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The views of the candidates for governor — Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley — are as different as night and day on fully funding the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, which provides the state’s share of the basics to operate local schools.

In response to questions from The Parents’ Campaign, a public education advocacy organization, Presley recently said: “I agree MAEP should be fully funded. I believe that Mississippi students deserve a world-class education, and that starts with fully funding public education and making sure that every classroom is safe and clean and has a great educator with modern resources. We don’t know the potential of our state because we’ve never funded our public schools enough to realize our potential.”

Throughout his tenure as governor and lieutenant governor, Reeves has placed obstacles to full funding. He has argued MAEP, which was adopted in 1997, is a flawed program and should be scrapped because it provides too much money for administration instead of the classroom.

“The reality is that the funding formula as it currently exists has encouraged and incentivized more and more spending on administration and not as much spending in the classroom,” Reeves said of the MAEP funding formula. “Whatever the mechanism is to get more money in the classroom, that’s what I’m going to support.”

But when the state Senate earlier this year introduced legislation that could have been a vehicle to address some of the problems that Reeves claimed existed within the funding formula, the governor opposed those efforts.

And before, when he was lieutenant governor, Reeves led an unsuccessful effort to repeal the MAEP and replace it with another school funding formula.

The proposal supported by Reeves allowed legislative leaders to determine how much local school districts needed to operate. Under MAEP, the amount of funding school districts need is determined by averaging how much money is spent by districts deemed to be adequate or average based on state rankings. Those average school districts that spend the most and those that spend the least are thrown out and not used in calculating the funding formula. But under state law, the formula is tilted toward discarding from the calculation more high spending districts than low sending districts.

The theory is that the MAEP funding formula ensures an adequate level of funding, if fully funded, instead of leaving it to legislative leaders to fund education at any level they deem appropriate.

Reeves also was a leader in 2015 of the successful effort to defeat ballot Initiative 42, which would have strengthened the state’s commitment to public education in the Mississippi Constitution making it more difficult for lawmakers to not fully fund the Adequate Education Program.

Surprisingly, Reeves has not always been opposed to fully funding MAEP. In 2011, Reeves, then state treasurer and a candidate for lieutenant governor, voiced support for full funding.

“It may take more than two legislative sessions, but yes, I do support full funding for MAEP,” Reeves told the Jackson Free Press at the time.

But as lieutenant governor and later as governor, Reeves never made the effort to fully fund MAEP, despite state surplus funds of about $4 billion going into the 2023 session alone.

In his first year as lieutenant governor after stating his goal to fully fund MAEP, the program was underfunded by about $260 million. The second year of Reeves’ tenure as lieutenant governor, it was underfunded by about $265 million.

MAEP has been underfunded a cumulative $2.97 billion during Reeves’ two terms as lieutenant governor and as his first term as governor draws to a close.

A significant portion of the Legislature has, like Reeves, opposed full funding. But based on polling, a significant portion of the electorate supports full funding.

In a Siena College/Mississippi Today poll of registered voters earlier this year, an overwhelming 79% said they favored fully funding MAEP, “the formula that sends state money to local schools for basic school needs.” Those basic school needs include, of course, teacher salaries.

By contrast, according to the poll that was conducted in March:

• 75% favor expanding Medicaid to provide health care to low income families.
• 71% support restoring the initiative that was ruled invalid by the state Supreme Court to allow voters to bypass the Legislature and place issues on the ballot.
• 60% favor allowing new mothers who qualify for Medicaid while pregnant to remain on Medicaid for one year instead of two months.

Reeves is not the first politician to change his mind or not keep his commitment to MAEP funding. Since the program was fully enacted in 2003, it has been fully funded twice even though every governor since then has at some point voiced support for full funding.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves supported fully funding public education before he was against it appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.

Gov. Tate Reeves has long struggled to justify his opposition to Medicaid expansion.

Numerous economic experts say the expansion program would bring $1.5 billion in new revenue to Mississippi in year one, create more than 10,000 new jobs per year, and provide health insurance to at least 200,000 working Mississippians who can’t otherwise afford it. The financial benefits to the state, the economists project, would more than cover the state’s share of the expansion program’s costs. 

Forty other states, including numerous Republican-led ones, have expanded Medicaid to great success.

But Reeves has blocked it for years. And as he’s running for reelection in 2023, he’s struggling to explain his rationale on the issue that would help so many Mississippians who need it, that an overwhelming majority of voters support, that hospital leaders have begged for, and that his Democratic opponent Brandon Presley has made central to his 2023 campaign.

Here’s the exchange from Thursday on the campaign trail, which occurred at the end of an interview gaggle with reporters:

Ross Adams, WAPT-TV reporter: “What do you say to working class people — people working at McDonald’s and Walmart who can’t afford private health insurance who could benefit from Medicaid expansion?”

Gov. Tate Reeves: “What I would say to you is we are going to continue to work to invest in creating more jobs in our state. We’re going to continue to work to create more opportunities in our state. We’re going to continue to invest in our people.”

Adams: “What about the people—”

Reeves: “We’re going to continue to invest in our people. We’re going to continue to invest in our people through workforce development and workforce training because we want upward mobility for our people. Having a job matters. Having a job brings dignity and respect — upward mobility, not only for the parents but for their kids, as well, and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

The governor then put a hand between himself and Adams, uttered a quick “thank y’all very much” and walked away from reporters. Video of the exchange has been seen by tens of thousands of people on social media.

Reeves, serving his first term in the Governor’s Mansion and seeking a second this November, is hardly the first governor to care about job creation. One could argue a governor’s most important job is selling the state to employers, and Reeves’ focus there is a worthy one.

But a major reason Reeves has struggled defending his stance on Medicaid expansion is because job creation on its own is not a working solution to the health care challenges so many face. If it were, the state’s health outcomes would have long been improved and more people would have the ability to afford trips to the doctor.

The reality is that today, thousands of jobs available to Mississippians — among the poorest, unhealthiest and least educated people in America — are just like the ones the governor was asked about on Thursday. They don’t offer health insurance, and they don’t pay enough to lift people out of staggering financial difficulties.

Data from the state’s employment agency, which Reeves as governor directly oversees, tells it all.

Take, for instance, the McDonald’s workers that Reeves was asked about this week. “Food preparation and serving related occupations” is the fourth-most common in Mississippi as of April 2023. More than 105,000 Mississippians — almost 10% of the state’s entire workforce — hold these jobs. Another 37,000 Mississippians are counted in “fast food” job categories. Very, very few of the employers in these industries offer health insurance to their employees.

The average hourly wage for food service workers in Mississippi is $11.43. If those workers put in 40 hours per week, they’d make $1,828.80 per month before taxes, or $23,780 per year. Factoring in rent, groceries, gas and other necessary expenses, that’s barely enough to survive, let alone afford private health insurance. That annual pre-tax salary is actually under the federal poverty line if the household has more than two people in it.

But despite all those factors, the food service worker who makes $23,780 annually does not qualify for Medicaid under Mississippi’s current program. They make too much, according to the state’s policymakers, to qualify for the government program. But if those leaders chose to expand Medicaid, that same working person would qualify for government-paid health care coverage.

Reeves, though, has never publicly acknowledged these realities. He’s instead chosen to dwell only on his focus on economic development and job creation. He wants working people who are barely scraping by to go out and learn new skills, find better paying jobs that offer health insurance and lift themselves out of an impossible position. It’s not a terrible hope to have for people, but it’s a completely unrealistic one — especially if you’re not providing them all the help you have at your disposal.

On the same day Reeves literally walked away from an earnest conversation about this problem, Presley laid out a completely different message when asked about the issue.

“(Medicaid expansion) is common sense for us to do in Mississippi … I’m most concerned about the 230,000 Mississippians who don’t have access to health care,” Presley told reporters at the same event. “… Tate Reeves insults working people by saying they’re on welfare. He insults people who sack groceries for a living, he insults people who roof for a living. He wouldn’t take those jobs, but he insults those people who are out working. He calls it welfare. That’s how out of touch he is.”

Reeves, with holes in his logic and an unwillingness to even acknowledge the reality so many Mississippians face, is teeing up Presley perfectly on this issue. How might voters respond in November?

Headlines From The Trail

Several GOP consultants share predictions about runoff between Tate Reeves, Brandon Presley

Mississippi labor unions rally for Brandon Presley ahead of governor’s race

Elvis Presley’s cousin is getting Mississippi voters all shook up

Inside the Democratic Party’s coordinated effort to turn out Black voters for the Nov. 7 election

How a Tate Reeves victory would place him in Mississippi history books

What We’re Watching

1) Debate, debate, debate. Voters have been calling for it for months, and on Nov. 1, they’re going to get it. If you’re wondering how it might go, read some of the quotes from Reeves and Presley about one another from Thursday’s annual Hobnob event. Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender has the full story.

2) If you’re in the Jackson metro area on Nov. 1, come to Hal & Mal’s for a Mississippi Today watch party. We’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host some live analysis as soon as it ends. We hope to see you there!

3) “The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.” The Robert Earl Keen classic is a great road trip tune, but the second part of the line is probably getting left off by the candidates and campaigns this weekend. Reeves and Presley continue to tear up the trail, with both scheduled to touch essentially all corners of the state over the next few days.

The post Gov. Tate Reeves walks away when asked about working Mississippians who need health care appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Debate Prep appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Leaders of some of the state’s organized labor unions, a traditional bedrock of Democratic Party activism, encouraged their members on Saturday to support Brandon Presley’s campaign for governor.

Speaking near the state Capitol on Saturday, Robert Shaffer, president of the Mississippi branch of the AFL-CIO, said members should vote for Presley because he supports issues such as restoring the state’s ballot initiative and has listened to concerns the unions have raised in the past. 

“He’s a been there, down to earth guy,” Shaffer said of Presley. 

Several organized labor groups have endorsed Presley, a Democrat, and donated money to his campaign, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Presley, in return, has not shied away from the organizations and even touted them at the Saturday event.

“When we see the union label, it means American made,” Presley said. 

Mississippi, like many Deep South states, is a right-to-work state, which means participation in any union is voluntary and cannot be made a condition of employment. As a general rule, employment is at will, meaning that an employer can terminate an employee for any reason with a few exceptions. 

The Democratic candidate said Saturday his plans to reduce the state’s grocery tax, the highest such tax in the nation and reduce taxes for car tags would benefit the union members. 

He acknowledged, however, the Republican-dominated Legislature likely would not support efforts to repeal the state’s right-to-work law and remain skeptical of some labor reforms. 

“I’m not oblivious to the fact that Mississippi’s not going to create a Department of Labor or overnight become an organized labor state,” Presley said. “But I believe organized labor should have a fair chance to voice their concerns on issues.” 

Shaffer, the labor leader, also said members should not support Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’ bid for reelection because he remained opposed to expanding Medicaid to the working poor. 

“What he’s done is left out the middle class trying to work for $7 or $8 an hour with no insurance,” Shaffer said. “In return, the only way they can get any help is to go to the emergency room, and they can’t pay the bills.”

Reeves, Presley’s Republican opponent, is one of the leading critics of Medicaid expansion and reiterated his opposition to the policy on Thursday morning to reporters at the Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob event. 

The governor said the state’s health care system could not sustain adding more people to Medicaid rolls, and he instead believes the solution to Mississippi’s low health insurance rate is to recruit more jobs to the state.

“We are going to continue to work to create more opportunities in our state,” Reeves said. “We’re going to continue to invest in our people through workforce development and workforce training because we want upward mobility for our people.” 

Francine Thompson, a senior field representative for the national AFL-CIO, told Mississippi Today on Saturday that volunteers from some of the labor groups are calling and visiting homes of other labor organization members, called “labor-to-labor canvassing,” on behalf of Presley. 

Over the next 10 days, they plan to strategically target people in Gulfport, Jackson, Marshall County and Tunica County. 

Certain Mississippians can cast in-person absentee ballots at county circuit clerk’s offices from now until Nov. 4, and the general election between Reeves and Presley will take place on Nov. 7. 

The post Mississippi labor unions rally for Brandon Presley ahead of governor’s race appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Oct. 28, 1798

Abolitionist Levi Coffin was born in North Carolina. His home in Newport, Indiana, became known as the “Grand Central Station of the Underground Railroad.” 

In 1821, his cousin ran a Sunday school for Black Americans, but when slaveholders rebelled against this, the school was forced to close. After he and his family moved to Indiana, he began working on the Underground Railroad. 

“The Bible, in bidding us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, said nothing about color, and I should try to follow out the teachings of that good book,” he said. “I thought it was always safe to do right.” 

He helped thousands of Black Americans find freedom, and after the Civil War ended, he became a leader in the Western Freedmen’s Aid Society, raising more than $100,000 (the equivalent of $2.66 million) in a single year for African Americans who needed food, clothing, funds and education. His autobiography, “Reminiscences of Levi Coffin,” was published a year before his 1877 death. 

In 1902, a 6-foot monument was built to mark his grave, and his former home became a National Historic Landmark.

The post On this day in 1798 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Welcome to The Homestretch, a daily blog featuring the most comprehensive coverage of the 2023 Mississippi governor’s race. This page, curated by the Mississippi Today politics team, will feature the biggest storylines of the 2023 governor’s race at 7 a.m. every day between now and the Nov. 7 election.

OXFORD — The buzz of the annual “Good Ole Boys and Gals” political event on Thursday wasn’t the stump speeches from high-profile politicians ahead of the Nov. 7 statewide election. It wasn’t the big season Ole Miss football is having, and it wasn’t even the sweet-smelling BBQ chicken.

It was Gov. Tate Reeves’ poll numbers and the growing likelihood of a Nov. 28 gubernatorial runoff between Reeves and his Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.

One consultant at the event who is not affiliated with the Reeves campaign said they had reviewed a recent poll that showed the incumbent governor several points under 50%. A significant portion of voters, the source said, remained undecided or said they will cast votes for Gwendolyn Gray, an independent candidate.

“There have been several polls in the last 10 days that almost guarantee he’ll be in a runoff election,” the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak frankly, said. “I would think the Democrats are smelling blood in the water.” 

Gray has publicly announced that she is no longer seeking the office and supporting Presley. Her announcement, however, came too late because state officials had already printed ballots, so her presence on the ballot created a runoff probability. 

If no candidate on the general election ballot receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will participate in a runoff election on Nov. 28, just five days after Thanksgiving.

Another consultant at the event said they had also reviewed recent polling numbers and doubted if Reeves could garner an outright majority on the first ballot, though they declined to share the specific numbers.

“I’ve crunched the numbers, and anyway you slice it, I’d be preparing for a runoff if I was them,” they said of the Reeves campaign. 

A third consultant speculated that while the governor hasn’t hit the 50% mark in some public polls, they don’t believe it will actually translate into a runoff scenario on Election Day. They believe undecided voters will get Reeves over 50%.

With insiders digesting poll numbers, baked beans and coleslaw at the event on Thursday, it was notable that so many attendees were openly speculating about the fact an incumbent Republican governor in a reliably red state may not win on the first ballot.

Reeves, in his speech to the event’s attendees, did not directly mention the runoff possibility, but he appeared to hint at the trouble he’s had reaching 50%. In his stump speech — well, technically a “bench speech” as the candidates at the event stand on an old, wooden bench — he said the only way he could win the general election is “if conservatives show up to the polls.” 

“I’m proud of the fact that we’re winning in every poll out there, even in the ones where they fake the outcome,” Reeves said. “But none of those polls matter. The only poll that matters is the one that’s taken on Election Day.”

One person who was noticeably absent was Presley, who currently represents Oxford as north Mississippi’s public service commissioner and has attended the event in previous years. John Morgan, one of the event’s organizers and an Oxford alderman, told attendees that Presley’s campaign initially indicated they would come and participate, but he did not show. 

Reeves seized on Presley’s absence at the festival, located in the Democrat’s home turf of north Mississippi and roughly an hour away from his hometown of Nettleton. 

“I’m going to be honest with you: I’m not at all surprised that my opponent didn’t have the guts to show up in north Mississippi tonight,” Reeves said. “He’s probably in California or New York meeting with billionaires who are funding his campaign.” 

Presley, in a statement to Mississippi Today, did not address his absence but criticized  Reeves’ rhetoric.

“Tate Reeves talks real tough and acts real wimpy,” Presley said. “I look forward to cleaning his clock across my home region of North Mississippi on Election Day where I’ve been elected four times.” 

Partisan brinkmanship may have been on display between the two candidates for governor, but there were unifying moments on Thursday to mark the death of Johnny Morgan, a former state lawmaker who first organized “Good Ole Boys and Gals”  in the mid-1980s. 

Morgan, a notable entrepreneur who was a cousin to the Oxford alderman, died in a plane crash in June and was widely viewed as a political powerbroker. House Speaker Philip Gunn, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and Reeves all paid tribute to Johnny Morgan in their speeches.

Headlines From The Trail

How a Tate Reeves victory would place him in Mississippi history books

Medicaid’s managed care contracts at a standstill after two companies cry foul

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann calls for free community college tuition

Gubernatorial candidates throw punches from the podium at annual Hobnob forum

Republican operatives sound every alarm on current trajectory of 2023 governor’s race

What We’re Watching

1) A lecture series continues today at Galloway United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson. Galloway, the home church of Gov. Tate Reeves, is hosting faith leaders who will advocate for Medicaid expansion, among other things. Mississippi Today’s Bobby Harrison wrote last month about the series. Here’s how Reeves’ pastor Rev. Cary Stockett framed it: “We want it understood that this is a kingdom of God issue, grossly ignored right in the middle of the Bible Belt. We want the people who quote John 3:16 to understand that it matters to Jesus that there are people (our Mississippi neighbors) without real access to good healthcare … and so it should matter to us, too.”

2) Presley has a busy weekend ahead. On Saturday, he’ll campaign in Ridgeland, Vicksburg, Yazoo City and Pike County. On Sunday, he’ll campaign in Pascagoula, Gulfport and DeSoto County. That’s a lot of ground to cover. We haven’t seen Reeves’ schedule, but it’ll almost certainly be as crowded.

3) Are candidates spending any time in debate prep? The one and only debate of the cycle will be held Wednesday, Nov. 1. It is sure to be a contentious, bitter affair. If you’re in the Jackson metro area, come to Hal & Mal’s for a Mississippi Today watch party. We’ll stream the debate live at 7 p.m. on the big screen, and we’ll host some live analysis as soon as it ends.

The post Several GOP consultants share predictions about runoff between Tate Reeves, Brandon Presley appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Letters from the Front appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told Mississippi business leaders Thursday he wants to make the state’s 15 two-year colleges tuition free.

Speaking at the annual Mississippi Economic Council’s Hobnob event, designed to allow the state’s business leaders to hear from political leaders, Hosemann said providing free tuition for community college students would help grow the Mississippi economy. He said in recent years the Legislature has expanded public pre-kindergarten programs, and he believed expanding higher education opportunities is the next logical step.

“We want to have the best economic life we can have for our citizens,” said Hosemann after his Hobnob speech at the Mississippi Coliseum. “You do that by educational opportunities.”

According to Hosemann’s office, 28 counties already have put in place local programs to provide free community college tuition. Under Hosemann’s plan, those counties probably would be able to divert their funds to expanded educational opportunities for their citizens.

Many of the counties offering free community college tuition are located in northeast Mississippi. In the past, Rep. Jerry Turner, R-Baldwyn, who represents a portion of northeast Mississippi, offered a proposal similar to Hosemann’s, but it did not make it through the legislative process.

The program, which already is offered in some other states, is called “the Last Dollar” program. People entering community college are required to apply for any available grants and scholarships. The amount of the tuition not paid for by the grants and scholarships would be paid for by the state.

Hosemann said a bill will be drafted to be considered during the 2024 session.

The program would cost the state $25 million annually when fully enacted, Hosemann estimated.

He also said most likely students would be required to meet certain standards in high school to be eligible for the program. And he said it would most likely be fashioned in a way to enhance opportunities for those going into high demand areas, such as medical fields.

Hosemann already has met with the Community College Board to discuss the program.

Hoseman is seeking his second term as lieutenant governor. He is considered to be a heavy favorite for reelection on Nov. 7 against Democrat Ryan Grover, who did not speak Thursday at Hobnob.

The post Hosemann calls for free community college tuition appeared first on Mississippi Today.

A man paroled earlier this year after serving 18 years in prison for the double murder of his father and stepmother was arrested last week for driving under the influence. Now the family of one of his victims is questioning why the Parole Board decided to release him in the first place. 

At the age of 17, James Williams III was sentenced in 2005 to two consecutive life sentences for the fatal shooting of his father, James Jr., and stepmother, Cindy Lassiter Mangum, in 2001. 

A 2021 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled that those who were juveniles should be eligible for parole. The Parole Board decided in April of this year, despite pushback from Mangum’s family and lawmakers, to grant Williams’ release. 

“The family wants to know if the Mississippi State Parole board still feels that the community is better served to have James Williams in the community drinking and driving than be incarcerated for the double murders that he is guilty of committing,” her family said in a Thursday statement. 

The Rankin County Sheriff’s Department confirmed Williams, now 38, was arrested Oct. 20 for a first offense DUI and released the next day on bond. 

While nobody was injured while Williams allegedly drove while intoxicated, Mangum’s family said his arrest is an opportunity for the Parole Board to see that it made a mistake, and that mistake could have cost others their lives. 

He is expected to appear before the Parole Board about whether the DUI arrest violated his parole. Mangum’s family hopes the board will return Williams to prison. 

A representative from the Parole Board was not immediately available for comment Friday morning. A spokesperson from MDOC said any decision about Williams is up to the Parole Board. 

Williams had been denied parole multiple times because of the nature of his crime and community opposition, but the current board found he was suitable for release and that there wasn’t opposition from the family, sheriff, district attorney or judge. 

Mangum’s family said it wasn’t given notification to come before the Parole Board and express their opposition – a claim Chairman Jeffery Belk disputed in April after the board’s vote, saying multiple efforts were made before the hearing to contact them. 

The family has also questioned whether Williams has changed while in prison. His attorney, Jake Howard, previously told Mississippi Today that Willams earned a GED and bachelor’s degree in Christian ministry and completed other educational and rehabilitation programs.

The post Paroled killer arrested in Rankin County on DUI charge appeared first on Mississippi Today.

That’s because two companies that weren’t chosen say the selection process was unfair. 

UnitedHealthcare and Amerigroup, two for-profit managed care companies, were not chosen by Mississippi Medicaid as one of its contracted companies entrusted with managing beneficiaries’ health care. The two organizations have subsequently filed protests with the state, alleging the selection process was flawed, leading to a months-long stalemate over who will manage Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries’ care after next summer.

The stakes are high: the contracts, funded by state and federal dollars, are worth billions. 

The majority of Medicaid recipients in most states are enrolled in managed care organizations. Through a lucrative contract agreement, divisions pay these companies to deliver services to beneficiaries. 

In exchange for a monthly payments — regardless of whether services were or were not used by a beneficiary during that period — the managed care organization must maintain a network of providers for its enrollees and ensure enrollees are not billed for covered services.

Managed care for Mississippi Medicaid beneficiaries began in 2011 with the inception of the division’s “coordinated care program,” or its managed care system called MississippiCAN. 

According to its website, MississippiCAN currently provides health insurance benefits for more than 480,000 of the state’s most vulnerable citizens, including poor adults and children, people who are disabled and pregnant people. Medicaid insures about 837,000 Mississippians total as of September. 

Though they’re theoretically well-intentioned — to increase services for beneficiaries and reduce costs for Medicaid — managed care organizations have been criticized by politicians, patients and health care leaders for prioritizing profit and hindering patient care.

Managed care organizations’ performances can vary greatly, and which ones the Medicaid agencies contract with is up to them. That’s decided through a process called procurement. 

Mississippi Medicaid announced in August 2022 that it intended to award contracts to three of those: TrueCare, Magnolia Health and Molina Healthcare. 

TrueCare, a not-for-profit company, was created by hospitals along with the state hospital association to provide what they believe is better care to patients, compared to traditional managed care organizations. 

Molina Healthcare and Magnolia Health are both privately-owned companies that already administer services to Medicaid beneficiaries, along with UnitedHealthcare. 

Magnolia has gotten the biggest contracts of all three — almost $9.3 billion for its contracts with Medicaid since 2017, which includes $1.2 billion in the emergency contract.

Magnolia is a subsidiary of health giant Centene. The St. Louis-based company is the nation’s largest Medicaid managed care company and one of Gov. Tate Reeves largest campaign donors. 

Centene was previously investigated over suspicions it was over-inflating bills to Mississippi’s Medicaid division. The company never admitted wrongdoing, though Centene settled with the state in June of 2021 for $55.5 million.

Medicaid spokesperson Matt Westerfield said there were no “rules that would exclude Magnolia from the process due to the Centene settlement” when asked why, if the company was previously investigated, it was awarded one of the contracts. 

Since 2017, Molina has been paid $2.8 billion to provide services for MississippiCAN and Medicaid’s Mississippi Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the state’s contract database. In the most recent contract, the emergency contract that runs from 2023 until 2024, the company is getting paid more than half a billion dollars. 

For the same services in the same time period, United received nearly $8.4 billion. The current emergency contract pays out more than a billion dollars for their services over the course of a year. 

Companies involved in the process have seven days to file protests before the agency can officially award the contracts. Then, the contracts go to the state’s procurement review board for final approval.

Following Medicaid’s announcement about the new contracts in August, UnitedHealthcare, which had a contract with the agency the prior year, and Amerigroup, the two companies that were not chosen, submitted protests. 

It’s unclear what United’s claims are. Mississippi Today did not have a copy of their protest at the time of publication.

Amerigroup’s protest alleges that Mississippi Medicaid failed to conduct a “blind” evaluation process, didn’t follow the state’s rules for contract procurement, the process was structurally flawed and “outside influences” affected its fairness.

Amerigroup cites several instances where it says companies shared identifying information. According to the protest, TrueCare revealed its connection to the Mississippi Hospital Association by mentioning the health information exchange program, which allows hospitals to share important information about patients with each other. It’s the only company with access to the exchange because of its association with hospitals. 

Amerigroup also takes issue with Molina including a company-specific vaccine incentive program, “curved” graphics similar to their logo and “well-known” Molina food insecurity initiatives in its proposal. Magnolia’s proposal included mentions of its partnership with Adelade and AT&T, which would have been enough to identify them, the protest claims. 

Magnolia and Molina did not respond to Mississippi Today’s requests for comment regarding these allegations. TrueCare’s CEO Richard Roberson declined to answer questions because “under the Division of Medicaid’s rules, all offerors are prohibited from making public disclosures to the media regarding the procurement.”

The “outside influences” cited by Amerigroup’s protest refers to a letter Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven and chairman of the Senate Medicaid Committee, sent to Mississippi Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder on Dec. 3, 2021, a few weeks before the procurement process began. Blackwell in the letter vouches for TrueCare and criticizes the performances of the current managed care organizations.

Westerfield said the letter was “never seen by any evaluator, nor was any evaluator made aware that it had even been written.”

“It had no effect on the RFQ process or outcome,” he said. 

The protest also includes a screenshot of texts between Drew Weiskopf, a consultant assisting with the evaluation, and Margaret Middleton, a lawyer for Mississippi Medicaid. In the texts, Weiskopf appears to insinuate that the evaluators were able to identify the companies — he refers to their “urge to standup (sic) and shout ‘I know who this is!’” and uses a GIF from the movie Elf in which a character identifies Santa Claus. The texts were allegedly sent during the evaluation meetings scoring the blind proposals. 

“The texts do not reflect that any evaluator expressed knowledge of any Offeror, nor could the texts have done so, as no expression was ever made,” Westerfield said.

The Division of Medicaid’s response to the protests, which was to affirm its decision to award the contracts to the three managed care organizations, were issued this past summer. Both organizations appealed the agency’s decision to the procurement review board, and both of those protests are still pending. 

As a result of the ongoing complaints, Medicaid extended the contracts of the current managed care organizations — United, Molina and Magnolia — and then issued one-year emergency contracts to them. Those contracts, which began in 2017, will be in place until June 2024. 

Medicaid Executive Director Drew Snyder told lawmakers at a Senate Medicaid Committee hearing last February that “following the instructions for blind evaluations is one of the perilous spots where procurements can go off the rails.”

“I’m sure more than one agency can share a story of a lengthy procurement that had to be terminated because every vendor revealed some kind of identifying information about itself,” he said. 

During a Medicaid procurement for different services two years ago, the agency confirmed that a company’s name appeared in a footnote, which delayed the process.

During the current procurement for managed care contracts, Medicaid said it took several steps to ensure the process was fair, including extensively reviewing submissions, including an independent review by a government office that plays a major role in state procurement processes, which found no problems. The agency also required mandatory training for procurement evaluators, who were “told repeatedly to inform [the Division] if they found any identifying information,” according to the agency.

“No evaluator ever notified DOM that he or she knew the identity of any Offeror, nor did any evaluator make any statement in the evaluation process inferring that he or she knew the identity of any Offeror,” Westerfield said via email.

The fate of the contracts now rests with the procurement review board, which has not yet set a date to hear the protests.

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