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Over 150,000 Mississippians have lost health care coverage in the year after the Medicaid “unwinding” process began. 

Many are kids, who account for about half of the state’s total Medicaid recipients. In June of 2023, the number of covered children peaked at 456,314. By May, the rolls fell by more than 110,000 to 344,517. 

The state began the process of reviewing each Medicaid recipient’s eligibility in April of 2023 as pandemic provisions requiring states not to terminate people’s health care coverage ended after three years. 

Though this represents a significant decline in children covered, it’s more than were covered before continuous enrollment began. In March 2020, 342,043 children were covered by Medicaid – 2,000 fewer than in May 2024. 

“When state Medicaid programs are directed to return to pre-pandemic enrollment rules, it’s not surprising to see Mississippi’s Medicaid enrollment returning to around pre-pandemic enrollment levels,” Matt Westerfield, spokesperson for the Mississippi Division of Medicaid, said in an email to Mississippi Today.

He said 45,000 of the people disenrolled were children when the pandemic began but have since aged out of the program, which covers individuals up to 19 years old. 

Khaylah Scott, program manager for the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program, noted that because children are often healthy, changes in coverage have caught some families as a surprise. The Mississippi Health Advocacy Program works to improve health policies and practices in the state for underserved and poor communities. 

“When it’s time to get a back-to-school visit or vaccination or physical exam, they may show up to the doctor and that’s when they’ll find out that they no longer have their health care coverage,” she said. 

Scott said the ramifications of children missing out on visits to the pediatrician are broad. “We know that when kids don’t have the care that they need they sometimes miss out on the services that support healthy development,” she said.

The state has seen an increase in enrollment in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), a program that provides free or low-cost health insurance to children that are not eligible for Medicaid but have an annual income under $31,200 for a family of four. CHIP enrollment in Mississippi has grown from about 42,000 children at the start of the unwinding process a year ago to over 50,000 in May. 

This change – 8,000 additional children covered – makes only a small dent in the 110,000 young people who lost Medicaid coverage in the past year. 

When children are deemed ineligible for Medicaid coverage in Mississippi, they are automatically enrolled in CHIP when they meet eligibility requirements. 

Adults, too, are impacted

To date, about 74.5% of completed reviews for adults have resulted in a renewal.

Most were completed by recipients filling out a renewal form. The other 31% were ex parte renewals, or automated decisions the agency made using existing information.

Of Mississippians who have lost coverage during the unwinding process, 26.2% were deemed ineligible. The remaining 73.8% were dropped for procedural reasons, or for reasons other than being determined ineligible. This may mean they did not return, complete or receive required paperwork.

The state does not report how many procedural disenrollments were children. 

At the start of the unwinding process, the rate of procedural disenrollments neared 80% for enrollees who lost coverage. In April, procedural reasons accounted for 72.4% of terminations. 

This is slightly higher than the nation’s average of 69% for procedural disenrollments, according to KFF.

Scott said she is concerned by the state’s high rates of procedural disenrollment. 

“We’re seeing [them] go down over time, but they’re not where we would like them to be,” she noted. “... We don’t want kids to be caught up in the red tape issues of this unwinding process.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced waivers, or opportunities for increased flexibility in making determinations, to states last year in response to high procedural disenrollment rates and to ensure that eligible people nationwide maintained coverage. 

Mississippi has since adopted six waivers to increase ex parte renewal rates, support enrollees with renewal form submissions and ensure the department has access to accurate contact information. 

Westerfield said the waivers have had a “positive impact” on the disenrollment process. 

He said that the department has also instituted monthly text blasts to families with information about when and how to return renewal forms and launched a self-service portal to make it easier to complete renewals online. 

Nationwide, most people disenrolled from Medicaid have been able to regain coverage, though they may have experienced a temporary lapse. 

According to a KFF survey, 47% report that they were able to re-enroll in Medicaid, 28% acquired other health care and about 23% remain uninsured. 

Mississippi, along with 39 other states, is projected to complete the unwinding process this month, as reported by CMS. The state has 2,000 cases left to review out of 750,000 total cases, according to Westerfield.

The post Over 110,000 Mississippi children lost Medicaid coverage in the past year appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann announced the creation of two Senate study committees – one new group and the other task force reinstituted from 2022.

Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, announced a Labor Force Participation Study Group. That committee, chaired by second term Sen. Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, will look at the issue of Mississippi continuing to have a lower percentage of people 16 and older in the workforce than any state in the nation.

Hosemann and others, including state Economist Corey Miller, have repeatedly said that the low workforce participation rate is a primary reason Mississippi lags the rest of the nation economically.

Hosemann also announced he is re-starting the Study Group on Women, Children, and Families.  It again will be chaired by second-term Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford.

The group was formed by the lieutenant governor in part due to the 2022 ruling overturning Roe V. Wade, which guaranteed a national right to abortions. Mississippi had laws in place when Roe was overturned banning most abortions in Mississippi.

It was estimated that with the abortion ban there would be an additional 5,000 births annually in Mississippi. That increase, based on an analysis of early data, has not occurred. But the decline in births in Mississippi since 2007 has slowed and more unwanted pregnancies have been reported, according to research by the Institute of Labor Economics. Experts surmised that women were traveling out of state for abortions or were receiving abortion-inducing medication via the mail.

READ MORE: ‘We’re 50th by a mile.’ Experts tell lawmakers where Mississippi stands with health of mothers, children

Researchers stressed it is too soon after the overturning of Roe to reach definitive conclusions.

“It is the Legislature’s job to examine how our state laws and appropriations help or hinder Mississippi’s opportunities for positive growth and prosperity,” Hosemann said in announcing the task forces. “Both of these topics have tremendous potential to move the needle in terms of economic development, tourism, health outcomes, educational attainment, and other major factors which determine our future trajectory as a state and in our communities.”

As of April, the state’s labor force participation rate was 53.75% compared to the national average of 62.75%, Hosemann said.

After the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe, the Senate study group discussed multiple issues that later became law with the stated aim of helping women and children.

Those include:

• Expanding Medicaid coverage from 60 days to a year for women after giving birth
• Providing presumptive Medicaid eligibility for a pregnant woman receiving health care
• Increasing tax credits for people adopting children and for pregnancy crisis centers
• Extending the time a parent can surrender a new born to emergency providers from seven days to 45 days
• Making other changes to adoption and foster care laws

Noteworthy, the state has not expanded Medicaid to provide health care coverage to the working poor and presumably help low income families.

People wanting to make recommendations can do so at LaborStudyGroup@senate.ms.gov or at WCPStudyGroup@senate.ms.gov.

Both study groups will hold public hearings later this year.

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In the latest push to expand broadband access in Mississippi, internet service providers across the state will receive $70.9 million in grants for infrastructure projects.

This first round of grants is expected to expand access to 26,500 homes across 19 counties. More grants will be announced throughout the summer and into the fall. 

“BEAM is working to reach the most homes possible as quickly as possible,” Sally Doty, director of Broadband Expansion and Accessibility of Mississippi, said in an email. “With this first round of funding reaching 26,500 (homes), I would estimate that the total reach of the Capital Projects Fund will be 35,000 – 40,000 homes.”

The money is part of the $152 million in Mississippi Capital Projects Funds awarded to the state by the U.S. Department of the Treasury through the American Rescue Plan Act, signed into law in 2021.

Since BEAM was established in 2022, it has received a windfall of federal dollars aimed at increasing access to broadband internet service in Mississippi, which consistently ranks among the last nationwide for broadband availability, infrastructure and subscription rate. 

Broadband, or high-speed internet connection, is the modern standard for internet service. Its availability enables individuals to get the most out of the internet. According to the Federal Communications Commission, broadband service is defined as internet connection with at least 100 Mbps – megabits per second –  download speed and 20 Mbps upload speed. 

Uplink Internet, one of the grant recipients, has been providing internet access to people in the rural Mississippi Delta for more than a decade. What began as a group of farmers attempting to bring internet access to their homes in the country blossomed into a business after it became clear the demand was there. 

“These grants are really helping us meet the needs of people who have been requesting it (internet service) for a long time,” Scott Litwiller, chief operating officer of Uplink, said.“It’s very gratifying to be able to get these rural communities the internet they’ve been wanting for a long time.”

Litwiller said that demand skyrocketed during the pandemic, which is when Uplink decided to take the leap and apply for the grants. Most of Uplink’s clients are people who have not had internet access before or were dissatisfied with their current service. Nationwide, the pandemic brought into focus how essential broadband internet access was as everything, from work to school, shifted online. 

“It does a lot for people — access to the digital economy, being able to get goods cheaper through the internet, and being able to work from home,” he said. “We have a lot of single parent families that have a hard time working a job and providing childcare. With being a parent, having the ability to work from home anywhere in the world is helpful.” 

Many use high speed internet service to take advantage of online degree programs. 

“I talked to a customer the other day who got her bachelor’s degree from her house. She wouldn’t have been able to do that if she had to go to a physical classroom because she’s at a stage in her life where she can’t quit work and go back to school,” he said. “My wife got two nursing degrees from home using the internet. It does impact people in ways you don’t even think of. It’s a very powerful tool.”

Uplink currently serves Coahoma and parts of Bolivar counties in the Mississippi Delta, and is expanding service into Tunica and Quitman counties. 

BEAM received over $550 million in applications for the $152 million of funding. According to Doty, a rubric was used to determine which projects would receive the funding. 

“A scoring rubric was used that was made available to all applicants prior to opening of the application portal,” Doty said. “Scoring took into consideration the number of locations to be served, matching funds to be provided, cost per passing, and all federal and state requirements.”

Other factors considered in the merit review process included affordability and the ability to complete the project by the end of the year in 2026 — the point when the Treasury Department stipulates that all funds are to be spent. 

In the Mississippi Delta, where concerns were raised that BEAM was not doing enough to meet the area’s needs, projects are underway. 

“There are many providers in the Delta who are actively building out using private funding and also through current grant funding. Delta Electric’s broadband subsidiary DE Lightspeed is actively building,” Doty said. 

“USDA and the FCC have provided funding to Uplink, Arriva, Tech Info, Belzoni Cable, Franklin Telephone, and other Delta providers. The upcoming BEAD funding will fill in the gaps for coverage in the Delta through grants to many of those same providers,” she said, referring to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program.

Of the most recent grants announced, the Mississippi Delta counties of Coahoma, DeSoto, Sunflower, Quitman and Tunica will be receiving service. In Tunica County, broadband expansion is being used to address health and safety concerns that the BEAM office was made aware of during a community engagement event. 

“There had been a recent incident where they could not call for an ambulance when needed,” Doty said. “BEAM left with an understanding of the seriousness of the situation. Within six months we were able to announce reprogramming of some grant funding to reach this area.”
BEAM recently completed projects associated with money received through the CARES Act, and is in the process of accessing $1.2 billion from the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program. Other major funding in recent years includes $32.7 million from the Broadband Infrastructure program and $10.7 million for the state’s Digital Skills and Accessibility Program, which will be used to increase digital skills in Mississippi.

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The Mississippi Democratic Party’s executive committee on Saturday voted to make state Rep. Cheikh Taylor its chairman for a full term, choosing the Oktibbeha County lawmaker over north Mississippi attorney and businessman Wil Colom, who also sought the position.

Jacqueline Amos, a National Democratic Executive Committee member from Mississippi, in a statement congratulated the state party’s officers on winning the election to a four-year term and said with the regional and local party leaders, they could lead Mississippi Democrats “onward and upward.” 

“It is a great day to be a Democrat,” Lee said. “Chairman Cheikh Taylor, who stepped up during our darkest hour last year, will now have a chance to lead us toward better days.” 

Taylor is a two-term lawmaker who represents Oktibbeha, Clay and Lowndes County. The party voted last year to install him as its new chairman after it ousted former Court of Appeals Judge Tyree Irving over an email he sent to national Democratic Party officials. 

READ MORE: Ousted Democratic Party leader claims in lawsuit that he should still be in charge

The executive committee rejected Colom, who had been involved in state and national politics for decades, to lead the organization that has struggled to compete in a Deep South state dominated by the Republican Party. 

Colom, who was on the national finance committee for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, told executive committee members that he would have implemented a robust fundraising operation if they had chosen him to lead the state party.  

Colom told Mississippi Today on Monday that he was disappointed in some circumstances surrounding the executive committee’s weekend meeting but accepted the election outcome. 

“I hope the chairman is successful in the things he wants to accomplish,” Colom said.  

The committee’s decision to keep Taylor as its chairman means it opted to keep some continuity in a party that decided to switch chairman in the middle of last year’s statewide election cycle. 

If the organization had chosen Colom as the leader, he would have been the third chairman in a year. 

The post Cheikh Taylor fends off challenger, wins full term as state Democratic Party chairman  appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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American Sign Language will count as a foreign language credit in Mississippi high schools, under a law that goes into effect July 1.

The force behind Senate Bill 2339 is Pearl Rver County high school teacher Miranda Loveless. Loveless teaches art and ASL at Pearl River Central High School. She fell in love with ASL as a teenager, which led her to becoming a special education teacher.

“My hope for this new curriculum is not just for our students whether they are hearing, hard of hearing, or deaf. My hope is that we can grow as a community to accept everyone no matter their hearing abilities,” she said.

The new law calls for the state Board of Education to develop a curriculum related to the study of sign language and for any such class to count as an academic credit for a foreign language to meet high school graduation requirements.

Loveless got the idea for the bill after learning that there’d never been an effort in the Legislature to make ASL a foreign language in Mississippi schools. She reached out to state Sen. Angela Hill, R-Picayune, through the lawmaker’s grandson, who took one of Loveless’ sign language classes.

Hill said the law can incentivize hearing people to become translators. “The hope is that more young people will learn to communicate sign language and lead to potential careers in the field as translators for the hearing impaired,” she said in an email.  

There is a larger problem of children with disabilities lacking sufficient accommodations in Mississippi schools. Chauncey Spears, whose daughter is deaf, says the new law will help deaf students who use ASL as their first language. 

Spears says there is a lack of support for deaf students who use ASL as their first language. Many teachers lack proper training, making it easier for students to fall behind. 

He said parents and leaders at the Mississippi School for the Deaf started a movement to allow the state to classify deaf and hard-of-hearing students as English language learners. ASL is not English, and there is no written ASL for students to access written content in courses required for graduation. 

Deaf and hard-of-hearing students must learn written English, the language of most textbooks and other instructional materials. 

Spears hopes this curriculum change will be the first step towards change.

 “We are learning that there is untapped potential in these students and that their needs and potential can be better met with the proper investments and training and educational practices that can prove to be successful,” he said.

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So many wonderful stories have come back to life since the death of baseball great Willie Mays on June 18. Here’s one more involving, in my opinion, the greatest baseball man in Mississippi history.

This happened in May of 1952. Pitcher Boo Ferriss, a Shaw native who had won 46 games over his first two seasons (1945-46) in the Major Leagues, was still trying to pitch his way back after suffering a shoulder injury in 1947. In ’52, he pitched and coached pitchers for Class AA Louisville, still in the Boston Red Sox organization. Ferriss was 30 years young and should have been in his pitching prime, but he no longer had his fast ball. Today, journalists would say he had lost his velocity or velo. Back then, they said he had lost his “snap.” A Louisville sports columnist wrote that while Ferriss no longer had his fast ball, he retained “the heart of a warrior.”

The Class AA Southern Association was really good baseball back then. It not only included many of the sport’s top young prospects, but also many former Big League stars, such as Ferriss, trying to extend their playing careers. At Louisville, Ferriss pitched against many of the same hitters as he had for the Red Sox.

But he also pitched against future Hall of Famers on their rise to the Big League stardom. The year before he had faced a 19-year-old switch-hitting Yankees prospect from Commerce, Oklahoma, named Mickey Mantle. “Struck him out on a slow curve,” Ferriss once told me. “That was the only time I ever had to face him and you can quote me on this. I was glad I never had to face him again. There was nothing on a baseball field that guy couldn’t do.”

In 1952, five years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line, Louisville was playing at Minneapolis, where the home team boasted a young, Black centerfielder nobody could get out. Willie Mays was 19.

“The kid was putting on an exhibition like I had never seen before,” Ferriss told me in 2007 when we were working together on a book. “He was hitting home runs, stealing bases and climbing the walls to make circus catches. You name it, he did it. And he was so confident. He was really digging in at the plate against our young pitchers.”

Ferriss decided that when he faced Mays, if he got the chance, he was going to “brush him back off the plate..That’s just what you did back then.”

Sure enough, Ferriss got his chance late in a game when he came on in relief. He wasted no time. His first pitch, what he had left of his fastball, sent Mays diving backwards into the dirt. Mays got back up, dusted himself off and dug his cleats into the batter’s box again. Ferriss’s second pitch, another fast ball, sent Mays diving back into the dirt again.

Remember, this was a 19-year-old facing a 30-year-old, who had been a Major League All-Star and who had pitched a World Series shutout against Stan Musial and the St. Louis Cardinals. The count reached three balls and two strikes. Ferriss figured that since Mays had already dived away from two pitches, he would throw him a side-armed fast ball. He did.

Mays lined the pitch into left field for a single. Rosy Ryan, the Minnesota general manager, sought Ferriss on the field before the next day’s game to thank him for knocking down his star player not once but twice. Ryan said the then-New York Giants had wanted to see how Mays would handle the brush-back pitches he would surely see in the Major leagues. Said Ferriss, who had played with Ted Williams and against such sluggers as Musial and Joe DiMaggio, “I believe you got you a good one.,”

Eight years later, Ferriss was the pitching coach of the Red Sox and Mays was an established star with the Giants when their paths crossed again in spring training. Mays smiled and pointed at his temple before they shook hands. “He thanked me for knocking him down,” Ferriss said. “He told me he had needed that.”

That was shortly before Ferriss left Boston to come back to the Mississippi Delta where he created a nationally prominent baseball program at Delta State. In 2007, when we were working on his biography, I set up an exam for Ferriss with Buddy Savoie, a noted surgeon who specialized in shoulder injuries. Ferriss had never known exactly what had happened to curtail one of the most promising pitching careers in baseball history. Only one Big League pitcher, Grover Cleveland Alexander, had ever won more games in his first two seasons than David “Boo” Ferriss.

Fifty-seven years after the injury occurred, Savoie found a slight tear in the labrum of Ferriss’s pitching shoulder. Savoie explained, “They called it dead arm back then. They didn’t know what it was and there was no way to tell. They just hoped it would repair itself, but the labrum doesn’t repair itself. Today, we’d punch a couple holes in his shoulder, go in there and sew it up and he’d have a 95 percent chance of total recovery. He’d be as good as new in six to nine months.”

After learning all that, Ferriss told me he had no regrets, that he was happy with the way his life had turned out. Listening in, Miriam Ferriss, his wife of 68 years, piped in, “Now wait a second, Boo, with the money they are paying pitchers these days, Buddy could sew you up and we could wheel you out there and you could pitch a few innings.”

Related:

• Remembering Willie Mays.

• Remembering Boo Ferriss.

The post About the day the ‘Say Hey Kid’ faced a Mississippi legend named Boo appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Despite its statement to the contrary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s We the People party does not qualify for the ballot in Mississippi, at least not yet.

The party sent out a press release on June 17 claiming otherwise. 

Shortly after that went out, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office released a statement explaining that the We the People Party still had to finish submitting paperwork.

“Currently, the Secretary of State’s Office has not received the respective documents and fees necessary for any presidential candidate to appear on the general election ballot,” according to the June 20 statement.

The original press release claimed that “In January, Kennedy supporters filed the necessary paperwork to form the new political party in Mississippi.” The secretary of state’s office said that the party started filing in January but had yet to finish.

Last October, Kennedy  left the Democratic Party and continued his presidential campaign as an independent. He founded the We the People Party to run in states where party candidates needed fewer signatures to get on the ballot.

According to the press release, Kennedy is officially on the ballot in at least eight states: Michigan, Utah, California, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, Hawaii, and South Carolina. 

To get their names on the ballot, presidential candidates must follow requirements laid out in ballot access laws that vary by state.

In Mississippi, independent and party presidential candidates have to submit all required paperwork and fees by Sept. 6, 2024.

According to the secretary of state’s website, party candidates must submit a certificate of nomination, a $2,500 fee, and a list of six qualified electors. Independent candidates must submit all of that and a petition with 1,000 signatures. 

Mississippi Today reached out to the Kennedy campaign’s press contact, Stephanie Spear. She responded in an email that“Your request for comment is under consideration and your deadline is noted. If the campaign has a response, we will let you know.”

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