months, the community will see a difference,” Spear said. “We’re going to bring resources here that they haven’t had.”

Beyond specialty care, Memorial is also expanding hospital services and increasing capacity. Angela Benda, director of quality and performance improvement at Memorial Hospital Biloxi, said the hospital is focused on growth.

“We’re a 153-bed hospital, and we average a census of right now about 30 to 40 a day. It’s not that much, and so, the plan is just to grow and give more services,” Benda said. “So, we’re going to expand on the fifth floor, open up more beds, more admissions, more surgeries, more provider presence, especially around the specialties like cardiology and OB-GYN and just a few others like that.”

For patient Kenneth Pritchett, a Biloxi resident for over 30 years, those changes couldn’t come soon enough.

Keneth Pritchett, a Biloxi resident for over 30 years, speaks on the introduction of new services at Memorial Hospital Biloxi. (RHCJC News) Credit: Larrison Campbell, Mississippi Today

Pritchett, who was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, received treatment at Merit Health Biloxi. He currently sees a cardiologist in Cedar Lake, a 15-minute drive on the interstate. He says having a cardiologist in Biloxi would make a difference.

“Yes, it’d be very helpful if it was closer,” Pritchett said. “That’d be right across the track instead of going on the interstate.”

Beyond specialty services and expanded capacity, Memorial is upgrading medical equipment and renovating the hospital to improve both function and appearance. As far as a timeline for these changes, Memorial said, “We are taking time to assess the needs and will make adjustments that make sense for patient care and employee workflow as time and budget allow.”

Unanswered questions: insurance and staffing

As Memorial Health System takes over Merit Health Biloxi, two major questions remain:

  1. Will patients still be covered under the same insurance plans?
  2. Will current hospital staff keep their jobs?

Insurance Concerns

Memorial has not finalized agreements with all insurance providers and has not provided a timeline for when those agreements will be in place.

In a statement, the hospital said:

“Memorial recommends that patients contact their insurance provider to get their specific coverage questions answered. However, patients should always seek to get the care they need, and Memorial will work through the financial process with the payers and the patients afterward.”

We asked Memorial Health System how the insurance agreements were handled after it acquired Stone County Hospital. They said they had “no additional input.”

What about hospital staff?

According to Spear, Merit Health Biloxi had around 500 employees.

“A lot of the employees here have worked here for many, many years. They’re very loyal. I want to continue that, and I want them to come to me when they have any concerns, questions, and I want to work with this team together,” Spear said.

She explained that there will be a 90-day transitional period where all employees are integrated into Memorial Health System’s software.

“Employees are not going to notice much of a difference. They’re still going to come to work. They’re going to do their day-to-day job. Over the next few months, we will probably do some transitioning of their computer system. But that’s not going to be right away.”

The transition to new ownership also means Memorial will evaluate how the hospital is operated and determine if changes need to be made.

“As we get it and assess the different workflows and the different policies, there will be some changes to that over time. Just it’s going to take time to get in here and figure that out.”

During this 90-day period, Erin Rosetti, Communications Manager at Memorial Health System said, “Biloxi employees in good standing will transition to Memorial at the same pay rate and equivalent job title.”

Kent Nicaud, President and CEO of Memorial Health System, said in a statement that the hospital is committed to “supporting our staff and ensuring they are aligned with the long-term vision of our health system.”

What research says about hospital consolidations

While Memorial is promising improvements, larger trends in hospital mergers raise important questions.

Research published by the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization, found that research into hospital consolidations reported increased prices anywhere from 3.9% to 65%, even among nonprofit hospitals.

Source: Liu, Jodi L., Zachary M. Levinson, Annetta Zhou, Xiaoxi Zhao, PhuongGiang Nguyen, and Nabeel Qureshi, Environmental Scan on Consolidation Trends and Impacts in Health Care Markets. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2022.

The impact on patient care is mixed. Some studies suggest merging hospitals can streamline services and improve efficiency. Others indicate mergers reduce competition, which can drive up costs without necessarily improving care.

When asked about potential changes to the cost of care, hospital leaders declined to comment until after negations with insurance companies are finalized, but did clarify Memorial’s “prices are set.”

“We have a proven record of being able to go into institutions and transform them,” said Angie Juzang, Vice President of Marketing and Community Relations at Memorial Health System.

When Memorial acquired Stone County Hospital, it expanded the emergency room to provide 24/7 emergency room coverage and renovated the interior.

When asked whether prices increased after the Stone County acquisition, Memorial responded:

“Our presence has expanded access to health care for everyone in Stone County and the surrounding communities. We are providing quality healthcare, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay.”

The response did not directly address whether prices went up — leaving the question unanswered.

The bigger picture: Hospital consolidations on the rise

According to health care consulting firm Kaufman Hall, hospital mergers and acquisitions are returning to pre-pandemic levels and are expected to increase through 2025.

Hospitals are seeking stronger financial partnerships to help expand services and remain stable in an uncertain health care market.

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Source: Kaufman Hall M&A Review

Proponents of hospital consolidations argue mergers help hospitals operate more efficiently by:

  • Sharing resources.
  • Reducing overhead costs.
  • Negotiating better supply pricing.

However, opponents warn few competitors in a market can:

  • Reduce incentives to lower prices.
  • Slow wage increases for hospital staff.
  • Lessen the pressure to improve services.

Leemore Dafny, PhD, a professor at Harvard and former deputy director for health care and antitrust at the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics, has studied hospital consolidations extensively.

In testimony before Congress, she warned: “When rivals merge, prices increase, and there’s scant evidence of improvements in the quality of care that patients receive. There is also a fair amount of evidence that quality of care decreases.”

Meanwhile, an American Hospital Association analysis found consolidations lead to a 3.3% reduction in annual operating expenses and a 3.7% reduction in revenue per patient.

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

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