Mississippi Today

The long history of white, Southern politicians rejecting health care expansion

Published

1 year ago

November 21, 2022

The long history of white, Southern politicians rejecting health care expansion

by Bobby Harrison, Mississippi Today
November 20, 2022

Southern politicians have a long history of opposing efforts to provide government-sponsored health care for their constituents.

In 1947, President Harry Truman proposed legislation that essentially would provide universal health care paid through fees and taxes. Remember, health care options for working people in those days were even more dire than now with fewer people having employer-based health insurance.

Truman's proposal was killed in part by Southern Democrats in the U.S. House and Senate. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote in his book, “The Conscience of a Liberal,” that Southern politicians opposed the plan of the Democratic president because they feared that it would lead to a government mandate to integrate hospitals.

“Keeping Black people out of white hospitals was more important to Southern politicians than providing poor whites with the means to get medical treatment,” Krugman wrote.

Southern politicians, as it turns out, are still not crazy about government-sponsored health insurance.

A quick glance at a map of the states that have and have not expanded Medicaid is startling. Of the 11 states that have not expanded Medicaid, eight (if Texas is included) are Southern states.

The map of the non-expansion states, a matter of fact, looks a lot like the footprint of the collegiate Southeastern Conference sports league with the exception of Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri. Those four states have expanded Medicaid. Granted, most would say that Missouri is not a Southern state, but it is in the SEC.

At any rate, it is the SEC states, led by Southern politicians, now Republican Southern politicians, who are again resisting efforts to expand government-sponsored health care to help their poor constituents.

No longer, of course, are hospitals segregated. They were integrated in the 1960s, according to Krugman, when another government-sponsored program was enacted: Medicare, which provides health care to the elderly.

While it has been established by various studies that the largest percentage of people who would benefit from Medicaid expansion are people of color, it is important to point out that there are many white citizens who also would benefit.

Medicaid expansion, as is allowed as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, provides health insurance for primarily the working poor — for people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $18,754 per year for an individual. In Mississippi, the traditional Medicaid program covers, generally speaking, poor pregnant women, poor children, certain groups of poor retirees and the disabled, but not the working poor.

The federal government pays the bulk of the health care costs for those on Medicaid expansion. When Southern politicians express their opposition to Medicaid expansion, they often simply proclaim they “are against Obamacare” as if that is enough reason to oppose it.

“I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I don't know how many ways I can explain this to y'all,” Republican Gov. Tate Reeves said in response to reporters' questions.

When the nation's only Black president — Barack Obama — passed through Congress in 2010 the Affordable Care Act, almost all Republicans were opposed to “Obamacare.” But now solid Republican states like Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Idaho have embraced Medicaid expansion. In Republican-controlled South Dakota, voters just approved a ballot initiative to adopt Medicaid expansion. For the most part, it is just Southern politicians eschewing Medicaid expansion.

John Bell Williams also was against expanding health care when he served in the U.S. House representing Mississippi. As a congressman, he voted against Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's plan to enact a Medicaid program for a small population of the underprivileged.

But as governor, Williams later called a special session in 1969 and urged the Legislature to opt into the Medicaid program.

In a speech to the Legislature, Williams said, “Let us not delude ourselves into the false notion that we can — or will — evade the burden of caring for these unfortunate people. Our society, through the instrument of government, has always shouldered this responsibility, and I am sure it always will.”

Williams went on to say the state could not afford to turn down a federal health care program that would require the state to provide only 20% of the matching funds. He spoke of the economic impact it would have on the state.

“The simple fact is that someone pays for health services, and we must decide, who will do it and how,” he explained.

The special session lasted from July 22 to Oct. 11. In the end, the Mississippi Legislature opted into the program, proving that Southern politicians did not always oppose improving health care for their poor constituents.

Whether that will happen with Medicaid expansion remains to be seen.

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

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Mississippi Today

North Mississippi business leaders urge Legislature to pass Medicaid expansion

Published

22 hours ago

April 22, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-04-22 16:24:50

A group of business leaders from northeast Mississippi, one of the most conservative areas of the state, recently wrote a letter to House Speaker Jason White encouraging lawmakers to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor.

The letter, signed by influential Itawamba County business owner and Republican donor Luke Mongtomery, thanked White for pressing forward with Medicaid expansion legislation and called it “the most important legislative issue for the 2024 session.”

“As this bill now goes to our legislators appointed to the conference committee for consideration, I have faith that a workable solution will be developed that is agreeable among House and Senate leaders,” Montgomery wrote. “Legislation that is good for our future and for all Mississippians.”

Montgomery wrote the letter on behalf of Mississippi Hills Leadership PAC, a committee of north Mississippi business leaders who regularly donate to statewide politicians and dozens of conservative legislative candidates.

Montgomery is the current chairman of the PAC, while Dan Rollins, CEO of Tupelo-based Cadence Bank, serves as the vice vice chairman and David Rumbarger, CEO of Lee County's Community Development Foundation, serves as its treasurer.

The PAC last year donated $50,000 to White's campaign, $50,000 to a PAC White controls, $50,000 to Hosemann and thousands of dollars to lawmakers, according to campaign finance reports with the secretary of state's office.

Business and civic leaders in northeast Mississippi such as Jack Reed Sr., George McLean, Hassell Franklin and Bobby Martin, all of whom have since passed away, had a longstanding history of advocating for political causes in the region.

But in modern times, business leaders from the area are careful to wade into political issues beyond the typical scope of local business interests.

Montgomery told Mississippi Today in a statement that the PAC's leaders support White, a Republican from West, and Hosemann, the leader of the Senate, for realizing the importance of passing expansion legislation.

“The Mississippi Hills Leadership PAC fully supports our House and Senate leaders as they work together to develop a responsible healthcare expansion plan that takes full advantage of available federal support for the benefit of our hospitals, our people, and our future,” Montgomery said.

The letter comes in the middle of House and Senate leaders attempting to hammer out a compromise in a conference committee to resolve the different expansion plans the chambers have proposed.

The House's expansion plan aims to expand health care coverage to upwards of 200,000 Mississippians, and accept $1 billion a year in federal money to cover it, as most other states have done.

The Senate, on the other hand, wants a more restrictive program, to expand Medicaid to cover around 40,000 people, turn down the federal money, and require proof that recipients are working at least 30 hours a week.

Montgomery's letter did not endorse a specific plan, but it did call the House's plan, which expanded coverage to the full 138% of the federal poverty level under the Affordable Care Act, “a reasonable and responsible proposal.”

A potential compromise is for the two chambers to agree on a “MarketPlus Hybrid Plan,” which health policy experts with the Center for Mississippi Health Policy and the Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County estimate could save the state money in the long-term.

Speaker White previously told Mississippi Today in an interview that he believes he can hold a bipartisan group of more than 90 House members, a veto-proof majority, together in support of a compromise expansion package.

But the coalition of support in the 52-member Senate is more fragile. The Capitol's upper chamber only passed its austere expansion plan by 36 votes, with only one vote to spare for the two-thirds threshold needed to override a governor's veto.

In addition to Hosemann, the PAC has donated money to the following senators: Kathy Chism, R-New Albany; Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth; Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont; Chad McMahan, R-Guntown; Hob Bryan, D-Amory; Ben Suber, R-Bruce; Dean Kirby, R-Pearl; Briggs Hopson, R-Vicksburg and Josh Harkins, R-Flowood.

Jack Reed Jr., the former Republican mayor of Tupelo and the CEO of Reed's Department Store, an economic anchor of downtown Tupelo, is also expected to be at the Capitol on Tuesday morning to advocate for expansion.

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

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1892

Published

1 day ago

April 22, 2024

Staff Editor

April 22, 1892

Fiery civil rights pioneer Vernon Johns was born in Darlington Heights, Virginia, in Prince Edward County. He taught himself German and other languages so well that when the dean of Oberlin College handed him a book of German scripture, Johns easily passed, won admission and became the top student at Oberlin College.

In 1948, the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, hired Johns, who mesmerized the crowd with his photographic memory of scripture. But he butted heads with the middle-class congregation when he chastised members for disliking muddy manual labor, selling cabbages, hams and watermelons on the streets near the state capitol.

He pressed civil rights issues, helping Black rape victims bring their cases to authorities, ordering a meal from a white restaurant and refusing to sit in the back of a bus. No one in the congregation followed his lead, and turmoil continued to rise between the pastor and his parishioners.

In May 1953, he resigned, returning to his family farm. His successor? A young preacher named Martin Luther King Jr.

James Earl Jones portrayed the eccentric pastor in the 1994 TV film, “Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story,” and historian Taylor Branch profiled Johns in his Pulitzer-winning “Parting the Waters; America in the King Years 1954-63.”

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

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Mississippi Today

Podcast: Rep. Sam Creekmore says Legislature is making progress on public health, mental health reforms

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1 day ago

April 22, 2024

Staff Editor

House Public Health Chairman Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, tells Mississippi Today's Geoff Pender and Taylor Vance he's hopeful he and other negotiators can strike a deal on Medicaid expansion to address dire issues in the unhealthiest state.

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

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