Mississippi Today
Fact check: Reeves claims he was instrumental in health reforms, but his role is not so clear
A new TV ad says that Mississippians “can count on Tate Reeves” to solve complicated problems like the state’s health crisis.
However, it’s not clear how large of a role the first-term governor who is running for reelection this year has actually played in many of the policy measures proposed over the last year to curb the crisis.
Though hospitals have been forced to close departments and lay off staff to stay open over the past several years, Reeves’ first major health care policy announcement came just a few weeks ago, just 47 days before the November election — after Reeves’ opponent, Democrat Brandon Presley, made the hospital crisis a cornerstone of his 2023 campaign.
During the September press conference, Reeves took credit for a handful of other health care policies passed by the Legislature this session, several of which were touted by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann as part of his plan to help the state’s hospitals.
Up until this month, Reeves had been largely silent about the health care crisis, aside from doubling down on his opposition to Medicaid expansion, the policy measure experts agree would help the most. When Mississippi Today previously asked Reeves about the hospital crisis, he brushed the concerns off, saying the solution was getting more people in the workforce and on private insurance.
Mississippi Today analyzed the accuracy of recent claims made by Reeves and his campaign staff about his role in stemming the state’s health care crisis. Here’s what we found.
Leadership during pandemic
Reeves’ communications director, Hunter Estes, wrote on social media in September that the governor “led the state through COVID.”
Though Reeves has indeed been governor of Mississippi since the pandemic began in January 2020, the state hasn’t fared all that well.
The pandemic pushed already-struggling hospitals to the brink in Mississippi. Already thin hospital budget margins were made thinner during the pandemic, with both staffing shortages and costs of care increasing over a period of several months. One report now puts nearly half of rural hospitals at risk of closure in Mississippi.
At one point during the pandemic, Mississippi led the nation in COVID-19 deaths, and at various other points, the state’s COVID-19 caseload also ranked among the worst in the world. This came after Reeves loosened mask mandates and restrictions on non-essential gatherings — and his decisions often directly countered recommendations by the state’s health leaders.
In two studies from the Council of Foreign Relations and the Commonwealth Fund that judged how well states performed and protected their residents during the pandemic, Mississippi’s COVID-19 performance was at the bottom of the list.
The Council of Foreign Relations analysis, which was largely based on states’ cumulative COVID-19 deaths and infections, ranked Mississippi second to last in health performance during the pandemic.
The Commonwealth Fund analysis, which judged health care access, quality, spending, health outcomes and equity, put Mississippi dead last.
Postpartum Medicaid extension
Reeves’ staffer also gave the governor credit for postpartum Medicaid extension, a policy measure that, until the final hour, Reeves refused to endorse, claiming he needed to see more data that proved its benefits.
Health care experts in Mississippi had long implored state leaders to pass postpartum Medicaid extension, which extended health care coverage for new mothers on Medicaid from 60 days to one year. Mississippi leads the nation in infant mortality, and has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation.
For two years, the Senate tried to pass the legislation, only to be repeatedly thwarted by House leadership. Former House Speaker Phillip Gunn maintained that he wouldn’t support extending postpartum Medicaid coverage until Mississippi Medicaid’s director Drew Snyder, a Reeves appointee, recommended it.
Snyder, who had along with his boss refused to take a stance on the legislation, finally wrote a letter in February encouraging its passage. With that letter in hand, Gunn stepped aside and allowed the bill to move through the legislative process.
Reeves publicly gave his approval soon after, and both chambers passed the bill.
Nurse loan repayment plan and health care worker training
The student loan repayment plan for nurses claimed by Reeves at his press conference was introduced by Hosemann as part of his plan to help hospitals during the Legislative session.
Aside from signing the bills into law after they went through the legislative process, it’s not clear what other involvement Reeves had.
Hosemann announced Senate Bill 2373 at a January press conference. Reeves was not present.
The bill is aimed at incentivizing nurses to stay in Mississippi and pays up to $6,000 per year for up to three years for nurses paying off student loans after graduation.
The most recent available data shows nurse shortage and turnover rates are at their highest levels in years.
Senate Bill 2371, which allocates millions toward hospital residency and fellowship programs aimed at training and increasing the state’s health care workforce, was also introduced at Hosemann’s January press conference.
When asked how involved the Governor was, Reeves’ Deputy Chief of Staff Cory Custer did not answer with any specificity. He said that Reeves “cannot single-handedly pass and sign legislation into law,” though his office is involved throughout the legislative process.
“The lawmakers who passed the bill deserve tremendous credit,” Custer said.
When Mississippi Today asked Reeves’ office for more details about what he’s done to expand health care workers’ training opportunities, aside from signing SB 2371, Custer replied that Mississippi has invested almost $50 million in health care training programs over the last two years through AccelerateMS, a workforce development organization. Custer said Reeves — who appoints the chair of the State Workforce Investment Board, which hires the executive director of AccelerateMS — works closely with both the board and the organization.
“Expanding opportunities to train healthcare professionals has been a key priority for Governor Reeves,” Custer said in an emailed statement. “The state of Mississippi is aggressively implementing a range of initiatives that will strengthen healthcare infrastructure in Mississippi and better support healthcare professionals.”
Hosemann, a fellow Republican, would not say how involved Reeves was in the creation of the bills.
“We have visited dozens of hospitals and met with physicians, nurses, mental health experts, pharmacists, assisted living professionals, Medicaid, healthcare educators, and others in the healthcare field,” he said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “From the knowledge we have gained, we intend to continue to support legislation to secure the future of the delivery of healthcare to our citizens.”
Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant program
The Mississippi Hospital Sustainability Grant program, which Reeves claimed as one of the measures he’s taken to improve health care at his September press conference, has been plagued with problems since its inception earlier this year.
Similar to the bills that incentivize health care workers to stay in Mississippi, this was part of Hosemann’s proposed plan at the beginning of the session, and Reeves’ role in its exact creation is, again, unclear.
Shortly after the legislation’s passage, health care leaders realized the money granted in the program, which was meant to quickly send millions to struggling hospitals across the state, would be difficult to access. Instead of using state money, the program’s funds were sourced from federal pandemic relief funds, which most hospitals have already claimed.
As of the end of September, no hospitals have received that money, which was meant to help hospitals survive the year. Issues with the program are still being resolved.
One-time supplemental Medicaid payout
After proposed changes to the Mississippi Hospital Access Program didn’t result in large enough additional payments to hospitals, Medicaid payments were tweaked earlier this year, bringing in a one-time extra payment of $137 million. The state’s Division of Medicaid is housed under the Governor’s office, though Reeves’ direct role in this change isn’t obvious.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=295663
A 74-year-old Navy veteran who says she was assaulted by a retired Long Beach police officer was hospitalized for a couple of days after the alleged attack because of a serious head injury that resulted in brain bleed.
Vivian Ramsay suffered a subdural hematoma of the brain, or a type of brain bleed, caused by a head injury during the April 24 attack, her attorney David Baria said.
“When I was serving my country in the Navy, I never thought there would be a day that any American, especially a retired policeman, would purposely confront me for expressing my opinion in a silent and peaceful manner,” Ramsay said in an interview Monday.
On the afternoon of the April 24 assault, Ramsay had parked her van at U.S. 90 and Jeff Davis Avenue for a peaceful protest against actions by President Donald Trump since he began his second term in office. Her van had signs denouncing various acts during the Trump administration. “We should not have to protect democracy from the President,” read one sign. In another, Ramsay proclaimed, “Married women lose voting rights. SAVE Act is voter suppression.”
Ramsay said she was surprised by the assault suspect, since identified as retired Long Beach Officer Craig DeRouche, 64, who she says approached her and ripped a protest sign off her van.
“He attempted to further intimidate me by grabbing at me,” she said. “I defended myself until he struck me in the head so hard that I fell to the ground, and I think I lost consciousness. His actions were unprovoked and outrageous. I defended my country in the Navy, and I defended myself on April 24, and I intend to defend myself in court for any charge that I violated the law.”
DeRouche has been arrested on a misdemeanor charge of simple assault against Ramsay in the April 24 incident. He is charged with a second count of misdemeanor assault in the same incident for allegedly assaulting a man who saw the attack and stopped to help the veteran protester, Long Beach Police Chief Billy Seal said.
READ MORE: See the full Sun Herald article here.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Coast protester suffers brain bleed after alleged attack by retired policeman 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 reports on an alleged assault at a peaceful protest, involving a retired police officer and a Navy veteran, without presenting a clear ideological stance. The coverage focuses on the details of the incident, including the victim’s perspective and the charges against the assailant, Craig DeRouche. The tone of the reporting is factual, detailing the actions of both Ramsay and DeRouche, with an emphasis on the harm done to Ramsay and her perspective as a veteran. There is no overt ideological language or framing that strongly suggests bias, but the focus on the victim’s narrative and her outspoken political views may appeal more to a center-left audience that supports protest rights and is critical of actions associated with the Trump administration. The article avoids making a direct political argument but presents the event through a lens that might resonate with those who share Ramsay’s concerns about the political climate. The report is primarily descriptive, allowing readers to form their own conclusions based on the facts presented.
When the Rankin County Sheriff’s Department agreed to a $2.5 million settlement after “Goon Squad” officers tortured two Black men, the department’s attorney said he hoped it would provide closure for the victims.
But at a breakfast Saturday sponsored by the sheriff and his former father-in-law, Irl Dean Rhodes, county officials struck a much different tone.
Two days after the announcement of the settlement, Rankin County Supervisor Steve Gaines said the department’s attorney, Jason Dare, “beat the pants off of those guys — the dopers, the people that raped and doped your daughters. He beat their pants off.”
Gaines was referring to Eddie Parker and his friend, Michael Jenkins, who were beaten, tased and sexually assaulted by the deputies before they shot Jenkins in the mouth during a mock execution. The deputies tried to plant a BB gun and drugs on the men to cover up their crimes, but they were ultimately convicted and sent to federal prison for decades.
Parker has one felony conviction in Rankin County is for failing to “stop vehicle pursuant to officer’s signal,” according to court records. In Alabama, he had a 2019 conviction for drug possession with intent to distribute. Jenkins has no felony convictions listed in Rankin County. Neither has a conviction in neighboring Hinds County.
Gaines declined to comment about his remarks.
LISTEN: Two days after the $2.5 million “Goon Squad” settlement, Rankin County Supervisor Steve Gaines praised the sheriff’s department’s lawyer, Jason Dare, and talked about the two Black men whom deputies beat, tortured and sexually abused. Click the link to hear what he said at the Saturday breakfast hosted by Sheriff Bryan Bailey.
The two men’s lawyer, Trent Walker, said Gaines’ remark fits the racist trope of falsely accusing Black men of raping white men’s daughters.
That remark, Walker said, makes obvious “that attitudes like this permit rogue police to prevail and allow for the conditions in which officers have been able to carry out their unlawful agenda against other citizens of the state of Mississippi.”
An investigation by Mississippi Today and The New York Times exposed a decades-long reign of terror by 20 Rankin County deputies, several of whom routinely tortured suspected drug users to elicit information and confessions.
Many people have filed lawsuits alleging abuses by deputies, or say they filed complaints with the department or reported these incidents directly to Bailey, but the sheriff has denied any knowledge of these alleged abuses.
Gaines, who worked for three decades as an agent with the Office of Inspector General, praised Bailey for enduring the scandals that have wracked his department and prompted investigations by the Justice Department and the state auditor’s office regarding Bailey’s alleged misuse of taxpayer money equipment and supplies used at his mother’s commercial chicken farm.
“It made me cry at night that Sheriff Bailey, my friend, was absorbing this,” he said. “I’m gonna tell you, he has weathered the storm, and we are back.”
Bailey thanked the county’s leaders for their support. “For the past 28 months through all of this,” he said, “my board of supervisors have stood behind me 110%.”
The sheriff said he was ready to quit several times, but Rhodes urged him to stay and run again for sheriff. “He kept pushing me,” Bailey said. “He’s still pushing me.”
Rhodes has long been regarded as “kingmaker” in Mississippi politics with many seeking his support in their campaigns. In the early 1980s, he was convicted and fined on multiple counts of felony tax evasion.
Gaines praised other Rankin County officials, citing the county’s smooth roads and relatively low crime rates, and expressed concern about the county’s growing pains, such as students from other counties attending Rankin schools.
“ How do you feel about paying the taxes that you pay and people from across the river coming over here and putting their kids in your school?” he told the nearly all-white crowd, referring to the Pearl River that separates Hinds and Rankin counties. “They’re gonna pay taxes maybe one year or maybe not at all.”
Rankin County is 72% white, while Hinds County is 72% Black.
Angela English, president of the Rankin County branch of the NAACP, said there is no mistaking Gaines’ words as a racial reference. “That’s the kind of toxic environment that we have in Rankin County,” she said.
A lifelong resident of Rankin County, English helped integrate Florence schools with her sisters. “It’s always good to know where he [Gaines] stands, whether you agree with him or not,” she said. “I’d rather know who I’m dealing with than to be caught by surprise.”
His remark, she said, “alludes to the kind of people who are upholding Bryan Bailey.”
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Rankin supervisor calls torture victims 'dopers' and rapists 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
The article reports on Rankin County Supervisor Steve Gaines’ comments regarding the victims of police abuse and the ongoing controversy surrounding the actions of the local sheriff’s department. While the article highlights Gaines’ remarks, which are racially charged and supportive of the sheriff, it primarily focuses on the factual reporting of the situation without overt ideological positioning. The article includes quotes from key figures such as Gaines and civil rights activists, and its tone remains neutral, reporting the conflict without endorsing a specific viewpoint. However, Gaines’ controversial language reflects a clear right-leaning stance in terms of support for local law enforcement, framing the victims negatively, which may influence public opinion in a direction that aligns with conservative political perspectives. The reporting itself maintains a factual narrative and refrains from pushing a partisan agenda, but the events described suggest a broader ideological divide in how law enforcement issues are viewed.
Mississippi Today
Pearl River Glass Studio’s stained glass windows for historic Memphis church destroyed in fire
For the Pearl River Glass Studio, located in the Midtown neighborhood of Jackson, it started as an honor and labor of love, with Memphis-based artist Lonnie Robinson, who out of hundreds of artistic contestants, won the privilege to create the stained glass windows along with artist Sharday Michelle, for the historic Clayborn Temple, located in Memphis, Tennessee, as part of a massive renovation project.
This team of artisans restored three enormous stained glass windows, panel by panel, for the historic church that was a bastion for the Civil Rights movement in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 1960s. The stained glass windows depicted Civil Rights icons and paid homage to the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike, which lasted 64 days from Feb. 12 to April 16, 1968. It is the site where sanitation workers agreed to end the strike when city officials recognized their union and their raised wages.
Over time, the church fell into disrepair and closed in 1999.
In 2018, it was officially named a national treasure by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The $14 million restoration of Clayborn Temple was a collaborative effort by non-profits, movers and shakers on the national scene, community leaders and donations.
The hard work, the labors of love, the beautiful stained glass arch windows and other restorative work at the historic church all came to an end due to a fire in the wee hours of Monday morning on April 28 of this year.
The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The post Pearl River Glass Studio's stained glass windows for historic Memphis church destroyed in fire appeared first on mississippitoday.org
Texas lawmaker counters teacher’s union on education funding levels | Texas
Youngkin, Miyares: Loudoun County schools to be investigated | Virginia
Drones could become first to respond to crimes, emergencies in Louisville
Keesler AFB hurricane hunters gear up for 2025 season
Mother’s Day gift ideas with Sadie Jane’s Famous Wreaths, Fresh Flowers & Gifts
Precinct could bring relief to crime concerns in Southeast Nashville
In rural Appalachia, drivers can save money with EVs. Tennessee researchers want to speed the transition.
Inside this Hannibal Airbnb full of Mark Twain treasures
Newsom seeks $7.5B film credit from Trump to ‘Make America Film Again’ | California
VEC claimed she owed $20K despite reversal notice saying she owed nothing
Small town library in WV closes after 50 years
Florida teen awakens from coma months after scooter crash
Proposed amendment could allow lawmakers to remove protected state jobs | Louisiana
Ground broken on new industrial park in Grenada County, economic impact to top $4B
REAL ID requirements among policies difficult for transgender, nonbinary Arkansans to navigate
2 killed, 6 others injured in crash on Hwy 210 in Harnett County
5 Great Places to Cast a Line in Mississippi This Spring and Summer (Plus Two Bonus Picks)
'Burnin' for you' to come out to 2025 Thibodaux Firemen's Fair
Missouri lawmakers should reject fake ‘chaplains’ in schools bill
University of Pikeville adding dental school to help address the needs of rural Appalachia
Drones could become first to respond to crimes, emergencies in Louisville
Keesler AFB hurricane hunters gear up for 2025 season
Mother’s Day gift ideas with Sadie Jane’s Famous Wreaths, Fresh Flowers & Gifts
Precinct could bring relief to crime concerns in Southeast Nashville
VEC claimed she owed $20K despite reversal notice saying she owed nothing
As REAL ID deadline approaches, travelers without ID can fly for now
Arrest in global child exploitation ring
South Florida Weather for Tuesday 5/6/2025 12PM
Wipes in the pipes: How flushable wipes and some toilet paper can clog plumbing | NBC4 Washington
Cop Hopping Part 1: FOX13 Investigates troubled West Tennessee officer who kept switching jobs
-
News from the South - West Virginia News Feed4 days agoSmall town library in WV closes after 50 years
-
News from the South - Florida News Feed7 days ago
Florida teen awakens from coma months after scooter crash
-
News from the South - Louisiana News Feed6 days agoProposed amendment could allow lawmakers to remove protected state jobs | Louisiana
-
SuperTalk FM7 days ago
Ground broken on new industrial park in Grenada County, economic impact to top $4B
-
News from the South - Arkansas News Feed7 days agoREAL ID requirements among policies difficult for transgender, nonbinary Arkansans to navigate
-
News from the South - North Carolina News Feed5 days ago
2 killed, 6 others injured in crash on Hwy 210 in Harnett County
-
Our Mississippi Home6 days ago
5 Great Places to Cast a Line in Mississippi This Spring and Summer (Plus Two Bonus Picks)
-
News from the South - Louisiana News Feed6 days ago
'Burnin' for you' to come out to 2025 Thibodaux Firemen's Fair
