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The journey of overcoming mental health challenges is often complex and difficult to navigate. One of the most essential resources a person can have is the support of the community around them. From the beginning of my mental health journey at the age of 16, I felt alone. If being diagnosed with depression at such a young age was not enough of a challenge, the day after receiving that life-changing diagnosis, I found out I was pregnant.

I spent many years attempting to ignore the diagnosis and self-medicate in negative ways. I experienced so many challenges being a young mother and felt stigma from many people around me. The loneliness I faced led to years of darkness that pushed me to multiple hospitalizations. I was desperate for a new way of life.

The process of getting to where I am today has come with many challenges, from navigating a diverse mental health system to finding my tribe of supporters who uplifted me in my darkest times. I found a fantastic therapist who understood my goals and pushed me to achieve more. I changed jobs, friends and environments to better connect with people who wanted to see me succeed. I also spent time finding my way back to a relationship with God. While my search for Him was not always within the walls of a church building, I can tell you that my solo, tear-filled car ride prayers were being heard and answered.

Looking back over the years, I can see that I ran from Him instead of running to Him in my darkest moments. A large part of that is from the shame and guilt I felt. I now know He was with me every step of the way and eagerly awaited me to turn back to Him.

My most recent challenge was the loss of my mother to the same mental illness that lives in me. It’s a scary thing to see how something so invisible to the world around us can make a person want to leave this world. Without the love and support of others around me, I don’t think I would be where I am today. I actively sought out a community of people who could understand the complex grief that comes from losing a loved one to suicide.

The internet and virtual calls are excellent resources I wish I had known about when I struggled so deeply in my younger years. I realized that I wasn’t alone in my grief, anger, sadness and fear. Others around me could lift me and remind me that if all the love in the world could have kept my mother here, she would be with us today. I had to learn a hard lesson in life; my God did not fail when my mother passed, nor did He fail me when things didn’t go my way when I was younger.

My mother’s death isn’t the end of her story but the beginning of mine. If I could tell my younger self one thing, it would be to simply LIVE LIFE.

I spent many years struggling to keep my head above water while putting on a show so no one could see what I was going through. I now take time to speak up and out about mental health challenges not only to individuals experiencing it personally, but also to family members, friends and community leaders in the hopes that we can create a climate that supports individuals who are experiencing mental health challenges.

People experiencing mental health challenges can often feel misunderstood or ashamed to share their feelings and experiences with others. The isolation can deter individuals from seeking help or even staying motivated to seek treatment. However, with support from community members, individuals can be resilient and continue the fight to achieve their own version of wellness!

That is where CROP, Congregational Recovery Outreach Program, comes into the picture. CROP is a community-based, grant program, funded by the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, Bureau of Behavioral Health Services, Division of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Treatment Services, in partnership with the Mississippi Public Health Institute. CROP’s ability to teach, train, and refer individuals to gain more knowledge about mental health is what matters the most.

CROP aims to educate communities to stop stigmas, embrace those who are struggling, and challenge the systems around us to acknowledge that mental health matters. I am forever grateful to the community members who were there for me during my struggles. I know that CROP and the Mississippi Mental Health Faith-Based Summit can help educate others and help those experiencing mental health challenges.

It’s FREE and open to the public. You are invited to the “Mississippi Mental Health Faith-Based Summit” happening on Thursday, April 25, 2024, from 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM at the Jackson Convention Complex, located at 105 E. Pascagoula Street, Jackson, MS 39201. To learn more or register for free visit CROP.

The post Breaking the Silence appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A week since Jackson resident Dau Mabil was last seen walking on his usual path, family and community members are pleading for his return and for anyone with information to come forward. 

Dau Mabil, a Belhaven Heights resident, went missing March 25 after going on a walk without his phone. Video footage showed him near Jefferson Street between Fortification and High Street around 12:15 p.m., which is when he texted his wife about going to walk around his usual area, from home toward downtown and back.  

“We just don’t know after that footage what happened and why he’s not home,” Karissa Bowley, Mabil’s wife, said Monday. “… I’m trying to make sure nothing is happening to him. We’re just trying to find out information.”

Neighbors, members of the community and beyond took action, searching the area, putting up flyers, sharing information online and asking people to check any personal home security for any sightings of Mabil. 

At a Monday press conference, Bowley was joined by Bul Mabil, Dau’s brother who lives in Texas, and Jeff Good, a Jackson restaurant owner who is friends with the family and owns Sal & Mookies, where Dau Mabil works. They encouraged people to share any information that can help find him. 

The Department of Public Safety shared information about Mabil as a missing person on its Facebook page two days after he was reported missing. 

The family filed a missing persons report with the Capitol Police last week. That force is handling the case because Belhaven, Belhaven Heights and downtown fall within the Capitol Complex Improvement District. Bowley hopes Capitol Police will work with the Jackson Police Department. 

Mabil was one of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan who came to Jackson in 2000. 

The brothers fled South Sudan when a civil war broke out and escaped to Ethiopia, only to have to leave when a war broke out there. About 20,000 Sudanese boys fled the country during this time. 

From a North Kenya refugee camp, the brothers were among 50 boys who came to Mississippi with the help of Catholic Charities, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Millsaps College, the Clarion Ledger reported in 2014. 

Bowley said it’s encouraging to hear people be hopeful and offer support to help find her husband. 

“The help gives me a distraction from the despair,” she said.

Anyone with information on Mabil’s whereabouts can contact Crime Stoppers, 601-355-8477 or www.P3tips/116; Karissa Bowley, (601) 566-5739; or Capitol Police, (601) 359-3125.

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Note: This editorial anchored Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive access to legislative analysis and up-to-date information about what’s happening under the Capitol dome.

The evening before a Senate committee was scheduled to vote on a Medicaid expansion bill, Gov. Tate Reeves invited about 20 Republican senators over to the Governor’s Mansion for a frank conversation.

The second-term Republican governor, who has blocked expansion for more than a decade, privately told the senators on March 26 they should vote against the bill and reminded them that he would veto anything lawmakers sent to his desk this year. More specifically, Reeves told the group that he had problems with the exceptions the Senate bill would make to the work requirement. If you’re going to pass an expansion plan, he told them, it should unequivocally require that Medicaid recipients hold jobs.

The following day, a Senate committee ignored Reeves’ request and approved the original bill with the work requirement exceptions. On March 28, when the bill came up for a vote on the Senate floor, one of Reeves’ closest Senate GOP allies, Sen. Joey Fillingane, R-Sumrall, introduced two amendments: one that would force struggling mothers to work to receive Medicaid benefits, and another to force people with disabilities to work to receive Medicaid benefits. But the Reeves-proxied amendments failed, and the original bill passed with support from more than two-thirds of the chamber.

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

Several of the governor’s staffers, phones glued to their hands, scurried around the Capitol shortly after the vote. They’d lost yet another battle in the war their boss has waged.

Reeves lost real ground in his opposition to Medicaid expansion last week, unable to exert his influence even in the Senate, the friendly chamber that likely serves as his best shot at winning. Every tactic he’s employed has been thwarted, and he’s running low on political capital. And he apparently knows it.

“This week was not a great week in our fight to beat Obamacare Medicaid Expansion,” Reeves acknowledged in a long social media post on Saturday. The post named and thanked the 16 Senate Republican “patriots” who voted no. Most of those no-voters were at the Mansion earlier in the week.

Medicaid expansion would provide health insurance to about 200,000 working Mississippians — many of whom have never been able to otherwise afford it in the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest state. Passing the policy, as 40 other states including many GOP-controlled ones have done, would provide a jolt of life to small towns and the rural hospitals that are keeping those towns alive. It could bring more than $1 billion annually in additional federal money to the state, freeing up hundreds of millions that could be spent on anything state leaders want, not just on health care.

But Reeves overlooks the health and economic benefits of the program simply because, he argues, it is an expansion of welfare. Never mind the fact that countless studies show most people who would take advantage of the health care program would be employed, or that both proposals in the GOP-led Legislature this year would require those people to work. The governor has also failed to mention the fact that Georgia’s Medicaid program, which does include a work requirement as the state battles the federal government in court, is a dismal failure, costing Peach State taxpayers millions of dollars to administer a restricted program that is serving few people.

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

When the governor told the group of Republican senators last week that he wanted them to remove some of those work requirement exceptions, it may not have been about the work requirement at all. Reeves knows better than anyone that the federal government has rejected 13 states’ previous efforts to place stringent work requirements to their expansion plans.

The Senate bill, as passed last week, is not exactly loved by advocates of greater health care access. In fact, Mississippi would still not be considered an expansion state if it’s passed into law because it doesn’t draw down a greater federal dollar match and it insures much fewer people than traditional expansion would.

And, importantly, the Senate bill would not allow any expansion program to go into effect unless the work requirement is accepted by the federal government — a poison pill that would temporarily delay or permanently prohibit any potential expansion program from going into effect. Looking at the recent history in other states, the governor’s lobbying against the Senate bill the past few days appears pretty simple: If he can’t stop the Legislature from passing some version of Medicaid expansion, he should try to get them to put strict work requirements in the bill because it likely won’t be approved by the feds anyways.

READ MORE: Gov. Roy Cooper, the most recent state leader to expand Medicaid, has advice for Mississippi lawmakers

Now the Senate plan goes back to the House, which earlier this session passed a real-deal Medicaid expansion plan that would insure tens of thousands more people and draw down hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Senate plan would. The House plan also included a work requirement, though it would allow a Medicaid expansion program to go into effect even if the federal government doesn’t approve the work provision.

With such different proposals from each side of the Capitol, Medicaid expansion in Mississippi is still far from a sure thing.

We can expect bitter disagreement between House and Senate leaders in the coming days as leaders from both chambers begin meeting to try to hammer out their differences and come to an agreement. And whatever potential expansion plan comes out of those meetings would still have to garner a substantial vote on both the House and Senate floors to pass.

Reeves, meanwhile, is working with all his might to block it now. And if nothing else, his last gasp would be his veto stamp, which would require yet another legislative vote against him. 

But with the governor seemingly losing more ground with his fellow Republicans with each passing week, perhaps the most critical question remaining is: Does Reeves have enough political firepower to stop this?

READ MORE: Hospitals, business leaders suffering FOT — Fear of Tate — on Medicaid expansion

The post Gov. Tate Reeves loses ground in his war against Medicaid expansion appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi will remain one of only three states that does not have in-person early voting after a House committee chairman killed legislation last week.

House Elections Chairman Noah Sanford said in a committee meeting on Thursday that he will not bring up Senate Bill 2580. The bill would have allowed 15 days of no-excuse early voting before election day. Sanford said he received concerns over the plan from some county circuit clerks, the local officials who administer elections. 

“Some circuit clerks around the state had concerns that they might have to hire an additional deputy clerk to administer early voting,” Sanford said.

Instead, Sanford, a Republican from Collins, said he would like to conduct some hearings in the summer or fall to examine the issue further and allow circuit clerks and others to present information. He said that after the hearings he would be more open to passing early voting legislation. 

Mississippi currently allows in-person absentee voting before elections, but voters must meet criteria, such as being over 65 or disabled, or provide one of a handful of valid “excuses,” such as being out of town for work on election day and follow a long list of rules and procedures.

But Mississippi does not have no-excuse absentee voting or any type of early voting. The Senate measure would have “no-excuse” voting for all registered voters and eliminate in-person absentee voting. It also would have required voters to present a valid photo ID to vote early.

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, the author of the bill, said he was disappointed the measure did not advance in the House, given it overwhelmingly passed the Senate along bipartisan lines. 

“We’ll see it again, though,” said England, a Republican from Vancleave. “This is something I’m definitely interested in and something voters across the political spectrum are interested in.” 

House Speaker Jason White, a Republican from West who appointed Sanford to lead the Elections Committee, previously told Mississippi Today he was not opposed to early voting, but the policy was not a major priority for him. 

Even though Sanford did not bring the measure up for a vote, it’s possible lawmakers could amend related legislation to include early voting.

The post House committee chairman kills early voting bill without a vote appeared first on Mississippi Today.

An austere version of Medicaid expansion, which for more than a decade has been blocked by legislative leaders, 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 government 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. 

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 state’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 today.” 

Senate Democrats introduced several amendments, which Republicans, 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. 

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 health care coverage. But we did not want to lose an opportunity 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 children 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-Picayune; 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. 

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.

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 event 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.

The post Senate passes Medicaid expansion ‘lite’ with veto-proof majority appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Nearly a year after a north Mississippi judge acquitted a 22-year-old who stabbed a man in the neck, nearly killing him, attorney general’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 following an acquittal or conviction. 

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

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 process 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. 

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 records 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 manager  – Mitchell’s father – and Rogers then talked, and when Rogers reacted negatively, Mitchell approached from behind and stabbed Rogers in the neck three times. 

Mitchell testified he was trying 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. 

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 health 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. 

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, including 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. 

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. 

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. 

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

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.

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As the Mississippi Republican-led Legislature considers expanding Medicaid for the first time after a decade-long debate, Senate leaders 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”

Health care 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 law 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 Children 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.

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 at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County — 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 systems 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.”

In Georgia, only 3,500 people have signed up since the program began in July – despite the millions of dollars taxpayers have paid to run 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.

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 compared 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-West, 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. 

That’s important because during the Biden administration, the federal government  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.

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.”

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 having 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.

The post Mississippi lawmakers look to other states’ Medicaid expansions. Is Georgia worth copying? appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The great-great-great grandson of Confederate icon J.Z. George wants to see his ancestor’s statue moved from the U.S. Capitol back to Mississippi.

Each day, hundreds visit the Capitol’s Statuary Hall to glimpse the two statues from each state. Mississippi is the only state represented strictly by Confederate leaders. They are George and Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy.

In recent decades, states such as Alabama and Florida have replaced statues of those who fought in the Civil War or supported secession with notable leaders or trailblazers. States pay for the statues, which represent deceased citizens “illustrious for their historic renown or for distinguished civic or military services such as each State may deem to be worthy of this national commemoration.”

Beyond Confederate figures, Ohio replaced a slave-supporting governor with inventor Thomas Edison. California replaced a little-known minister with former President Ronald Reagan. North Carolina replaced a white supremacist politician with evangelist Billy Graham.

Mississippi, however, has stood pat.

It is time that changed, said George’s ancestor, Charles Sims of New Braunfels, Texas, a combat veteran, Ole Miss graduate and founder of The Dream 2020. “Racial hatred or racism shouldn’t be honored.”

He would love to see Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery, take the place of George, a Civil War veteran, he said. “I’d like to replace a soldier with a soldier.”

Medgar Evers fought in Normandy and later became part of the Red Ball Express, a convoy system that used Army trucks to haul food, gasoline, ammunition and other supplies to U.S. forces as they raced across France.

When Evers returned home, he and his brother and other Black soldiers tried to vote, only to be turned away by white men with guns. After that, he began battling in the civil rights movement and became the first field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP.

Sims knows all about fighting. He spent more than eight years in the Army, much of it in combat in Iraq.

Many of those in his lineage, like George, were slave owners. Three of his ancestors signed the Mississippi Articles of Secession, which called for the state to secede from the nation: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.”

Two years after the Civil War ended, Reconstruction began, and so did a reign of terror against Black Mississippians and those who supported them.

George became known as the “Great Redeemer” for his role in returning white supremacy to power after Reconstruction ended. That work culminated in the 1890 Constitution, designed to disenfranchise Black Mississippians through poll taxes and constitutional quizzes.

“There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter,” future Gov, and U.S. Sen. James K. Vardaman declared, “Mississippi’s constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the n—– from politics.”

The changes worked. Within a decade, the number of Black registered voters fell from more than 130,000 to less than 1,300. 

Other Southern states followed Mississippi’s lead, barring Black voters in every way they could. Grandfather clauses. White primaries. Violence. Voter intimidation.

“We cannot erase the past, but neither should we be a prisoner of it, either,” Sims said. “J.Z. George was the architect of the Jim Crow laws. I am not proud of this. … I think the statue should be removed from the Capitol because we cannot honor racial hatred.”

He said family members may not agree on whether the statue should be removed from Statuary Hall, but all agree that if that happens, the statue should come home to the Cotesworth Plantation in Mississippi.

Leslie McLemore, who helped found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, said he would vote for civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer to take George’s place at Statuary Hall.

After 44 years as a sharecropper, she joined the movement and eventually captivated a nation with her story and her songs, he said. “She inspired a generation of people to get involved in the movement. To honor somebody like that is special.”

Sims said he once heard civil rights pioneer James Meredith, the first known Black American to attend the University of Mississippi, remark, “Mississippi is at the center of the universe, the center of the racial issue, the center of the poverty issue.”

Those words struck a chord with Sims. “I thought, ‘Wow, Mississippi could be the center of something.’”

Despite these days of division, Sims feels the winds of change.

“I feel it is important to change the narrative about Mississippi and show that we have the ability to reach across party and racial lines in search of conflict resolution,” he said. “This is to highlight that we have the power to sit down and talk to people about the things that divide us.”

The past can be overcome, he said, “once people stop shouting at each other and begin listening to each other.”

Some people believe there’s been so much hatred for so long that they can’t reach out to a Black family because “they’re not going to accept my hand in reconciliation,” he said. “Well, that’s how I’ve done it, and I’m not close to done.”

He has met with the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake, all victims of police violence. He also met with the niece of Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her bus seat and sparked the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.

“It’s been truly amazing,” Sims said. “If I could do this as the great grandson of Jim Crow, what is anybody else’s excuse?”

The truth is that people aren’t willing to do what it takes to move the nation forward, he said. “If we value reconciliation, we have to be willing to put the hard work in to achieve it. If we value the dream, we have to be willing to live it and pray about it fully, not just talk about it fully.”

In his “I Have a Dream” speech delivered to those gathered at the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”

When Sims heard those words, he said he felt they were aimed at him. “I think Dr. King sent me an invitation through history.”

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