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It’s Valpo vs. Ole Miss for the first time since ’99. Remember?

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It's Valpo vs. Ole Miss for the first time since '98. Remember?

Valparaiso's Bryce Drew (20) follows through with his game-winning three-point shot at the buzzer over Mississippi's Jason Flanigan (3) in their first round game of the NCAA Midwest Regional in Oklahoma City on March 13, 1998. (AP Photo/J.Pat Carter, File)

Valparaiso will visit for a basketball game Saturday, the first time the two teams have met since Valparaiso's Bryce Drew hit the shot heard around the basketball world.

You know: The shot. It was March 13, 1998, at Oklahoma City, first round of the NCAA  Tournament. Ole Miss, a 4-seed, was a big favorite to beat 13-seed Valpo of the Mid-Continent Conference.

Even basketball fans who weren't alive then likely have seen the shot replayed multiple times. TV networks play it several times every year when March Madness comes around. It has become one of the iconic plays in history. The networks still play announcer Ted Johnson's call: 

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“The inbound pass will be thrown by Jamie Sykes. Carter is pressuring … It's to Jenkins, to Drew, for the win! GOOD! HE DID IT! BRYCE DREW DID IT! Valpo has won the game! A miracle … An absolute miracle!”

Rick Cleveland

It surely seemed so: Valparaiso 70, Ole Miss 69. For most, it was the feel-good story March Madness is all about, the Cinderella team from a little bitty conference knocks off the favored giant. In this case, the was the coach's son, providing the high point of Homer Drew's long coaching career.

For Ole Miss, however, it just sucked. For some, nearly a quarter of a century later, it still does.

Carter, who was pressuring the inbounds pass, is Keith Carter, now the Ole Miss athletic director. He was a junior guard at Ole Miss, a terrific player who led the Rebels with 22 points and 11 in that game. But his numbers are not what Carter remembers most.

“I have probably replayed it in my head a million times over the last 25 years,” Carter said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “I always come back to this: Bryce had just missed an open 3-pointer on their previous possession that would have given them the . No way he was going to miss two in a row. You just could not let him have that second opportunity. We did.

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“In my mind we were the better team, but we let them hang around and hang around and then a great player hit a great shot. That's what happens in March Madness. But back then, I'm not sure I understood what that one shot meant.”

Rob Evans did. That was the last game he ever coached at Ole Miss after winning 42 games and taking the Rebels to two NCAA Tournaments his last two years in Oxford. Soon afterward, he took the head coaching job at Arizona State.

The March 13, 1998 loss to Valparaiso was the last game Rob Evans evert coached at Ole Miss

“I remember going to the locker room and telling my guys, ‘You are going to see that shot for the rest of your lives,'” Evans said by phone Wednesday from Dallas where he is a special assistant to the athletic director at SMU. 

In all, Evans spent 48 years as a college coach after four years as a college player. Says he, “That Valpo game was without a doubt the lowest feeling I ever had in basketball. For us to lose that game in those final seconds, everything had to go right for them and everything had to go wrong for us. And I will forever believe we had a team capable of going deep in that tournament, the Elite Eight or the Final Four.”

That was a fabulous Ole Miss team, one of the best in Rebel basketball history. Led by All American Ansu Sesay, the Rebels were in the nation's Top 25 the entire season and finished the regular season ranked No. 10. They won at Kentucky. They swept Mississippi State. They thrashed LSU. Twice. They won the SEC with a 12-4 conference record and finished 22-7 overall. They were a tough, physical team that played especially hard on defense. They were deep in talent. The backcourt was terrific with starting point guard Michael White and wing-man Carter. Sharp-shooting sixth man Joezon Darby provided instant energy and a scoring boost off the bench. Reserve point guards Jason “Buck” Flanagan and Jason Smith would have started for many teams. Center Anthony Boone was an enforcer inside and the team's spiritual leader, gimpy knees and all. Freshman Rahim Lockhart provided quality depth inside.

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They were basketball savvy, too. White is now the head coach at Georgia after successful runs at Louisiana Tech and Florida. Boone is the head coach at Central Arkansas. Lockhart coaches Jones College. Flanigan coaches at Holmes Community College. Sesay, after a long professional career, is an assistant coach at Southern. Darby runs a highly successful basketball training academy Dallas. And Carter, of course, now hires and fires coaches.

Ole Miss was a 10-point favorite over Valpo. Thanks to Carter, who made 4 of 7 3-pointers and tied Drew for game-high scoring with 22 points, the Rebels led most of the way. They were up by four points at halftime and still led by two points going into the final seconds. And then, as Evans put it, everything had to go right for Valpo, wrong for Ole Miss. Sesay rebounded Drew's miss and was fouled with 4.2 seconds remaining and the Rebels leading 69-67. Sesay could have put the game away, but Sesay, normally a proficient free throw shooter, missed both. Carter battled for the rebound but the ball went out of bounds on the sidelines in front of the Ole Miss bench. Only 2.5 seconds remained. Nearly 25 years later, Carter has vivid memories. 

“The official said it went off of me, but I am almost certain I did not I touch it last,” Carter said. “And then when they let them in-bound the ball from the end of the court instead of in front of our bench, which would have been a more difficult angle to make that pass. Still, you have to give them credit for making the play.”

Said Evans, “If the ball just stays in bounds after the missed free throw, we win.”

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Still, Valpo had to go the length of the court. That's hard to do in 2 and half seconds, less time than it took you to read this sentence.

Carter, a high leaper, fronted the in-bounds pass by Sykes. Carter jumped high, as Sykes faked as if to pass. Then, as Carter came down, Sykes rifled a ball down the floor to teammate Bill Jenkins, just over the finger tips of a leaping Lockhart. Jenkins quickly shoveled the ball to Drew, who swished a running 20-footer at the buzzer

“When he shot it, I knew it was in,” Evans said. “Buck (Flanagan) was covering Bryce and took his eyes off him just a split second when the pass was coming down the court. That's all it took.”

Said Lockhart, “It felt like a in the family.”

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In four months, it will have been 25 years since Drew's deed was done. In the ensuing years, both Carter and Evans have become friends with Bryce Drew, who now coaches at Grand Canyon in Phoenix after an NBA career and a stint as the head coach at Vanderbilt.

“Such a good guy, such a good family,” Carter says of Drew, who married a Jackson native, the former Tara Thibodeaux, an accomplished dancer and choreographer.

As it turns out, Evans' grandson and Bryce and Tara's son, Homer Drew's grandson, are teammates on a youth basketball team in Phoenix. What are the odds?

One more note: A man named Bryce Drew (no relation to the more famous Bryce Drew), is now the Manager of Human Relations at Ole Miss. Says Keith Carter, chuckling, “This Bryce Drew is a really good guy, too, but I gotta tell you, it took me a while to get past his name.”

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

Mississippi Today

Senate passes Medicaid expansion ‘lite’ with veto-proof majority

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mississippitoday.org – Sophia Paffenroth and Taylor Vance – 2024-03-28 17:37:35

An austere version of Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative , passed the Senate on Thursday 36-16 – a veto-proof majority – with significant changes to the original bill and now heads back to the House for consideration.

House Bill 1725, with the Senate's strike-all amendment, would increase Medicaid eligibility to those making up to 99% of the federal poverty level, about $15,000 annually for an individual, and would be entirely contingent on the federal approving a work requirement of 120 hours a month. 

That's significantly different from the version of the bill that passed the House, which increased eligibility to those making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, about $20,000 annually for an individual, and would expand Medicaid regardless of whether or not the work requirement was approved. 

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Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, called the strike-all a more “conservative, responsible” option and described  it a “hand up, not a handout.” The Senate plan turns down roughly $1 billion federal dollars a year since it doesn't qualify as “expansion” according to the Affordable Care Act.

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, said that covering more low-income Mississippians under Medicaid would improve the 's dismal labor participation rate – the lowest in the country

“If we as a society, as a state, believe we should have individuals who are working, stay in the workforce, pick up our labor force participation rate, then we need to do what Sen. Blackwell and the Senate did .” 

Senate Democrats introduced several amendments, which , who hold a majority in the chamber, successfully opposed. The amendments called for: increasing the income eligibility threshold, changing the work requirement from 120 hours a month to 80 hours a month, and lowering a recertification requirement from four times a year to twice a year. 

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The Democratic senators strongly criticized the Senate plan to reporters after it passed but voted in favor of it to keep the bill alive – in hopes that the plan will improve later during House and Senate haggling. 

“This bill was not perfect,” Senate Minority Leader Derrick Simmons said. “We would love to see more individuals covered. We would love not to have any hurdles or restrictions on additional access to coverage. But we did not want to lose an to keep this bill alive as we work through this process.”

Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, also attempted to amend the bill by removing two of the exemptions to the work requirement – for primary caregivers of under six years old and those diagnosed by a doctor to have a disability – and requiring co-payments for individuals fulfilling the work requirement. A few hardline conservatives supported his efforts, but both amendments were ultimately shot down by senators. 

Sixteen senators voted ‘No' on the plan: Jason Barrett, R-Brookhaven; Andy Berry, R-Magee; Jenifer Branning, R-Philadelphia; Lydia Chassaniol, R-Winona; Kathy Chism, R-New Albany; Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall; Angela Burks Hill, R-; Chris Johnson, R-Hattiesburg; Tyler McCaughn, R-Newton; Michael McLendon, R-Hernando; Rita Potts Parks, R-Corinth; Brian Rhodes, R-Pelahatchie; Joseph Seymour, R-Vancleave; Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont; Ben Suber, R-Bruce; Neil Whaley, R-Potts Camp. 

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House Medicaid Chair Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, told Mississippi Today that she does not intend to agree with the Senate's amendment and plans to hammer out a compromise in a conference committee. 

“I'm happy the Senate passed a bill,” McGee said. 

Though the Senate's plan has stricter eligibility requirements than the House version, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, a longtime opponent of expansion, privately told senators at the Governor's Mansion on Tuesday that he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.

If the second-term governor does veto the bill, a two-thirds majority of lawmakers in both legislative chambers would need to join together to successfully override him and pass the measure into law. Both chambers passed their versions with veto-proof majorities.

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Hosemann did not directly answer whether he believes there is an appetite in the GOP-controlled Senate to override a potential veto, but he said the work requirement in the Senate bill is a “good first step” toward addressing Reeves' concerns about the bill. 

“We're going to get with our House counterparts here and maybe that step forward is sufficient for the governor,” Hosemann said. “I don't think there was anybody here that didn't feel the weight of having people who are working have a catastrophic and not get back into the workforce.” 

House members have until April 19 to either agree with the Senate plan or to work on a compromise in a conference committee.

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

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Mississippi Today

Judge erred, double jeopardy shouldn’t apply, say AG attorneys seekng to retry acquitted assailant

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mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-03-28 13:30:00

Nearly a year after a north Mississippi judge acquitted a 22-year-old who stabbed a man in the neck, nearly killing him, 's office lawyers want to re-prosecute the case. 

They are appealing the ruling, saying the victim's absence at trial, the reasoning the judge used for his ruling, did not violate the defendant's constitutional rights and prevent trial from proceeding.

But legal experts say a retrial can be a high barrier to overcome because of double jeopardy,  a clause in the U.S. and state Constitution that prevents defendants from being retried for the same crime an acquittal or conviction. 

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“This is a textbook case of double jeopardy,” said Matt Steffey, a professor at Mississippi College School of

In his May 11, 2023 dismissal of the attempted murder indictment and acquittal for Lane Mitchell, Union County Circuit Court Judge Kent Smith focused on the victim's absence, finding that it violated the defendant's due and compulsory process rights, which is the ability to subpoena and secure favorable witnesses to testify. 

“This precedent thus makes the state responsible for and unable to go forward on nearly every criminal cause when a recalcitrant victim refuses to appear at trial,” the state wrote in a March 4 appellant's brief filed with the Court of Appeals. 

The victim, Russell Rogers of Tennessee, nearly bled out and suffered a stroke. As a result of the stabbing, he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental issues and placed under a conservatorship. 

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The state is asking the Court of Appeals to correct the trial court's “misstatements of law.” Alternatively, the state is asking the court to reverse and remand the trial judge's order and in its place issue an order that would allow the state to retry Mitchell. 

The defense has 30 days to respond to the appellant's brief, which is expected sometime early next month if no extensions are granted. The state will then have time to reply, and then the case can be submitted. Oral arguments were not requested. 

The 2019 stabbing

On Feb. 9, 2019, Rogers spent several hours in  Tallahatchie Gourmet in New Albany. When then-18-year-old Mitchell arrived there, he joined his parents and their friends in the bar area. 

Video presented in court and included in as pictures shows Mitchell, about an hour after his arrival, taking a knife from the bar and holding it behind his back as Rogers talked with a waitress. The   – Mitchell's father – and Rogers then talked, and when Rogers reacted negatively, Mitchell approached from behind and stabbed Rogers in the neck three times. 

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Mitchell testified he was to defend his father and the waitress, according to court records. The defendant said he thought Rogers had a gun, but in fact he was unarmed. 

Mitchell and Rogers had not met or talked prior to the stabbing, according to court records. 

Months after the stabbing, a Tennessee probate court found Rogers met criteria to be considered disabled and appointed his father, Robert Rogers, as his conservator. Russell Rogers remains under the conservatorship. 

Mitchell enrolled in two colleges while under indictment, first at the University of Mississippi and then Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in Cordova, Tennessee, where he graduated days before his 2023 trial began. 

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The attorney general's office took over the case in 2021 when the district attorney recused himself from the case. 

Victim testimony central in case 

Mississippi law states victims can exercise their right to be present and heard in court proceedings, but their absence does not prevent the court from moving forward with a proceeding. Victims can be served with a subpoena, which Mitchell's attorneys sought to do with Rogers.

The state argues the trial court seemed to ignore the Tennessee probate court's order quashing the defense's attempt to subpoena Rogers, saying his mental problems stemming from the attack made him incapable of testifying.

The state argues the trial court only determined Rogers “appear[ed] to be intentionally unavailable” to testify in court, but it did not find what from his testimony would be favorable to the defense. 

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The defense wanted to question Rogers about his behavior the night of the stabbing and prior conduct and mental health issues, but the state wrote these factors “would not be material to a showing that Michell acted reasonably or that [Rogers] was the initial aggressor.”

Additionally, Rogers didn't witness the stabbing because Mitchell approached him from behind, the brief states. Regardless, the state argues, Mitchell's intent to defend others was already presented to the jury through other witnesses. 

The defense has argued in court filings and at trial that the conservator inserted himself into the case, accusing him of working with the prosecution and denying access to the victim. 

The state had denied these claims, noting Robert Rogers was following his fiduciary duties as conservator when fighting the subpoena and other efforts. 

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Acquittal and double jeopardy

 Another issue raised in the state's brief is how the trial court violated the Mississippi Rules of Criminal Procedure by dismissing the indictment against Mitchell and entering an acquittal.

No rule of criminal procedure allows an indictment to be dismissed because a witness failed to appear, and acquittal isn't the proper remedy under the rules, the state argues. Instead, the valid remedies for a discovery violation are continuance or mistrial, which would have needed to have happened before a jury was sworn in and double jeopardy was in place. 

In its alternative remedy, the state asks the Court of Appeals to reverse and remand the trial court's decision and order a mistrial, which the state says would preserve its right to retry Mitchell. 

Former Mississippi Court of Appeals judge and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz called acquittal an unusual position for a trial court and an example of how Judge Smith of the Union County court acted in a way that other trial courts don't tend to do. 

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He said the state may be asking the Court of Appeals to clarify the law and find that the judge ruled improperly, instead of seeking retrial and running into double jeopardy. 

“(A)ny judges in the future who consider this issue can know clearly and [it's] well stated by the court [that] you can't just order an acquittal if a victim doesn't show up,” he said. 

Crime victims' rights

Rogers and his conservator are asking the Court of Appeals to allow them to file an amicus curiae brief for the court to consider additional information, including victim's rights. 

A March 11 proposed amicus brief argues the trial judge's refusal to submit the case to the jury stripped Rogers of his constitutionally-protected rights as a victim. As of Thursday, the brief has not been approved. 

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Meg Garvin, executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon, provided feedback to craft the amicus brief. 

She said the Mississippi Constitution gives crime victims the right to be treated with fairness, dignity and respect, and just because those terms are broad, it doesn't mean they are empty. 

Mitchell's attorneys want the court to deny the amicus brief, citing a May 2023 Supreme Court order denying an emergency petition filed by the conservator to halt the trial court from filing a judgment of acquittal. In it, Justice Leslie King said the victim and conservator lack standing to contest the disposition of Mitchell's case, or any charge. 

Garvin said this challenge highlights a misunderstanding about what victims' rights are. Victims asking for their rights to be protected doesn't make them a party. 

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She said it is possible for someone to exercise another's rights on their behalf, such as what happens for parents acting on behalf of their children or on behalf of someone who is mentally incapacitated, including someone under a conservatorship. 

If Mitchell's case is upheld, it would be a sign that Mississippi victims' rights aren't meaningful or are being adequately considered, Garvin said. 

“The statement to the victim would be you actually don't have rights, you are just a piece of evidence in a case against someone else,” she said.

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

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi lawmakers look to other states’ Medicaid expansions. Is Georgia worth copying?

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mississippitoday.org – Sophia Paffenroth – 2024-03-28 10:58:47

As the Mississippi Republican-led Legislature considers expanding Medicaid for the first time after a decade-long debate, Senate have referenced other Southern states' expansion plans as alternatives to full expansion. 

On Wednesday, the Senate Medicaid Committee passed the House Republican expansion bill with a strike-all and replaced it with its own plan, which Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, called “expansion light.” The Senate is expected to take the bill up for a floor vote Thursday, with a plan that's nearly identical to Georgia's. 

Problems with “Georgia Pathways”

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policy experts don't think Georgia's plan is worth emulating. The state's plan, called “Georgia Pathways,” misses out on the increased federal match of 90% that the grants to newly expanded states, and it also doesn't qualify for the additional $690 million federal dollars that would make expansion free to Mississippi for four years.

And the plan, touted as a conservative alternative to what critics call “Obamacare,” has cost state taxpayers $26 million so far, with more than 90% of that going toward administrative and consulting costs, according to KFF Health News. Implementing work requirements is costly and labor intensive because it involves hiring more staff and processing monthly paperwork to confirm enrollees are employed. 

“Georgia's plan has proven to be very profitable for large companies like Deloitte (the primary consultant for Georgia's project) but has provided health care to almost no one who needs it,” said Joan Alker, Medicaid expert and executive director of Georgetown University's Center for and Families. “It's been a terrible waste of taxpayer dollars so far.”

If the Senate plan were signed into law, Mississippi would fare the same – receiving its regular federal match of only 77% instead of 90% – and risk large administrative costs for enforcing a 120-hour-a-month work requirement and a provision that says recipients must be recertified four times a year.

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Work requirements ‘costly' to enforce

In theory, a work requirement isn't controversial. A majority of Mississippi lawmakers in both chambers want to reserve Medicaid coverage for those who are working or exempt, with legislation that incentivizes employment in the state with the lowest labor participation rate. The problem, experts say, is that in practice, it can do more harm than good. 

Policing and enforcing the work requirement costs more than it would cost to insure the small population of unemployed people who would become eligible for Medicaid under traditional expansion, explained Morgan Henderson, principal data scientist at the Hilltop Institute, a nonpartisan research group that conducted several studies detailing what Medicaid expansion would look like in Mississippi. 

“Medicaid work requirements are costly to implement,” Henderson said. “States have to develop new administrative which can cost millions, or tens of millions, of dollars. Additionally, employment reporting requirements can be confusing and burdensome for individuals, so people who are legitimately employed and income-eligible for Medicaid may be denied coverage – thus, hurting the exact individuals who are supposed to qualify for Medicaid with work requirements.”

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In Georgia, only 3,500 people have signed up since the program began in July – despite the millions of dollars taxpayers have paid to the program and officials' previous estimate that roughly 25,000 people would sign up in the first year and 52,000 by the fifth year. 

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said in an interview in February that the Mississippi Senate plan likely wouldn't be as strict as Georgia's, calling their work requirement “onerous.” 

But the Senate plan is even stricter than Georgia's, calling for at least 120 hours of work a month instead of the 80 hours required in Georgia. 

In Arkansas, a work requirement was briefly implemented in 2018 before it was overturned.

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A study by the New England Journal of Medicine found Arkansas' work requirement to be unsuccessful at increasing employment. The main consequence of the state's work requirement was an increase in the number of uninsured persons to full expansion and “no significant changes” in employment associated with the policy, according to the study. 

In addition, “more than 95% of persons who were targeted by the policy already met the requirement or should have been exempt.”

What's next?

The only expansion bill still alive in the Mississippi Legislature is House Bill 1725, authored by Speaker Jason White, R-, and Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, which is now before the Senate. The bill, as passed by the House, has a provisional work requirement, but would expand Medicaid to 138% of the federal poverty level – even if a work requirement is not approved by federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

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That's important because during the Biden administration, the federal   has rescinded work requirement waivers previously granted under the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. 

But the Senate version is entirely contingent on the work requirement, calling for a minimum of 120 work hours a month and quarterly recertification. Eligibility also only goes up to 100% of the federal poverty level. 

If the Senate were to stand firm on the work requirement, expansion might not go into effect until well into 2025. That is, if a new administration takes office. 

A provision in North Carolina's recent expansion bill could prove useful as Mississippi lawmakers debate the details of expanding Medicaid.

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A North Carolina expansion bill passed in 2023 is a mostly-traditional expansion plan with a unique work requirement provision. Expansion originally passed without a work requirement, but included a provision that says if or when a federal administration that favors the concept takes office, the state will change Medicaid eligibility rules and adopt the work requirement. 

If Mississippi were to include this kind of language in its own bill, it could expand Medicaid in 2024 or at the start of 2025, instead of waiting well into a new presidential term.

In theory, work requirements make sense, Henderson said. But they haven't produced the desired outcome of increasing the labor force participation rate in other states. That fact, coupled with the costly administrative burden of enforcing them and the unfortunate consequence of eligible enrollees losing coverage make the work requirement an unworthy pursuit, Henderson and Alker conclude. 

“In theory, it's true that, under Medicaid expansion, individuals earning slightly more than 138% of the federal poverty level could have an incentive to reduce their earnings in order to qualify for Medicaid,” said Henderson. “However, there are reasons to believe that this will be rare.”

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The three reasons Henderson gives are: “First, not all workers know their exact income as a fraction of the current federal poverty limit, which changes every year and is a function of household size. Second, not all workers can control their hours. Third, individuals earning just above 138% of the federal poverty level have access to generous subsidies through the insurance marketplace, which could reduce the incentive to reduce income to qualify for Medicaid.”

And in practice, Henderson said, “no studies I'm aware of have found evidence of Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions adverse effects on employment outcomes.”

The Senate is expected to vote on House Bill 1725 on Thursday. While the bill only needs a three-fifths vote to pass the floor, it realistically needs a two-thirds majority from both chambers to show it has the potential to override a threatened veto from Republican Gov. Tate Reeves.

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

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