Dan Jones exposed a major political problem for Tate Reeves
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You almost certainly heard about the bombshell story former University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones told at a press conference last week.
Jones said that Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi’s most staunch public opponent of Medicaid expansion, acknowledged to Jones in a private meeting several years ago the benefits of expansion. The governor, Jones recalled, then said he couldn’t champion it publicly because of “my personal political interest.”
Reeves, as he often does when challenged, got nasty. He said Jones was lying and referred to Jones only as “this dude.” You know, the longtime Baptist medical missionary and deacon. The six-year chief of the state’s flagship university. The years-long leader of the state’s largest hospital and dean of the state’s only medical school. The one-time national president of the American Heart Association. Just “this dude.”
As Jones spoke last week, a crowd of curious lobbyists — including a couple of Reeves’ former staffers — gathered in the rotunda to hear what he had to say. Jones, in less than five minutes, did what so many people under the dome have never dared: he called Tate Reeves out. While doing so, he laid out a succinct case for Medicaid expansion that the governor himself couldn’t ignore.
And Reeves’ hot-headed response to the whole thing may be all we need to know about how tough an issue it will be for him during the critical 2023 election year.
First, some scene setting: State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney warned lawmakers in late 2022 that 38 hospitals across the state are in danger of closing in the short term, and every hospital in the state faces unprecedented financial concerns.
A hospital funding solution that 39 other states — including many Republican-led states — have embraced is Medicaid expansion. Economists estimate Mississippi would receive more than $1 billion per year in new revenue from expansion, and hospitals and hundreds of thousands of Mississippians would benefit directly.
READ MORE: Mississippi leaving more than $1 billion per year on table by rejecting Medicaid expansion
Democratic legislative leaders organized the Thursday press conference to lambast Republicans for doing little to address the state’s hospital crisis. As a guest speaker, Jones was cast perfectly. He retired last year from a faculty position at University of Mississippi Medical Center after a decades-long career in medicine. He’s spent much of his career researching the impact of chronic health problems like hypertension, cardiovascular issues, and obesity on Mississippians. Years after leading the state’s largest hospital, he currently sits on the board of directors for the hospital in his hometown Hazlehurst. Needless to say, he knows a thing or two about the state’s health care system.
Some have questioned the timing of Jones’ press conference appearance. The first words out of his mouth that day should answer that question: “Believe me, the crisis is real. I’ve been involved in health care in Mississippi for more than 40 years. In those 40 years, I’ve never seen our health care system under such stress as it is now. It’s time for action to be taken.”
What got lost in the initial reporting that rightfully focused on the rare poking of the bear in the Governor’s Mansion was perhaps one of the most succinct cases for Medicaid expansion ever made in Jackson.
“First and most important is the moral imperative. Shame on us, shame on us for allowing the citizens of Mississippi to have health care problems and not have access to health care solutions. Shame on us. In the richest country in the world, in a state with millions and billions in its coffers, for us not to act on this and make health care available to all of our citizens in our state is immoral. It is immoral. It is time to act.
The second imperative is the economic imperative. In the 38 states that have expanded Medicaid, it’s been proven over and over again: states don’t lose money when they expand Medicaid, states gain money when they expand Medicaid. In an analysis of what would happen in Mississippi if Medicaid is expanded, done by a number of groups including our own state economist, there would clearly be an economic benefit for the state of Mississippi, for all Mississippians. Right now … there are families in Mississippi with health problems that are going into bankruptcy because of medical bills. Again, shame on us.
The last imperative is an important one. It’s the political imperative. The leaders of our state and elected officials are taking positions because they think it’s the politically correct thing to do for them. The Siena poll that was just published recently here in Mississippi demonstrates clearly that a majority of Mississippians are ready for all Mississippians to have access to health care. That Mississippians are ready for Medicaid expansion — not only Democrats and independents, but a majority of Republican voters are ready for Medicaid to be expanded. It’s time for elected officials to move forward and do something.”
Dr. Dan Jones on Feb. 2, 2023
The political argument may be the most timely, certainly in this statewide and legislative election year. As Jones highlighted, Reeves appears to be in the vast minority on Medicaid expansion.
The Siena College poll he referenced showed that 80% of Mississippians — including 70% of Republican respondents — support Medicaid expansion. Those everyday Mississippians join a cadre of health care professionals, local elected officials, economists, and others who are calling for Medicaid expansion.
READ MORE: Poll: 80% of Mississippians favor Medicaid expansion
Just two days before the press conference last week, Republican legislative leaders killed 15 bills, all filed by Democrats, that would have expanded Medicaid. Three days before the press conference, Reeves dug in deeper than ever in his opposition to expansion, telling lawmakers, “You have my word that if you stand up to the left’s push for endless government-run healthcare, I will stand with you.”
Reeves disrespectfully dismissed Jones on social media the same way he’s tried to dismiss expansion: by working to distract from the real issue at hand, by name-calling, by discrediting the source or the communicators of the source. It’s deflection straight out of the Donald Trump playbook.
But with so many hospitals on the verge of closing, with so many Mississippians struggling to afford basic health care, and with the overwhelming majority of Mississippians supportive of expansion, deflection may not be enough for Reeves anymore. His opposition to expansion has become a real political liability, and as the attention of the entire state focuses more on the hospital crisis, it could likely become the defining issue of this year’s governor’s race.
Just take a look at how Reeves’ most notable challenger responded to the Jones story last week.
“When Tate Reeves has a choice between doing right by Mississippi or getting ahead in his career, he always chooses himself,” said Brandon Presley, the leading Democratic candidate for governor. “Because he has no backbone, 38 hospitals may close and more Mississippians may die because of lack of access to health care. People deserve affordable health care — plain and simple.”
Reeves and his staff might be smart to start developing a strategy a little more nuanced than firing off a mean tweet.
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On this day in 1961
FEBRUARY 6, 1961
The civil rights jail-in movement began when eight Black students and a civil rights organizer became known as the “Friendship Nine” in Rock Hill, South Carolina, were arrested for requesting service at a segregated lunch counter.
They served jail time rather than pay fines, challenging the legitimacy of the laws.
Martin Luther King Jr. wrote to the nine and others who joined them in jail, including Charles Sherrod and Diane Nash: “You have inspired all of us by such demonstrative courage and faith. It is good to know that there still remains a creative minority who would rather lose in a cause that will ultimately win than to win in a cause that will ultimately lose.”
The “Jail, No Bail” strategy became the model for the Freedom Riders months later. In 2015, Circuit Court Judge John C. Hayes III threw out the convictions of the Friendship Nine — eight college students and a civil rights organizer who had been convicted of trespassing and protesting at the McCrory store in Rock Hill.
Hayes, the nephew of the original judge who sentenced the Friendship Nine to jail, told them, “We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history.”
The nine were represented by Ernest A. Finney Jr., who defended their case 54 years earlier and went on to become the first Black chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court since Reconstruction.
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Podcast: Creekmore pushes legislation to help Mississippi mental health crisis
State Rep. Sam Creekmore speaks to Mississippi Today about legislation to address Mississippi’s long-running mental health issues, including those with mental illness being held in jails instead of receiving treatment. Creekmore has crafted a collaborative approach, with more law enforcement training, more court and county government support and changes to governance and funding of the state’s mental health system.
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On this day in 1994
FEBRUARY 5, 1994
A jury convicted Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers.
The conviction happened after the jury saw evidence that included Beckwith’s fingerprint on the murder weapon and hearing six witnesses share how he had bragged about killing Evers.
The judge sentenced Beckwith to life in prison.
Evers’ widow, Myrlie Evers, had prayed for this day, and now that it had come, she could hardly believe it.
“All I want to say is, ‘Yay, Medgar, yay!’” She wiped away tears. “My God, I don’t have to say accused assassin anymore. I can say convicted assassin, who laughed and said, ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? That’s one n—– who isn’t going to come back.’ But what he failed to realize was that Medgar was still alive in spirit and through each and every one of us who wanted to see justice done.”
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Senate bill takes voters out of voter initiative proposal
In 1992, legislators reluctantly yielded to growing public pressure and created an initiative process that allowed voters to bypass the Legislature and place issues directly on the ballot.
At the time, legislators were not crazy about it. They barely hid the fact they intentionally made the process cumbersome and time consuming in hopes it would seldom, if ever, be successfully used by the electorate.
In other words, legislators were not crazy about being circumvented.
But even those legislators from 1992 would have been embarrassed and too afraid to try to approve a ballot initiative proposal as cumbersome and unworkable as the one that passed out of Senate committee last week.
Under the new proposal, initiative sponsors would have to gather at least 10 signatures of registered voters from each of the more than 300 municipalities across the state. The proposal mandates at least 10 signatures from Jackson, which has a population of about 150,000, and from Satartia, with a population of 41.
Considering some of those 41 Satartia residents might be underage and some might not be registered voters, it is unclear whether 10 signatures could be legally gleaned from the Yazoo County town. Initiative supporters would also have to gather 100 signatures from each of the 82 counties — the same for Hinds County with about 222,000 residents as for Issaquena County with less than 1,300 people.
But it gets better. The proposal more than doubles from what was passed in 1992 the required number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot.
And going on to do what the 1992 legislators would have only considered in their wildest and most secretive dreams, the 2023 proposal, while poorly written, appears to:
- Allow legislators to actually amend or change the initiative that would go on the ballot by a two-thirds vote. In other words, it would let legislators who were supposed to be circumvented by the citizens to in reality circumvent the citizens.
- Require a two-thirds vote of the electorate opposed to a majority vote to approve an initiative.
- Require an initiative, if any makes it through this maze, to be approved by a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the Legislature before it can become law.
This proposal is more about circumventing the electorate instead of the citizens circumventing legislators.
It should be pointed out that lawmakers were not being circumvented often by voters under the old initiative process. Since 1992, a mere three initiatives have been approved by voters.
In 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court struck down the initiative approved in the 1990s. The justices said the process was unconstitutional because it mandated signatures to place issues on the ballot be gathered equally from five congressional districts as they existed in 1990. In 2000, the state lost a congressional district.
Both Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, and House Speaker Philip Gunn committed in 2021 to passing legislation to fix the Supreme Court’s concerns and to restore the initiative process. In 2022, though, legislative efforts to restore the process fell apart when at the end of the session during closed door meetings. In those meetings, Senate leadership demanded the number of signatures needed to place an issue on the ballot be more than doubled from around 100,000 registered voters to about 240,000. House leaders would not agree.
Before the 2023 session started, House Constitution Chair Rep. Fred Shanks, R-Brandon, expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached to restore the process.
On Mississippi Today’s “The Other Side” podcast, Shanks said he was optimistic because “I have run into the lieutenant governor several times and he actually brought it up … He said, ‘Let’s work on it.’”
Hosemann assigned the initiative proposals to the Senate Accountability, Efficiency, Transparency Committee chaired by Sen. John Polk, R-Hattiesburg. In both the 2022 and 2023 sessions, Polk continuously played his cards close to his vest in terms of whether he would pass out of his committee an initiative proposal. The initiative proposal, such that it is, was one of the last bills passed out of Polk’s committee hours before deadline.
But initiative supporters should give Polk and Hosemann credit for at least keeping alive this session an initiative proposal that can be amended to give voters more power. The main author of the initiative proposal passed out of Polk’s committee, Sen. Tyler McCaughn, R-Newton, told initiative supporters such as Sens. David Blount, D-Jackson, and Angela Turner Ford, D-West Point, he would work with them to improve the legislation through the amendment process.
Whether those amendments result in an initiative process that gives the citizens an opportunity to circumvent the legislative process — instead of one that allows legislators to circumvent the citizens — remains to be seen.
Make no mistake: the ghosts of the 1992 Legislature are watching with jealous eyes.
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Q&A: Rep. Missy McGee calls postpartum Medicaid expansion ‘most impactful thing’ state can do for women and children
State Rep. Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg, says it’s her mission to advocate for women as one of few females in the Mississippi Legislature. Health Editor Kate Royals met with McGee to talk about her experiences as a lawmaker and her push to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage for new moms in Mississippi.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Kate Royals: Tell me a bit about yourself – as a woman, a mom, a relatively new lawmaker.
Missy McGee: I was born and raised in Hattiesburg. I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Southern Miss. I spent a few years in Washington, D.C. after college and came back to Hattiesburg. I worked in my family business, I was an adjunct instructor at Southern Miss, so I’ve been in that university environment.
I’m married and I have two grown boys that are 24 and 21, and I sort of found myself here (as a legislator). You know, it’s a strange path and I think probably all of us would say the same, but I never expected to run for public office. I was always a behind the scenes person on issues that were important to me or candidates who I felt like were the ones I thought we needed to support. So, I enjoyed being a behind the scenes person.
But it’s really been a great privilege and honor to get to represent my hometown, a city that’s been so good to me and my family. I was educated and raised in Hattiesburg. My children have been as well, so it’s meaningful work to get to come to the Capitol and advocate for my district which is my home, my lifelong home. But hopefully to also move the needle for the state of Mississippi. It’s been a great privilege and opportunity for me these past … this is my sixth session.
Royals: You introduced a bill in the House to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for mothers in Mississippi from 2 months to 1 year. Why?
McGee: You know, I just felt like there has never been a more timely opportunity than this session, in this post-Dobbs era especially – but it’s been important for longer than that to introduce a Medicaid postpartum bill that would extend coverage to 12 months.
As a woman and as a mother, I couldn’t let this issue pass without advocating it and really trying to push it forward.
Royals: How do you think it would benefit the women in your area and also women across the state of Mississippi? (Editor’s note: This interview was conducted before McGee’s bill, House Bill 426, died without being considered in committee.)
McGee: I think it is the most impactful thing that we can do for women, moms and babies. So we know that … 36,000 babies were born in Mississippi in 2019, and we know that 65% of the babies born in Mississippi are born to moms on Medicaid. That’s not hard math to figure out; that’s 23,000 women a year. That’s 23,000 women that this can impact, which is 23,000 babies, which is 23,000 families.
I really think that it is a pro-family position, certainly a pro-life position, to take care of these moms who are carrying and delivering and bringing these babies into the world – because healthy moms equal healthy babies. They go hand in hand, so I really believe it’s currently the most impactful thing we can do for women and children.
Royals: You’ve got a hospital and a big health care community in your area – and they are in support of this?
McGee: Absolutely, they are. And it’s not just the pediatricians and neonatologists who take care of these preemies in the NICU (who support extending postpartum coverage). But the ER docs are for it because … if a woman does not have health insurance and she’s sick for whatever reason after having a child, she shows up in the emergency room. So ER doctors are supportive as well because they’re seeing them, too.
I think it’s safe to say the entire health care community knows this is important for the well being of moms and, again, babies.
Royals: It looks like Alabama and North Dakota were just approved by CMS for 12 months postpartum Medicaid coverage, joining half the states with approvals so far. Mississippi is at present 1 of only 2 states without extended postpartum coverage or Medicaid expansion. As someone very much in the middle of the lawmaking process, do you have any insight into why this may be?
McGee: All I would say is that I hope that we won’t be going forward. I hope we will join those states in extending coverage to these moms to 12 months. That’s all I can say on that.
Royals: According to the Center for American Women and Politics, you are one of 26 women in the entire state Legislature —26 out of 174. Can you tell me what that’s like?
McGee: Yes, I believe I am one of 15 women in the House. So out of 122 members of the House of Representatives – and that number has changed a little bit. Well, you know, I feel like I have a greater responsibility to the women of Mississippi. We make up 50%, 51% of the state yet there are only 15 of 122 women in the House, so I do feel a greater responsibility to look out for the issues of women.
That’s not my only concern, certainly, but I do feel an added responsibility to the women of Mississippi. Everybody comes to this job coming from their own frame of reference. As a woman, as a mom, I have experiences that my male colleagues don’t have, just like they have experiences I don’t. So on issues like this I feel like, not to be repetitive, I feel a higher responsibility to champion important causes for the well being of women in our state.
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On this day in 1913
FEBRUARY 4, 1913
Rosa Parks was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Although she is best known for refusing to give up her bus seat, she was active in the civil rights struggle long before. She and her husband, Raymond, became involved in the Scottsboro Boys case.
In 1943, she became secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP, working on voter registration and investigating a series of sexual assaults of Black women that went unpunished in Alabama.
She, too, was the victim of an attempted rape by a white neighbor. “I was ready to die, but give my consent?” she said. “Never. Never. Never.”
After refusing to give up her bus seat, she became a worldwide icon and driving force for the civil rights movement.
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear,” she said. “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
After her 2005 death, she became the first woman to lie in state at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. On the 50th anniversary of her courageous act, transit authorities in New York City and some other cities left the seats behind the bus drivers empty to honor her.
In 2013, Congress added her statue at the U.S. Capitol, making her the first Black woman represented in Statuary Hall. Before her death, she noted that “racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.”
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