Mississippi Today
Poll: Two-thirds of Mississippians support Medicaid expansion
As candidates for state offices begin to make their campaign pitches to voters, a new Mississippi Today/Siena College poll shows that a vast majority of Mississippians across partisan and demographic lines still support expanding Medicaid access to the working poor.
The poll conducted on April 16-20 shows that 66% of Mississippians — including 82% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans — support “lawmakers voting to accept federal funds to expand Medicaid” coverage.
Only 22% of respondents said they were opposed to the policy, and 11% said they did not know enough information about the issue.
Editor's note: Poll methodology and crosstabs can be found at the bottom of this story. Click here to read more about our partnership with Siena College Research Institute.
Despite repeated data showing Mississippians across the state support the policy, the state's Republican leadership has consistently rejected expanding coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The GOP-dominated leadership in the state Legislature earlier this year killed all efforts to expand the federal insurance program to more people and even cut off debate from Democratic lawmakers over the topic.
And the policy debate over expansion is already starting to form as a key wedge issue during the 2023 gubernatorial election.
Brandon Presley, the Democratic candidate for governor, has made expanding Medicaid a core component of his campaign and has repeatedly cast incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves as a hypocrite for espousing pro-life values and opting not to expand Medicaid.
“We've turned back billions of dollars in Mississippi,” he said in an April 19 press release. “Not because of policy. The only reason we've turned down federal dollars for health care in Mississippi is petty, partisan, cheap politics.”
Reeves, the Republican running for reelection, at a recent press conference doubled down on his stance that he is opposed to the policy, which he often derisively refers to as “Obamacare.”
“I have not changed my position on the expansion of Obamacare,” Reeves said. “Adding 300,000 additional people to welfare in our state is not the right path for Mississippi.”
READ MORE: Governor's race poll: Brandon Presley slips, Gov. Tate Reeves remains unpopular
Evidence shows that if state leaders would expand the insurance program to the working poor, it would economically benefit the state.
Mississippi's state economist, employed by the state's public university system, published a 2021 report concluding that if Mississippi put up the money for the 10% match, the benefits it received would more than cover the initial match.
“Based on our estimates of the costs and savings associated with Medicaid expansion, Mississippi could enter Medicaid expansion in 2022 and incur little to no additional expenditures for at least the first decade of expansion,” the report said.
Over one-third of Mississippi's rural hospitals are at risk of immediate closure soon, according to a report, and some hospitals have recently shuttered critical patient services.
READ MORE: Poll shows Mississippians strongly favor Presley's ideas but he still trails in governor's race
Given the financial struggle of rural hospitals, some voters are openly wondering if the crisis will have a ripple effect that trickles down into their communities.
Estella Cox-Williamson, a Grenada County resident who attended a recent campaign event for Presley, said access to health care in Grenada was one of her main issues she's wanting statewide candidates to address this election cycle.
“Really, I just want a governor who will actually produce results this time,” she said. “And that includes health care.”
The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll of 783 registered voters was conducted April 16-20 and has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points. Siena has an ‘A' rating in FiveThirtyEight's analysis of pollsters.
Click here for crosstabs relevant to this story, and click here for poll methodology.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Podcast: The controversial day that Robert Kennedy came to the University of Mississippi
Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Edward Ellington talks with Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison and Geoff Pender about former U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy's speech at the University of Mississippi less than four years after the riots that occurred after the integration of the school. Ellington, who at the time headed the Ole Miss Speaker's Bureau as a law school student, recalls the controversy leading up to the speech.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=359978
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1961
MAY 20, 1961
A white mob of more than 300, including Klansmen, attacked Freedom Riders at the Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery, Alabama. Future Congressman John Lewis was among them.
“An angry mob came out of nowhere, hundreds of people, with bricks and balls, chains,” Lewis recalled.
After beating on the riders, the mob turned on reporters and then Justice Department official John Seigenthaler, who was beaten unconscious and left in the street after helping two riders.
“Then they turned on my colleagues and started beating us and beat us so severely, we were left bloodied and unconscious in the streets of Montgomery,” Lewis recalled.
As the mob headed his way, Freedom Rider James Zwerg said he asked for God to be with him, and “I felt absolutely surrounded by love. I knew that whether I lived or died, I was going to be OK.”
The mob beat him so badly that his suit was soaked in blood.
“There was nothing particularly heroic in what I did,” he said. “If you want to talk about heroism, consider the Black man who probably saved my life. This man in coveralls, just off of work, happened to walk by as my beating was going on and said ‘Stop beating that kid. If you want to beat someone, beat me.' And they did. He was still unconscious when I left the hospital.”
To quell the violence, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent in 450 federal marshals.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
2024 Mississippi legislative session not good for private school voucher supporters
Despite a recent Mississippi Supreme Court ruling allowing $10 million in public money to be spent on private schools, 2024 has not been a good year for those supporting school vouchers.
School-choice supporters were hopeful during the 2024 legislative session, with new House Speaker Jason White at times indicating support for vouchers.
But the Legislature, which recently completed its session, did not pass any new voucher bills. In fact, it placed tighter restrictions on some of the limited laws the state has in place allowing public money to be spent on private schools.
Notably, the Legislature passed a bill that provides significantly more oversight of a program that provides a limited number of scholarships or vouchers for special-needs children to attend private schools.
Going forward, thanks to the new law, to receive the vouchers a parent must certify that their child will be attending a private school that offers the special needs educational services that will help the child. And the school must report information on the academic progress of the child receiving the funds.
Also, efforts to expand another state program that provides tax credits for the benefit of private schools was defeated. Legislation that would have expanded the tax credits offered by the Children's Promise Act from $8 million a year to $24 million to benefit private schools was defeated. Private schools are supposed to educate low income students and students with special needs to receive the benefit of the tax credits. The legislation expanding the Children's Promise Act was defeated after it was reported that no state agency knew how many students who fit into the categories of poverty and other specific needs were being educated in the schools receiving funds through the tax credits.
Interestingly, the Legislature did not expand the Children's Promise Act but also did not place more oversight on the private schools receiving the tax credit funds.
The bright spot for those supporting vouchers was the early May state Supreme Court ruling. But, in reality, the Supreme Court ruling was not as good for supporters of vouchers as it might appear on the surface.
The Supreme Court did not say in the ruling whether school vouchers are constitutional. Instead, the state's highest court ruled that the group that brought the lawsuit – Parents for Public Schools – did not have standing to pursue the legal action.
The Supreme Court justices did not give any indication that they were ready to say they were going to ignore the Mississippi Constitution's plain language that prohibits public funds from being provided “to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”
In addition to finding Parents for Public Schools did not have standing to bring the lawsuit, the court said another key reason for its ruling was the fact that the funds the private schools were receiving were federal, not state funds. The public funds at the center of the lawsuit were federal COVID-19 relief dollars.
Right or wrong, The court appeared to make a distinction between federal money and state general funds. And in reality, the circumstances are unique in that seldom does the state receive federal money with so few strings attached that it can be awarded to private schools.
The majority opinion written by Northern District Supreme Justice Robert Chamberlin and joined by six justices states, “These specific federal funds were never earmarked by either the federal government or the state for educational purposes, have not been commingled with state education funds, are not for educational purposes and therefore cannot be said to have harmed PPS (Parents for Public Schools) by taking finite government educational funding away from public schools.”
And Southern District Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam, who joined the majority opinion, wrote separately “ to reiterate that we are not ruling on state funds but American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds … The ARPA funds were given to the state to be used in four possible ways, three of which were directly related to the COVID -19 health emergency and one of which was to make necessary investments in water, sewer or broadband infrastructure.”
Granted, many public school advocates lamented the decision, pointing out that federal funds are indeed public or taxpayer money and those federal funds could have been used to help struggling public schools.
Two justices – James Kitchens and Leslie King, both of the Central District, agreed with that argument.
But, importantly, a decidedly conservative-leaning Mississippi Supreme Court stopped far short – at least for the time being – of circumventing state constitutional language that plainly states that public funds are not to go to private schools.
And a decidedly conservative Mississippi Legislature chose not to expand voucher programs during the 2024 session.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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