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A shock bill to merge the Mississippi University for Women with another public institution was narrowly defeated in the Senate Wednesday by 27 lawmakers, including the Republican from Columbus.

The sponsor of Senate Bill 2715, Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, asked lawmakers to essentially defang his bill by stripping it of the merger idea and turning it into a request for the legislative watchdog to study the feasibility of MUW and the Mississippi School for Math and Science, a residential high school for academically inclined juniors and seniors.

“I’m just curious, not that it’s required, but has the administration of MUW and MSMS been informed of today’s proposal?” Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point, asked.

“Of this proposal? Not this proposal, no,” DeBar replied.

When the bill went to a vote, lawmakers technically voted against the feasibility study, but any effort associated with the bill was killed. Since the vote was so close, the Senate could reconsider the bill before Thursday’s deadline.

DeBar said the amendment was a necessary change to his legislation because another bill that the Senate advanced yesterday, which would create a task force to study the “efficiency” of Mississippi’s eight public univerisites, was not guaranteed to pass.

In a statement, MUW’s president, Nora Miller, said she was looking forward to working to help MSMS secure funding to renovate its dormitories.

“We are relieved that we can return our focus to carrying out our mission, growing our enrollment and working with MSMS to get the funding to address their facility needs as part of our campus master plan,” Miller said.

DeBar’s original bill sought to relocate the MSMS to the campus of Mississippi State University. Since MSMS opened in 1988, it has been located on MUW’s campus.

But shortly before the committee deadline last week, DeBar dropped a surprise substitute to his bill, one that would have resulted in MUW becoming the first public university in Mississippi to merge with another institution. Mississippi State, and its powerful president, Mark Keenum, would take control.

MUW alumni wrote op-eds and campaigned against DeBar’s proposal. Miller, who used to be MUW’s chief financial officer and an auditor for the Institutions of Higher Learning, said the school is in solid financial health.

“We vehemently deny any rumor or speculation” the university is at risk of closure, Miller told Mississippi Today on Wednesday.

DeBar’s bill came on the heels of a failed effort by MUW to change its named to “Wynbridge State University of Mississippi.” Legislation to do that was proposed by Rep. Donnie Scoggin, R-Ellisville, the chair of the House Colleges and Universities Committee, but never made it to the floor.

That campaign, DeBar told Mississippi Today before Wednesday’s vote, seemed to decrease public confidence in MUW’s leadership, but it was not an impetus of his bill. He also said he had heard concerning stories about the state of the facilities at MSMS. The high school has requested $51 million to renovate the dorms.

On the floor, Sen. Chuck Younger, R-Columbus, commended DeBar for his dedication to improving education in Missisippi, calling DeBar’s efforts “beyond greatness.” DeBar is the chair of the Senate Education Committee.

“I appreciate your hard work, but bigger isn’t always better sometimes,” Younger said before voting against the bill. “I love Mississippi State, but I love the W, so it’s a hard situation for me to be in, but anyway my hat’s off to you.”

DeBar responded by acknowledging the tough situation Younger was in and added that he just wanted to help the bright students at MSMS. He noted he had no complaints with MUW’s administration but that it was still important to gather data on the situation.

“If the report comes back and says we need to upgrade the W, upgrade MSMS where they’re located, so be it, I’ll be the champion, obviously,” he said.

Yesterday, the Senate advanced a bill from Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, to create a task force to study “efficiency” in the state’s public university system. Boyd has said the goal of the task force is to help the universities weather the impending decline in the number of high school graduates going to college in Mississippi, and she has held a hearing on the topic.

Several lawmakers voiced concern the bill was a trap-door attempt to close universities, particularly the three smallest institutions by enrollment: MUW, Alcorn State University and Mississippi Valley State University.

Boyd denied this.

“We as a legislative body can stick our heads in the ground and continue to let these universities fail, or we can actually step up and do something about it,” she said. “If you want things to remain the same, if you want to see some of these universities with continuing declining populations, then you vote no on this bill. But if you want to see this system grow, if you want to see our universities prosper, then you vote yes on this bill.”

UPDATE 3/13/24: This story has been updated to clarify the Senate vote.

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The senator behind a bill to merge Mississippi University for Women with another public institution said he fears the regional college would be at risk of shutting down if lawmakers don’t act this session — something the university has denied is the case.

Sen. Dennis DeBar, R-Leakesville, told Mississippi Today he feels confident he will bring Senate Bill 2715 to the floor before Thursday’s deadline, but he’s still tinkering with the legislation. 

“Instead of potentially losing a whole campus, a whole university, let’s find a way to make sure something can stay there,” he said.

The headwinds facing higher education in Mississippi — from a failed bill this session to close three of the eight universities to the impending decline in the number of high school graduates — necessitate action, DeBar said. So does a bill that passed the Senate Tuesday to study “efficiency” in the public university system, though its author says it is not an effort to close schools.

“My thought was, ‘okay, if we don’t do anything now, there’s a possibility that the W could be shut down completely,” DeBar said. “I’m not saying it will happen, but I’m sure it’ll be talked about with the feasibility study, the task force.” 

Nora Miller, the MUW president, has said the university is in solid financial health because it has no debt. The university is working to increase enrollment — an effort, Miller has said, that could be helped by a more gender-neutral name.

“We vehemently deny any rumor or speculation” the university is at risk of closure, Miller said.

To counteract misconceptions, MUW is circulating a one-pager with facts about its success, such as the campus enrolling the highest percent of Mississippians of any public university.

“The W has met IHL’s financial sustainability measures, has no debt, and is recognized as a best value,” she added in a statement. “We produce more degrees per 100 undergraduate FTEs than any other institution in the IHL system. Sounds like a good investment to me.”

If SB 2715 passes, MUW would become the first public university in Mississippi to merge, according to its governing board, the Institutions of Higher Learning. The college would be taken over in 2025 by Mississippi State University, a behemoth institution less than 25 miles away that, unlike MUW, has not struggled with enrollment. 

A spokesperson for Gov. Tate Reeves’ office did not respond to questions. But the bill faces an uphill battle in the Mississippi House because the entire local delegation is against it, multiple lawmakers told Mississippi Today.

 “In my four years, I have not seen anything like that before where a bill has been dropped concerning an area and the local delegation is completely caught off guard,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus.  

That was the case with another Senate bill that passed earlier this week and would remove the city of Jackson’s long-term control over its water and sewer systems. 

“The people that these bills impact the most were not a part of the remedy that is being presented,” said Sen. Angela Turner-Ford, D-West Point. “I think people should expect that — even if you’re told no. There should be some sort of dialogue.” 

DeBar said his bill was not intended to be a potshot at MUW. Originally, it was meant to address concerns about the Mississippi School for Math and Science, a residential high school for academically inclined students that has been housed on MUW’s campus since it opened in 1988 and enrolls around 240 juniors and seniors. 

MSMS is dealing with deteriorating infrastructure and has requested about $90 million to renovate the dorms and other facilities. A grant agreement between MUW and the Mississippi Department of Education stipulates that MSMS is to “provide the major repair and renovation funds” for its facilities, not MUW. But the university also plays a role in “routine” maintenance of MSMS.

Still, the large request, DeBar said, made it seem like no one had planned for MSMS’s future. 

“The feedback I got on the original bill was not, you know, ‘hey the students have better academic opportunities at the W,’” he said “It was, ‘hey we’re concerned that if you move MSMS the W will shut down,’ basically, and for me that wasn’t a good reason to keep these 11th and 12th graders where they’re at and hold them back potentially.” 

And, Miller appeared to lose confidence after the failed name change earlier this year, though that wasn’t the impetus of the bill, he said. So DeBar thought moving MSMS to Mississippi State — a idea from its former director — would put the high school in better hands, those of the university’s powerful president, Mark Keenum. 

“I just wonder if we’re gonna put $51 million into new dorms or rehabbing dorms, why not put it into a facility or a place where the kids can achieve success,” DeBar said. 

DeBar said he hadn’t spoken to Mississippi State or MUW before dropping the bill. The lieutenant governor gave Keenum a call before the committee. 

“I never talked to Dr. Keenum or Nora before the bill came up in committee,” DeBar said, though he’s spoken with Miller since then, as well as the mayor of Columbus. 

In response to questions about if Keenum opposed the bill, Sid Salter, Mississippi State’s vice president for strategic communications, said the president had “no additional comment” beyond a statement issued last week. 

“We appreciate the institutional confidence in MSU that this proposal implies, but I emphatically reiterate that MSU did not seek and has not requested this action from legislative Leaders,” Keenum said last week. “We have the utmost respect for MUW’s unique legacy, as well as the important role it continues to play in higher education in our state.” 

No lawmaker who spoke to Mississippi Today has seen reports to indicate the proposed merger would result in savings to the state of Mississippi. DeBar said a fiscal note has not been requested on the bill because he doesn’t think it will cost money.

“The campus would remain open,” Turner-Ford said. “The needs that it has would continue, staff would be required. There’s still building maintenance issues that would remain, so I don’t see how it would be cost-savings unless … some of the more top-tier administrators would no longer be in place.” 

At a photo op on the Capitol steps yesterday to commemorate the 140th anniversary of MUW’s charter, Miller said the bill would not save money because MUW and MSU already explored consolidating software systems in 2009 and decided not to because of the cost. 

“We really do change lives not only of our students but of their families going forward,” Miller said. “It’s a special place. Big box schools aren’t for everyone.”

UPDATE 3/13/24: This story has been updated to clarify an MUW statement regarding enrollment numbers.

The post Conflicting views of Mississippi University for Women’s future underline merger bill appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Dorie Ladner, “a giant in the civil rights movement,” has died. She was 81.

“My beloved sister, Dorie Ladner, died peacefully on Monday, March 11, 2024,” her sister, Joyce, posted on Facebook. “She will always be my big sister who fought tenaciously for the underdog and the dispossessed. She left a profound legacy of service.”

She said the date for a memorial service will be announced at a later date.

Civil rights veteran Flonzie Brown-Wright was featured with Dorie Ladner in the 2002 documentary, “Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders,” which premiered at the Kennedy Center.

“You do this because you have been called to do this,” she said. “Dorie was truly true to her calling. I absolutely loved her spirit and her willingness to share and take on an issue she felt was right.”

Cynthia Goodloe Palmer, executive director of the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, said Wednesday, “We are deeply saddened by the passing of our fellow freedom fighter. Her legacy will live on in infamy, and we will do all we can to continue the fight for freedom.”

Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities Council, described Dorie Ladner as “a giant in the civil rights movement” and “a vital part of the grassroots effort to change Mississippi and America.”

The sisters grew up in Palmer’s Crossing, where they were mentored by NAACP leaders Clyde Kennard and Vernon Dahmer Sr.

The Ladner sisters attended Jackson State University and became active in the movement. University officials expelled the sisters when they protested the 1961 arrests of nine Tougaloo College students, who had dared to integrate the all-white library in downtown Jackson.

Afterward, the sisters attended Tougaloo College and joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Dorie Ladner even escorted Fannie Lou Hamer to register to vote.

The sisters worked with NAACP leader Medgar Evers. And when he was assassinated in 1963, they marched in protest toward the Capitol.

“I started singing, ‘Oh Freedom,’” Dorie Ladner recalled. “They brought the dogs out. I got in a truck to keep from being bitten.”

Starting with the 1963 March on Washington. Dorie Ladner participated in every major civil rights march through 1968.

In late 1964, she and other SNCC leaders worked in the movement in Natchez. A bomb destroyed the building next to where they were staying.

She told author John Dittmer that Natchez Police Chief J.T. Robinson informed her, “The bomb was meant for you. I’m surprised you haven’t been killed already.”

After her movement work, she earned her master’s in social work, counseling emergency room patients, visiting schools and working with the Rape Crisis Center.

She received the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy Humanitarian Award. In 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from Tougaloo.

She continued to fight for causes she believed in. “We will not be moved,” she said in a 2017 interview. “Oh, hell, no. Too many lives have been lost and battles fought.”

On May 4, the Humanities Council plans to honor the Ladner sisters with a new Freedom Trail Marker in Palmer’s Crossing.

The post Civil rights ‘giant’ Dorie Ladner dead at 81 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The Senate on Tuesday passed bipartisan legislation that would allow no-excuse early voting in Mississippi for 15 days before Election Day, including the Saturday before. 

Eight Republicans in the 52-member, GOP majority chamber voted against Senate Bill 2580. The measure now heads to the House.

Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, a Republican from Vancleave, said during debate over the bill that the measure adds security to elections because it requires voters to cast a ballot in person at their county circuit clerk’s office. 

“I think this is a bill that number one our constituents are asking for,” England, a Republican from Vancleave, said. “This issue has been discussed with constituents and we’re one of only three states that don’t do this currently. This is, in my opinion, … a step in the right direction.” 

Mississippi 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.

READ MORE: Early voting bill advances in Mississippi Senate

The new measure would allow “no-excuse” voting for all registered voters and eliminate in-person absentee voting. England also said the new system would replace in-person absentee voting, but that mail-in absentee ballots would still be accepted if a registered voter meets the legal criteria. 

If the new proposal becomes law, voters using the new early voting system would have to cast their ballots at their circuit clerk’s office and provide a valid photo ID as they currently have to do on Election Day. If passed, the new system would go into effect in 2026. 

Republican Sen. Jeff Tate of Meridian is a former elections commissioner, and he voted against the bill because he believed it was a “step in the wrong direction.” 

“We don’t need election season,” Tate said. “We need to appreciate the institution of Election Day voting.” 

The bill now heads to the House for consideration where its fate remains uncertain. House Speaker Jason White would likely refer the legislation to the House Elections Committee for, which is led by Rep. Noah Sanford, a Republican from Collins. 

England said he has communicated with Sanford about the legislation, and he doesn’t believe the House would reject the proposal. 

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Seventy-five years ago, a tall, thin teen-aged girl named Dot Ford scored 82 points in a high school basketball game in the tiny, northeast Mississippi town of Smithville. She averaged right at 50 points a game for the entire 1949-50 season.

Ford scored 50 points or more in 12 games. For the season, she averaged nearly two points per minute. She was a Hill Country basketball hero, big news in basketball-crazy Monroe County, Her exploits even made headlines in the newspapers nearly 200 miles away in Jackson and in Memphis.

But her fame was short-lived. Back then, there was no women’s college basketball to speak of. Her basketball career ended quietly. She married her high school sweetheart, James Burrow, who had been a starting point guard at Mississippi State. Together, they raised an athletic family in nearby Amory. Dot and James lived in the same house for more than 60 years. Still do, for that matter.

All that was left of those Smithville basketball glory days were a few newspaper clippings and her own memories, and that was fine. Besides, sons Jimmy, who played football for national champion Nebraska, and Johnny, who played for Ole Miss, were making more memories. In recent years, grandson Joe – yes, that Joe Burrow – has become, by far, the most famous Burrow of all.

Basketball star Dot Ford was a largely forgotten legend. Know this:  “Was” is the operative word here. Her basketball excellence is forgotten no more.

Do you believe in fate? If the answer is no, read on for the rest of this story.

I was searching for the high school baseball field where the 2022 state champions played their games. Dodging downed trees in a nearby neighborhood, I pulled over and asked directions. Major coincidence: The second guy I approached just happened to be the baseball coach, Chris Pace, who was helping neighbors clean up their yards.

He pointed out a house a few doors down and told me it was the home of the grandparents of LSU’s Heisman Trophy winner and Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow. I walked that way and met Jimmy Burrow, Dot’s son and Joe’s dad, who had driven all night from his Ohio home and was helping his parents deal with major damage to their house.

The front of the house looked fine. Hidden from view was the rear of the house where the fireplace chimney had fallen through the ripped-apart roof and into the den. There was major structural damage, but the Burrows were safe. They had ridden out the tornado in the storm cellar they had built under their carport after the killer tornado that hit nearby Smithville in 2011, killing 16.

His parents, both in their early 90s, were shaken, Jimmy said, but they would be fine. In the course of the conversation, he told me about his mother’s basketball accomplishments all those years ago. I filed it away.

A few days later, after writing about the tornado wreckage, I searched through newspaper archives, confirmed all Dot Burrow’s remarkable statistics, and wrote the largely forgotten story of Dot Ford Burrow.

Jimmy Burrow says his mother was shocked and quite emotional. She knew she had been nominated, but she never expected to join the likes of Walter Payton in a national hall of fame, not after 75 years.

Joe Burrow is one proud grandson. Said Joe Burrow when he learned the news: “My grandmother was an incredible athlete and a generational basketball player, and is arguably the best athlete in the family. Knowing how great she was has motivated me to be the best I could be in all sports.”

Baseball Hall of Famer Joe Mauer, who once hit 43 home runs for his Minnesota high school baseball team, is probably the biggest name in this year’s class. Former Auburn and NFL football star Takeo Spikes, another inductee, once caught 24 touchdown passes and made 238 tackles for his undefeated Sandersville (Georgia) High football team. Forty-three home runs, 24 touchdown passes and 238 tackles are remarkable statistics.

But then so are 82 points in a single game and a 50-point scoring average for a season. Three quarters of a century later, Dot Ford Burrow finally gets the recognition she deserves.

The post Seventy-five years later, Dot Ford, now Dot Burrow, gets her due appeared first on Mississippi Today.

We’re at that time of the sports year when all sports seem to converge. In Mississippi, there are big doings in all three major sports.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: Touching all bases in football, baseball and basketball with interesting news all around. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

On Tuesday morning, Sen. Nicole Boyd, R-Oxford, got a phone call from a Mississippi community mental health center staffer who wanted to share a story.

A few days earlier, a man had filed an affidavit to initiate commitment proceedings against his wife. Having recently lost three family members and close friends, she wouldn’t get out of bed. Her husband didn’t know what to do, so he decided to try to have her committed. Following orders, a sheriff’s deputy took her into custody.

“She probably right now, unless she got out this morning, is sitting in a jail, and she probably just has a bad case of depression,” Boyd said on the Senate floor Tuesday evening as she introduced legislation that would restrict the use of jail to detain people who are not charged with any crime while they await involuntary commitment proceedings.

The bill, SB 2744, passed with little opposition. The limits on jail that it proposes are similar to language in a House bill that also passed on Tuesday.

The measures would allow a person to be jailed only if they are violent, all alternatives have been exhausted, and a judge has ordered the jail detention. The person could be jailed no longer than 24 hours.

The bills also seek to require a mental health screening before a person is taken into custody for commitment proceedings. The aim is to avoid situations in which a person is picked up and jailed for days before evaluators determine they’re not mentally ill. The measure also seeks to divert people from commitment where possible by connecting them with outpatient treatment options.

“We’re going to make sure that the rights of those that are being committed are upheld,” Boyd said.

Boyd also said the legislation would reduce the “legal burden” on counties. She referenced statements by the leadership of Disability Rights Mississippi, the nonprofit protection and advocacy organization for people with disabilities, that they plan to sue the state and some counties over the practice of jailing people charged with no crime.

But Polly Tribble, executive director of Disability Rights Mississippi, said earlier this month that the existing legislation doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t take jail off the table entirely.

Boyd’s legislation also creates additional state oversight of the community mental health centers. The centers are regional organizations that are responsible for providing mental health services close to home and making them accessible regardless of a person’s ability to pay.

It would create a performance audit system in which the Department of Mental Health would assign each center a rating. Struggling centers could be placed on probation, after which their leadership could be replaced if they don’t improve.

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Republican Gov. Tate Reeves summoned a group of state senators to the Governor’s Mansion in early March and privately told them he will veto any Medicaid expansion bill lawmakers pass, two senators told Mississippi Today.

Reeves invited the group of about 15 senators to the Governor’s Mansion to socialize with him — a common occurrence when the Legislature is in session — at a critical time for the GOP-controlled Senate.

Numerous Capitol observers also say Reeves’ legislative team has put on a full-court press lobbying the Senate against Medicaid expansion.

The Senate faces deadlines for action, and at this point Medicaid expansion is in its hands after the House overwhelmingly passed an expansion proposal on Feb. 28. This marked the first earnest movement on expansion in the state since Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.

READ MORE: Where’s the plan? Senate still has only a ‘dummy bill’ for Medicaid expansion

Staffers for Reeves, who has long emphatically and publicly opposed expansion, did not respond to a request for comment about the event or his remarks. One Senate source told Mississippi Today that Reeves would be hosting another gathering of lawmakers at the Mansion on Tuesday night.

Reeves has taken to social media over the last few weeks to reiterate his opposition to expansion. He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on March 8 that President Joe Biden during his State of the Union speech supported the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion.

“Our country is going broke and he wants to add millions more to the welfare rolls,” Reeves said. “We have to stand strong in Mississippi! NO Obamacare Medicaid expansion!”

Numerous studies show expanding Medicaid would provide health care coverage to at least 200,000 Mississippians and bring the state up to $1.6 billion in additional federal funds per year.

The GOP-majority House last month overwhelmingly passed a bill to expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level, or about $20,000 annually for an individual. It would cover primarily the working poor, as well as those exempt from working due to disability or extenuating circumstances, and only a small number of unemployed and non-exempt adults.

READ MORE: ‘Moral imperative’: House overwhelmingly passes Mississippi Medicaid expansion

The House bill contains a work requirement for recipients of Medicaid expansion, but it ensures that the expansion would go into effect even if the federal government does not approve the work requirement.

The House bill, which passed with a veto-proof majority, is pending in the Senate, where Republican leaders have been working behind closed doors on some version of Medicaid expansion. But even as deadlines approach, Senate leaders have not released specifics of their own proposal.

The federal government pays 90% of the cost for those covered by Medicaid expansion — 95% for the first two years. In addition to providing health coverage to poor Mississippians who need it, studies have shown Medicaid expansion would be a boon for the state economy. For the first four years, there is projected to be no cost to the state because of $600 million in additional federal funds offered as an incentive to expand Medicaid.

Medical and business leaders in Mississippi have endorsed the plan because they believe expanding the program can lead to better health outcomes and reduce the amount of uncompensated care that hospitals are often forced to write off.

Republican House Speaker Jason White, at a Feb. 28 press conference after the House passed its expansion plan, heralded the House vote but said Reeves is “due his say” on Medicaid expansion because he is the “duly elected governor” of Mississippi and was recently reelected to a second term.

“You’re looking at a supporter of Gov. Reeves,” White said at the press conference. “I just simply think you can be a supporter, a champion of Gov. Reeves leading our state as the governor and you can still be for finding a workable health care solution for this population of Mississippians who are in the coverage gap.” 

The Republican-majority Senate has not yet passed a Medicaid expansion bill and faces a Thursday deadline to take action on its own “dummy bill,” or a bill that simply lists Medicaid code sections — not a substantive, specific expansion plan.

Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, declined to comment on the governor’s remarks on Tuesday, and he told Mississippi Today on Monday evening that he had virtually no update on where the 52-member Senate stood on passing an expansion bill.

Ahead of the Thursday deadline, Blackwell could attempt to pass the dummy bill on the floor, amend the dummy bill with a substantive Medicaid expansion plan, or let the Senate bill die altogether. Even if the Senate dummy bill dies on Thursday, the House expansion plan will still be alive for Senate consideration or amendments.

Meanwhile, Blackwell would not disclose what his plans were this week on expansion.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Blackwell said when asked what the Senate would do on Thursday.

If the governor vetoes a Medicaid expansion bill, two-thirds of lawmakers would need to vote in favor of overriding the veto before the bill can become law. If a two-thirds majority cannot be garnered in both the House and Senate, the bill will die at the governor’s hand.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves privately tells senators he will veto any Medicaid expansion bill appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Facing a Thursday deadline for passage, the state Senate leadership has refused to detail its Medicaid expansion plan, leaving members in the dark and health experts worried the plan could ultimately include elements that are unfeasible, costly and counterproductive. 

Two-and-a-half months into the legislative session, and after 10 years of debate, Senate Medicaid Chairman Kevin Blackwell told Mississippi Today on Monday afternoon that there was no update on a Senate proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility to the working poor and said, “we’re still working on it.”

Two weeks after the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to expand Medicaid, the Senate has not brought the House measure up, even in committee, and Senate leaders refuse to comment on it.

The Senate expansion bill, which only has the necessary code sections to expand Medicaid with no details, passed committee the first week of March. But trying to have the full Senate pass such a “dummy bill” could prove counterproductive, with senators on the fence unlikely to support a bill they know nothing about. 

Blackwell declined to elaborate whether he would advance the dummy bill for a floor vote, if he would let it die or if he planned to propose a substantive expansion plan before the Thursday deadline. 

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” he said on Monday.

READ MORE: Gov. Tate Reeves privately tells senators he will veto any Medicaid expansion bill

The only detail Blackwell and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have confirmed about the plan is that it would contain a work requirement for new coverage recipients — a prerequisite which could kill the effort to expand the health program if the feds don’t approve it.

Members of the Senate have voiced concerns about supporting a skeletal bill without knowing what it might eventually contain. 

Sens. Scott DeLano, R-Biloxi, and Daniel Sparks, R-Belmont, say they have never favored expansion, but not having a real bill in front of them doesn’t help the cause. If they were presented a real bill, they say, they would consider the policy.

“I’ve always been pragmatic. If you show me there’s a sustainable way to do something, I will listen,” DeLano said. “I am a compassionate person as well. I want to help people as much as we can. But show me where the sustainable funding will come from … I haven’t seen a bill. If you want me to support something — I haven’t seen a bill, we haven’t seen a bill yet.”

Sparks echoed the sentiment.

“I have not seen the language of the Senate Medicaid expansion plan,” Sparks said. “As I do with all legislation, though, I will review it, study it and ask questions about it.”

The only detail Blackwell has made public is that the bill would need to contain a work requirement, meaning enrollees would need to prove employment or exemption in order to be covered. That requires approval from federal Centers for Medicaid Services, which under the Biden administration has rescinded work requirements previously approved for other states during the Trump administration and has not approved new ones. Georgia remains in litigation with the federal government over the work requirement issue, and has suffered low enrollment and missed out on millions in federal funds by not expanding fully.

Even if a work requirement were approved, it would be costly to implement and could cause a host of administrative difficulties, resulting in loss of coverage even for employed individuals. To the extent that work requirements lead to lower-than-expected enrollment, certain economic benefits of expansion such as additional tax revenue would be muted, according to a March 2024 study conducted by The Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Hilltop previously conducted a more comprehensive report on Medicaid expansion in Mississippi, which it presented to the House Medicaid committee in mid-February. During the panel, the researchers outlined how it would boost the economy, generate thousands of jobs and help struggling hospitals.

The work requirement study estimates that if Medicaid were expanded in Mississippi, the majority of enrollees would be either employed or exempt from employment due to disability or extenuating circumstances. 

Under the Arkansas Works program, the state saw 45% of new enrollees were employed. Of those unemployed, over 75% were exempt, and only a small number were unemployed and not eligible for exemption.

Arkansas briefly had a Medicaid work requirement from 2018-2019. Research shows it did not lead to more people entering the workforce.

Furthermore, explained Morgan Henderson, Hilltop’s principal data scientist, the cost and administrative chore of implementing work requirements far exceeds the cost of insuring a small number of unemployed, non-exempt individuals along with the rest of the employed or exempt population. 

“It would be very challenging to have a robust Medicaid expansion program with a work requirement,” Henderson said. 

That’s because implementing work requirements would involve enrollees submitting proof of employment monthly. It would require more staff, and would “introduce substantial confusion among enrollees,” according to the study, which could mean that “if working individuals do not realize that they must report their work status, working enrollees may also lose coverage.”

And others might not even apply. 

“There’s a lot of research to show that even seemingly very small paperwork barriers can prevent folks from signing up for health insurance,” Henderson said, “even very affordable health insurance, and so it will reduce uptake – work requirements – we know this for a fact.”

Georgia, the only state currently trying to implement work requirements, has a very low uptake. Georgia’s Department of Community Health had estimated the state would see 64,000 new enrollees from expansion, but as of Dec. 15, 2023, only 2,344 individuals were actively enrolled. 

“Some people don’t have internet access,” Henderson explained, “some people just don’t complete the requirements for whatever reason, and so there are folks who are legitimately employed, who should be income-eligible, who would certainly be frozen out just because of the administrative confusion.”

Eligible enrollees who were deemed ineligible due to procedural errors would have to reapply, causing an even greater strain on a system that is already understaffed and backlogged. That’s due in part due to “unwinding,” the process in which state Medicaid divisions across the country have been reviewing their rolls for the first time in three years after the end of COVID-19 restrictions that prevented them from kicking people off.

“In this era of PHE unwinding, it would be extremely cumbersome, I think, to actually implement this work requirement in Mississippi,” Henderson said. 

Per a 2019 GAO report, the administrative costs of implementing work requirements range from $6.1 million in New Hampshire to $271.6 million in Kentucky. 

In addition to that, if CMS does not consider the Mississippi plan to be Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act — as is the case with Georgia — the state would only receive its traditional share of federal funds for its program, instead of the increased incentive of 90% for states that expand. Georgia is only receiving 65.9% federal share under its “Georgia Pathways to Coverage,” missing out on the millions more of federal funds it would receive under true expansion. 

The Mississippi House expansion bill, which passed 98-20 without discussion and now sits untouched in the Senate, calls for a work requirement but says the state’s Medicaid program will be expanded regardless of whether the federal government approves the requirement.

The Senate would have to pass its expansion bill Thursday — whether it’s a skeletal bill or full-fledged bill — to keep it alive. 

If the bill dies or is not passed, the Senate could still take up the House bill.

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