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Briana Wright has worked all her adult life. The 27-year-old Kosciusko resident has been a crew member at McDonald’s for three years. Before that, she worked for Tyson Foods, where she mostly hung chickens for processing.

Wright is stuck in what is commonly referred to as the healthcare coverage gap. She is one of the 300,000 or so Mississippians with no health insurance because she can’t afford private health insurance but doesn’t qualify for Medicaid.

States have had the option to expand Medicaid eligibility to most people with incomes under a certain level — about $30,300 annually for a family of three — since 2014. Mississippi remains one of 12 states not to expand despite profound financial benefits and an increased federal matching rate under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. 

As Wright and other Mississippians in similar positions continue to struggle, state lawmakers once again have decided not to consider expansion and do not seem poised to do so anytime soon.

The current program covers the disabled, poor pregnant women, children and some elderly people. Generally speaking, able-bodied adults are not eligible for Medicaid in Mississippi.

If state leaders were to expand Medicaid, at least 225,000 Mississippians would qualify for healthcare coverage — including Wright. 

As a result of being uninsured, Wright doesn’t see any doctors annually for checkups or preventative care. 

But in May of last year, she started vomiting and experiencing severe pain in her abdomen. The intensity of the pain led her to the local emergency room. The doctors suspected pancreatitis, but at a follow-up appointment the next month with a surgeon at Jackson-based Central Surgical Associates, she was told she needed her gallbladder removed.  

She let her doctor know she had no health insurance, and he suggested reaching out to the Mississippi Department of Rehabilitative Services to see if she qualified for its vocational rehabilitation program. The program offers resources to people with disabilities that impede their ability to work.

The program agreed to cover the costs of her surgery so she could continue working. Last fiscal year, the department spent over $10 million on “physical restoration,” or medical services for Mississippians with disabilities, according to the department spokeswoman. “Disabilities” are defined as any condition that is an impediment to someone gaining or maintaining employment. Despite the absence of Medicaid expansion, the state is still footing the bill to cover some working Mississippians’ medical care. 

Wright was approved for the program, and she thought she had found the solution to her problem — until the $245 bill for the Central Surgical Associates consultation appointment came in the mail. She had thought the appointment cost would be applied to her surgery bill, but she soon learned she was responsible. She couldn’t afford to pay it, and the vocational rehabilitation program doesn’t pay for past bills, she said. 

According to Wright, she tried to set up a $25 a month payment plan with Central Surgical Associates, but they told her she had to pay in full in order to have the surgery. 

Judy Skinner and Laura Yarbrough, employees at Central Surgical Associates, told Mississippi Today they did offer Wright a payment plan. They said they tried calling her numerous times from June to November but couldn’t get through.

Wright’s bill was turned over to collections Oct. 31, though Wright maintains she wasn’t offered a payment plan. She said she only remembers one phone call from the doctor’s office, which she answered while at work but didn’t hear anyone on the line.

“I’m trying my best, but it doesn’t seem like it’s good enough,” said Wright. 

Today, even if she could come up with the $245, she would have to reapply for the vocational rehabilitation program and have yet another $245 consultation with the doctor because of the amount of time that has passed since her initial appointment.

In the meantime, her symptoms have gotten worse. She regularly has sharp pains, nausea and indigestion. She often has to sit down during her shifts and has been sent home early from work several times.

“It makes it hard to work,” she said. “I wish there was a way … I could be eligible to be on some type of affordable medical insurance to help me out some.” 

Health advocates and other Mississippi health groups have long championed Medicaid expansion. But two key state leaders, Gov. Tate Reeves and Speaker of the House Philip Gunn, have repeatedly expressed their staunch opposition.

“Briana’s experience is a poignant and far too common illustration of both the human and fiscal benefits that Medicaid expansion could bring to Mississippi,” said Roy Mitchell, executive director of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program. “Expansion would help over 200,000 Mississippi residents get health coverage and simultaneously bring billions of our tax dollars home from Washington, D.C. Hardworking families in our state need to be able to see the doctor and get access to life-saving medicine.”

The federal government covers 90% of the costs of expanding Medicaid, leaving 10% up to states (and even less for two years under the American Rescue Plan Act.)

A recent study estimated if Mississippi were to expand the program, the state would save an estimated $212 million by 2027. That money could be appropriated on anything lawmakers wanted — not just healthcare.

The only major political player in Mississippi to signal support for Medicaid expansion is Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who often decries the working poor’s lack of healthcare access. He recently recounted the story of an uninsured mother of two in Greenwood who developed breast cancer but delayed seeing a doctor. She died soon after.

“The lieutenant governor has visited with many Mississippians who are working every day without healthcare coverage for themselves and their families. When people are healthy, they are in a better position to be employed, contribute to their communities and take care of their families,” Leah Smith, Hosemann’s chief of staff, said in a statement to Mississippi Today. “The lieutenant governor continues to be interested in finding solutions which increase healthcare access for working Mississippians.”

But in the final four weeks of the 2022 legislative session, there are no bills to expand Medicaid or healthcare coverage to any working Mississippians. At least eight expansion bills were filed this session, but none were ever debated or considered before dying in committee. 

Dozens of similar bills have been filed in past years but have never made it far. The Republican-controlled legislature, coupled with the opposition from Reeves and Gunn, means there is very little appetite for even exploring expansion.

Sen. Chad McMahan, a Republican from Guntown, is a rare outlier — though he says he is “not necessarily for expanding Medicaid.”

“I’m interested in holding hearings on Medicaid for the purposes of reform,” McMahan told Mississippi Today. “… I do not want to expand Medicaid to anyone who is not working, but for those Mississippians who are and do not have basic minimum coverage, (I support creating) a category for them to have basic emergency health care services.” 

McMahan’s father was a small business owner, and their family did not have health insurance. He remembers the $20,000 medical bill they incurred after he had an injury in the 1980s. 

“I am very sympathetic to working people that don’t have healthcare,” McMahan said. 

In the meantime, Wright and 300,000 other uninsured Mississippians remain without access to any healthcare — and Wright fears losing her job, or worse. 

“I’m afraid my gallbladder will worsen and make me even more sick,” she said. 

The post ‘It makes it hard to work’: The real cost of not expanding Medicaid in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The MHSAA Basketball Tournament wrapped up Saturday in the most dramatic sense possible, with the Clinton boys overcoming a huge deficit late to beat Olive Branch in the 6A Championship. Clinton coach Leonard Taylor joins the Cleveland boys to talk about the win. Plus, Rick and Tyler discuss the college baseball landscape in the Magnolia State.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: 36 basketball games in six days appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Tens of thousands of patients at Mississippi’s largest hospital and its clinics will be on the hook for higher out-of-pocket costs if an agreement with the state’s largest private insurer isn’t soon reached.

As a March 31 deadline for the University of Mississippi Medical Center and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi to sign a new contract approaches, the two parties are meeting weekly but are nowhere near a resolution to the dispute.

Though UMMC leadership maintains that reaching an agreement is their top goal, they also have another message: They’re not backing down.

“If they will not agree to pay us fairly, we will go out of network with Blue Cross and it will negatively impact some patients,” Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs, said in an interview with Mississippi Today on Thursday. “That is not the desired outcome. That is not what we want. But it is important to the future of the medical center that we are paid fairly. And we are going to hold that line.”

But Blue Cross also appears poised to hold its line. Blue Cross officials say they also hope an agreement can be reached, but they’ve already begun preparing to direct their customers to get care at other in-network hospitals.

“If we need to, we have the ability through a clinical team to make sure that we get them somewhere if for some reason, (UMMC) will not see them,” Bryan Lagg, senior vice president of consumer marketing and sales at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, told Mississippi Today on Friday.

With about three weeks before the current contract expires, here’s what you need to know about the dispute.

What the sides disagree on

There are two major points of contention in the contract negotiations: 

1. Reimbursement rates, which determines the amount a hospital receives to provide care to Blue Cross patients.
2. Blue Cross’ quality care plan, which measures hospital performance and whether services provided to patients are adequate.

UMMC is asking Blue Cross for substantial increases to inpatient, outpatient and professional reimbursement rates, some as large as 50%. Overall reimbursement from Blue Cross would increase by around 30% in the first year of the new contract. UMMC asked for the same rate increases during the last contract dispute with the health insurer in 2018, but the two parties settled on a deal that didn’t raise rates. Instead, Blue Cross removed language that made the contract evergreen, meaning the insurance company could no longer change the contract terms at any time. 

Blue Cross officials say that UMMC asking for this level of reimbursement is unreasonable and would necessitate a substantial increase in customer premiums.

“We have to look at this from a sustainability standpoint, particularly with the economy and what’s happened with the pandemic,” Lagg said. “We’ve got to make sure that health insurance and health care, especially focusing on prevention, is affordable.”

Woodward said that when compared to other academic medical centers in the region — such as University Medical Center New Orleans or Regional One Health in Memphis — UMMC is underpaid by Blue Cross.

“It does sound like a large ask,” Woodward said. “It is a large ask, but it is because they have underpaid us by a large amount for a long time.”

The other major point of contention in the contract negotiations is the Blue Cross quality care program. The program, first rolled out last year, measures hospital performance across 15 different categories that include topics like blood clots after surgeries and the rate of readmissions.

Woodward said that improving patient outcomes has been the top strategic priority at UMMC since 2015, but that the current Blue Cross “one size fits all” quality care program doesn’t take into account the complexity involved in the care the medical center provides or their status as an academic medical center and the state’s only safety net hospital.

“We’re not getting any signals that they really want to meet us in the middle. We’re getting signals that they’re still showing up — I think just to say they’re showing up, but it’s not a real, robust conversation.”

Dr. LouAnn Woodward, UMMC vice chancellor for health affairs

There are certain services and facilities UMMC has that cannot be found anywhere else in the state. These include Mississippi’s only Level 1 trauma center, Level IV neonatal intensive care unit and children’s hospital, among other critical care services.

“Blue Cross says, ‘You’re just like every other hospital. Your doctors are just like all the other doctors,’” Woodward said. “But clearly the other hospitals and other doctors in the state of Mississippi do not feel that way. Because when they have patients that are too sick for them to take care of, they send them to us.”

Woodward said that between 30-40 patients are transferred to UMMC every day from other hospitals in Mississippi. This is because those hospitals don’t have the intensive care capabilities or specialists that UMMC has. UMMC rarely transfers patients to other hospitals.

UMMC has quality care programs with other insurers, like Medicaid, but the difference is that program was negotiated between the two parties.

“We sat down, we said what will be beneficial to Medicaid, what will be beneficial to UMC. We came up with the targets together,” Dr. Alan Jones, UMMC associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, told Mississippi Today.

Another difference is that the Blue Cross quality care program is directly tied to reimbursement rates. There are penalties for not meeting certain targets, and reimbursement levels are increased if others are met. No other quality program UMMC has with commercial insurance providers is tied to reimbursement rates, UMMC officials said.

“We’re not saying we just want to pick these measures that we already do good with,” Jones said. “We want to try to work on things that would help their members and our patients, but they only want us to do what they say every other hospital in the state has signed.”

Dr. Lee Greer, corporate medical director at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, told Mississippi Today that the Blue Cross quality care plan centers around things that most hospitals do, and that they’re best practices that all hospitals should follow. 

“Whether your ambulance drops you off at Greenwood, or it drops you off here at a hospital in Jackson or it drops you off at the hospital on the coast, those process measures should be adhered to each time, regardless of the complexity,” Greer said. 

What happens if the sides can’t agree

Most Blue Cross patients with commercial plans who use UMMC’s healthcare services will be out of network, meaning they would be billed the full out-of-pocket costs to continue receiving care at UMMC.

Officials from both sides believe that if a contract cannot be negotiated, many current UMMC patients would have to find health care at a different hospital system — a looming headache for many Mississippians who need specialized care that only UMMC provides in the state.

All affected patients — at least 50,000 across the state, UMMC officials estimated — will be notified of this up front, and they will be charged at a discounted rate instead of the hospital’s inflated “chargemaster” prices, Jones told Mississippi Today. 

However, there are three groups of people the out-of-network status would not apply to:

1. Those enrolled in the Mississippi State and School Employees’ Health Insurance Plan would not be affected. Though that plan is administered through BCBS, the current negotiations only affect the insurer’s commercial insurance plans.

2. Patients who come into UMMC’s emergency room or are transferred from another hospital will still have their current reimbursement rates honored. 

3. Patients for which UMMC has a continuity of care obligation. UMMC can’t stop caring for, say, a pregnant woman in her last trimester of pregnancy or a cancer patient who is in round two of 12 rounds of chemotherapy. In those cases, their Blue Cross reimbursement will be accepted. 

Dr. Thomas Fenter, chief medical officer at Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi, wrote in a March 2 letter to Blue Cross patients that the insurer will continue to provide network benefits to UMMC patients even if they go out of network. He also instructed Blue Cross customers to provide Blue Cross or UMMC with written directions for the insurer to make their benefit payments to UMMC.

This direction from Fenter stems from a Mississippi law passed in 2013 that banned balance billing. The law states that if a health care provider accepts payment from a health insurance company on behalf of a patient, the provider is prohibited from collecting any amount from the patient above their deductible, co-pay, or co-insurance amount.

For example, if a patient is billed $10,000 by their hospital, but their health insurance company pays the hospital $5,000 per their reimbursement agreement with the hospital, the hospital cannot turn around and try to collect the remaining $5,000 from the patient.  Though balance billing is illegal in Mississippi, it still happens.

However, the law doesn’t apply if the provider refuses to accept the payment from a patient’s health insurance provider. In that case, the patient would then have to file a claim directly with their insurance provider. 

Jones told Mississippi Today that Fenter’s instructions are misleading and are written to make customers believe that UMMC has no choice but to accept the payment from Blue Cross. That’s not the case, and Jones said that if a contract agreement isn’t reached, UMMC will not be accepting those payments from Blue Cross.

“If we were to do that, then they would be able to pay us whatever they wanted in perpetuity, and we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it,” Jones said.

The ongoing negotiations

Though negotiations were first conducted over email starting last fall, representatives for both sides have been meeting in-person weekly since January. And as the March 31 contract end date inches closer, the sides are meeting more regularly.

Woodward and Jones both told Mississippi Today that Blue Cross is not negotiating in good faith. Each time their team has received a counterproposal from Blue Cross, it includes reimbursement increases in some areas, but when they calculate the overall reimbursement amount, it stays the same or actually decreases from current levels.

“We’re not getting any signals that they really want to meet us in the middle,” Woodward said. “We’re getting signals that they’re still showing up — I think just to say they’re showing up, but it’s not a real, robust conversation.”

Blue Cross maintains that the rates they’re offering are fair and protect their bottom line.

“At each point, we have offered increased reimbursement,” Lagg said. “They continue to come back with the same net increase in overall costs … At some point, we have to look out for our members and manage cost and quality in a more holistic view.”

UMMC is the only hospital among Mississippi’s 33 largest that hasn’t agreed to the Blue Cross quality care plan, Greer said. He also claimed that over the first year of its implementation, member hospitals have become safer, seeing their rates of readmission decrease. He also said that measures that are outcomes-driven — such as readmission rates — are risk-adjusted to account for the complexity of an individual patient’s situation.

“At each point, we have offered increased reimbursement. They continue to come back with the same net increase in overall costs … At some point, we have to look out for our members and manage cost and quality in a more holistic view.”

Bryan Lagg, BCBS senior vice president of consumer marketing and sales

Lagg also said that the quality care plan makes sense business wise, as it addresses the concerns of their policyholders.

“Our customers are coming to us,” Lagg said. “They want to make sure that on their deliveries, that they have fewer neonatal or newborn intensive care unit claims. They want fewer readmissions. And so the market is asking for that better quality.”

Woodward said the level and quality of care UMMC provides is exactly why they should be paid more by Blue Cross. And they’re just asking for the level of reimbursement given to other academic medical centers.

“What we’re trying to do is to catch up,” Woodward said. “Not necessarily hit the mark, and certainly not exceed it, but we’re trying to make up some ground.”

The post Inside the contract dispute between Mississippi’s largest hospital and insurer appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Ole Miss’s Shakira Austin, a repeat winner, and Mississippi State’s Iverson Molinar accepted the Peggie Gillom and Bailey Howell trophies, respectively, during an awards luncheon Monday at the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum.

It says here media voters from across the state got it right in voting that MSHOF executive director Bill Blackwell said was the closest in recent years. Ole Miss, 23-8 overall and 10-6 in the Southeastern Conference, was the best women’s team in the state, and Austin, who averaged 15.4 points and nine rebounds a game, was the Lady Rebels’ best player. Mississippi State, 17-14 overall and 8-10 in the SEC, was the best men’s team in the state, and Molinar, who surely will be named to the All-SEC team Tuesday, was far and away the Bulldogs’ best player.

Clearly, there was a certain symmetry to both awards.

Before we get into all the particulars, one of the most interesting moments of the program came when Ben Howland was talking about Howell’s legacy. Howland mentioned that Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe has averaged 15.3 rebounds per game this season and commentators are calling him the greatest college rebounder in decades.

Said Howland, “Bailey Howell averaged 17 rebounds per game for his entire career!”

How good is that?

Of course, Howland also could have mentioned that Vanderbilt’s Scottie Pippen Jr. leads SEC scorers this season with 20.5 points per game. Howell averaged 27 per game for his career. It should be stressed that Howell played during an era when there was no shot clock, and coaches, including the great Babe McCarthy at State, often held the ball (“freezes it”) for long periods of times. 

No telling what Bailey Howell would have averaged at today’s much faster pace. Little wonder he was the second overall pick of the 1959 behind another fairly good player, the one named Wilt Chamberlain.

Austin won over fellow finalists Amyshya Williams-Holliday of Jackson State and Anastasia Hayes of Mississippi State. Williams-Holliday, who began her college career at State, led JSU to a perfect 18-0 record in the Southwestern Athletic Conference and a 20-6 mark overall. She led the Lady Tigers in scoring with 19.8 points per game and in rebounding with 11.2 per game. Hayes averaged 18.6 points per game for State.

Presumably, the close voting was between Austin and Williams-Holliday, who both had outstanding seasons for successful teams. The two did go head-to-head in November with Austin scoring 24 points and grabbing 10 rebounds to lead Ole Miss to a 79-66 victory. Williams-Holliday paced Jackson State with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

Both Austin and Williams-Holliday have more basketball to play. Ole Miss should be a 6-seed, maybe even a 5-seed, in the NCAA Tournament. Jackson State will play Arkansas-Pine Bluff in the SWAC Women’s Tournament at Birmingham Wednesday night.

Molinar, State’s point guard, averaged 17.8 points and 3.6 assists per game and saved some of his best performances for the strongest competition. For instance, he scored 30 points in an overtime loss at Kentucky. He has scored in double figures in every State game this season.

“As good a player as he is, he takes his studies just as seriously as he does his basketball,” Howland said of Molinar. “As good of a player and student as he is, he is an even better person.”

Howell, a six-time NBA All-Star who still follows State basketball closely, believes Molinar has the talent and game to make it at the NBA level.

“He doesn’t have any weakness in his game,” Howell said of Molinar. “He can handle it, pass it and he is a very good defensive player. If there’s an area where he can use some improvement its in his long-range shooting. There’s such an emphasis in the NBA on three-point shooting.”

Molinar won the Howell over finalists Jarkell Joiner of Ole Miss and Tyler Stevenson of Southern Miss. Joiner averaged 13.4 points per game despite injuries this season. Stevenson led the Golden Eagles in scoring (14.7) and rebounds (7.7).

The post Lady Rebs’ Austin, Bulldogs’ Molinar voted state’s top college basketball players appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The post Marshall Ramsey: High Praise appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi lawmakers are working to revise the state’s eviction law after a federal judge recently ruled it unconstitutional.

Rep. Nick Bain, R-Corinth, authored the new bill — which gives tenants a seven-day grace period after a judge orders their removal — to rectify issues with the current statute.

The bill also allows tenants who are being evicted because they are behind on rent to stay in their home if they pay all past due rent and fees by the court-ordered move out date, something that was not guaranteed in the existing law.

Currently, Mississippi’s law offers no grace period to tenants, which means that a renter may be forced out of their home on the day they lose in court, but also that a landlord may immediately seize all their belongings.

“If we don’t pass it, we will not have a constitutional eviction statute in Mississippi,” Bain said. “So it attempts to do that, puts a Band-Aid, and I think there’s going to be, maybe next session, a broader bill to address landlord-tenant altogether.”

Bain’s bill has passed the House and is awaiting full Senate approval.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mills ruled the law unconstitutional in November after a landlord in north Mississippi used it to justify taking everything Samantha Conner, a low-income single mom, owned.

READ MORE: ‘All of this is mine’: In Mississippi, landlords legally snatch all belongings from tenants during an eviction

Mills put a stay on his decision to give lawmakers time to revise the law before it would be struck down altogether.

“It’s something we’ve got to do or nobody’s going to be getting evicted,” Bain said.

Mississippi has some of the highest eviction rates in the nation. In Jackson, the capital city, between seven and eight families are evicted from their homes every day, according to 2016 data, the most recent available, gathered by the Princeton University-based research group the Eviction Lab. Of all large cities in the nation, Jackson had the fifth highest eviction rate that year.

In 2019, the Legislature revised the law to give even fewer protections to tenants facing an eviction, making the Mississippi’s Landlord-Tenant Act the harshest in the nation.

The revisions came with what Judge Mills called “unpredictable and absurd results” because of some landlords’ severe interpretation of the law.

The law reads, “If the judge grants possession of this premises to the landlord and you do not remove your personal property, including any manufactured home, from the premises before the date and time ordered by the judge, then the landlord may dispose of your personal property.”

Many states Landlord-Tenant statutes across the country spell out what landlords may do with a renter’s left-behind belongings, a necessary legal guideline in the case of abandoned property. But Conner’s apartment manager, Kevin Casteel, used the law to prevent Conner from taking her belongings as she left her apartment on the day of her removal.

“That’s a common occurrence with a lot of the laws that we pass, is you have these bad actors who unfortunately sometimes cause the whole state to pay the price, or innocent people to pay the price,” Bain said.

Conner’s lawsuit, which asks the judge to award her damages considering all that she lost, including family photos and keepsakes that cannot be replaced, is still pending. But knowing that her efforts resulted in changes to state law is part of her victory, Conner said.

“I think that this is going to enable people and may give other people the courage to be able to go forward and maybe seek out some justice,” Conner told Mississippi Today in December. “… They can use this law now to say that, ‘Hey, you cannot do this to people.’ People matter. We have feelings.”

Bain said the Legislature may look at a bigger overhaul of Mississippi’s complex, hodge-podge eviction statute next year. The law is supposed to provide a consistent framework for how renter removals work across the state: How many days after a missed rent due date a landlord may file an eviction, notice requirements, and how long after a court judgement a landlord can file a warrant of removal.

But tenants, landlords and judges have faced confusion about Mississippi’s law, and differing interpretations have caused varying outcomes for renters across the state.

“It’s a cumbersome, a very clunky, for lack of a better word, clunky statute,” Bain said.

READ MORE: Federal judge finds Mississippi eviction law unconstitutional after ‘Kafkaesque nightmare’ removal

The post Lawmakers working to fix unconstitutional eviction law by reinstating grace period appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Note: This analysis first published in Mississippi Today’s weekly legislative newsletter. Subscribe to our free newsletter for exclusive early access to weekly analyses.

The two legislative Republicans who defended the anti-critical race theory bill on the Senate and House floors said it all: Out-of-state conservative media inspired the Mississippi bill, it would do little to change or limit any public school teaching, and its passing was largely a symbolic gesture to Republican voters ahead of the 2023 election year.

If you missed the eight total hours of floor debate of the bill, that’s the short of it, according to the bill’s author Sen. Mike McLendon and his House counterpart Rep. Joey Hood. Both Republicans appeared grossly unprepared to answer basic questions about what, exactly, the three-page bill would do.

Every Black lawmaker in both the Senate and House voted against the bill, which now sits on Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk for signature or veto. Black senators were so upset about the bill that they walked out in protest during the final vote — an inevitably successful one, given the Republicans’ supermajority. In Mississippi’s history, a legislative walkout like that had never been done before.

READ MORE: Despite objection from every Black Mississippi lawmaker, anti-critical race theory bill passed to governor

McLendon, the bill’s official “author,” struggled to answer basic questions about the bill from fellow senators on Jan. 21.

He said he heard from many of his constituents who had learned of critical race theory “on the national news” and wanted to ensure it would not be taught in Mississippi. That, he said, is the reason he “sponsored” the bill, the text of which was provided to him by the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, which often gets draft language from out-of-state interest groups.

McLendon said all his bill does is “prohibit a child or a student from being told they are inferior or superior to another.”

Likewise, Hood struggled to answer basic questions from his House colleagues during floor debate on March 3. Under constant questioning, he conceded he had not studied the origins of critical race theory.

“A lot of people have a lot of different definitions of what critical race is,” Hood said.

He repeatedly said all the bill would do is say no university, community college or public school “shall direct or compel students to affirm that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or national origin is inherently superior or that individuals should be adversely treated based on such characteristics.”

“History in Mississippi can be taught under this legislation,” Hood repeatedly said from the well of the chamber when he couldn’t provide answers to specific questions about the bill.

When pressed by colleagues about whether the bill’s passage was more of a symbolic gesture to Republican voters than anything, neither McLendon nor Hood offered any counter to the question.

“This bill is only before us so that some of you can go back home and have something to campaign on,” Rep. Willie Bailey, D-Greenville, said during the House debate. Hood did not offer any rebuttal.

Speaker of the House Philip Gunn appeared to concede that point himself shortly after the final House vote. He led the House in prayer from the speaker’s dais, saying: “Lord, we face difficult things in this body. We all represent a constituency. We all have voters for whom issues are important. Sometimes those issues are difficult. Today is one of those days, Lord. We pray for healing, we pray that you would not allow this to create division, not only within this body but within this state.”

READ MORE: Every Black Mississippi senator walked out as white colleagues voted to ban critical race theory

Critical race theory is not taught in any K-12 public school in Mississippi. The only public entity teaching a CRT course is University of Mississippi Law School, Mississippi Today found. And even a Republican in that class says that state lawmakers completely misrepresented the actual teachings of the course.

The term “critical race theory” is not mentioned once in the three-page bill, meaning it’s very unlikely that the term will make it into the state code books.

While Republicans limped through the House and Senate floor debates without real answers, some opponents said they feared that even if the language of the bill is innocuous, it will have a chilling effect on the teaching of history — particularly Mississippi’s dark, racist history — and lead to censorship in the state’s classrooms.

“The language means something to me,” Rep. Zakiya Summers said during House floor debate. “… You cannot pass a bill like this and continue the rhetoric that we can all work together.”

READ MORE: Lawmakers spent hours on a bill to ban critical race theory. But does it?

The post What will the anti-CRT bill do? Not much, other than provide election year cover to Republicans. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

In November, attorneys from the Department of Justice reached out to staff at Mississippi’s Community Mental Health Centers, which serve as regional hubs for mental health resources and treatment. A federal judge had recently approved a remedial plan calling for the Department to oversee the state’s efforts to expand mental health services at the local level, years after the Department first sued Mississippi over its practice of institutionalizing people with mental illnesses.

In an email to one of the CMHC executive directors, DOJ attorney Patrick Holkins wrote that he and colleagues were “reengaging with key stakeholders in Mississippi” to discuss the plan.

“We are also interested in hearing directly from stakeholders regarding their experiences providing and receiving adult mental health services in the state,” he wrote. 

The executive director responded enthusiastically, saying she and her team would be glad to meet with the federal lawyers.

But then the state of Mississippi intervened. Mississippi lawyers claimed a rule of professional conduct for attorneys prevents the DOJ from communicating directly with the CMHCs, according to documents filed by the Justice Department in federal court. 

The Justice Department says Mississippi has never before made that claim in more than five years of litigation. It’s asking a federal judge to rule that the state can’t intercede in its communications with community mental health staff, who are neither employed nor represented by the state. 

To mental health advocates in Mississippi, the dispute is another example in what they see as a pattern of avoiding scrutiny and transparency. In November, the non-profit oversight group Disability Rights Mississippi sued DMH for refusing to turn over incident reports from state hospitals.

In court, the state argues it has already sufficiently expanded community mental health services. Because the CMHCs are the main providers of local mental health services in Mississippi, talking to them could be a way to find out what’s going on at the local level. 

“It really begs the question of what do they not want people to know,” said Joy Hogge, executive director of the nonprofit Families As Allies, which advocates for children with behavioral health challenges and their families. 

The state’s 13 Community Mental Health Centers are the primary provider of mental health services at the local level in Mississippi. Funded through Medicaid, state and federal grants and county contributions, they are also receiving an increasing share of DMH’s budget.

They operate mobile response teams and intensive outpatient services, and they’re supposed to help prevent people from ending up in a mental health crisis that requires hospitalization. 

How well they are actually doing all of that remains the question at the heart of the federal lawsuit. Mississippi argues services are already in place in its appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. 

But advocates and the court’s special monitor, Dr. Michael Hogan, have said it’s too early to make that claim. 

Mississippi has not filed its response to the DOJ’s motion. The rule it cited, Rule 4.2, prevents attorneys from communicating directly with someone they know is represented by another attorney in the same matter. It’s intended to protect people who may not understand the risks of talking to a lawyer on the other side of a dispute.

Mississippi’s invocation of Rule 4.2 is based on a 2018 order by Southern District Magistrate Judge F. Keith Ball. Asked to weigh in on when Rule 4.2 prevented federal lawyers from communicating directly with current and former state employees, Ball determined that the rule applied to “any person whose act or omission in connection with the claims and allegations of the Complaint may be imputed to the State of Mississippi for purposes of civil or criminal liability”— in other words, someone who could be considered to be speaking on behalf of the state.

Michelle Williams, chief of staff for the attorney general, said state lawyers concluded that includes CMHC managerial staff. 

In his 2019 order finding that Mississippi had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by institutionalizing people with mental illnesses, U.S. District Court Judge Carlton W. Reeves noted that CMHCs would be key to moving the state away from that practice.

“It is ultimately DMH’s responsibility to manage the expansion of community-based services at CMHCs,” he wrote. 

DOJ says Ball’s order addressed only current and former state employees and has no bearing on the CMHCs.

“During more than five years of litigation, the State has never asserted that it represents the CMHCs or that the United States cannot communicate with CMHC staff,” DOJ argues.

The DOJ sued the state of Mississippi, not the CMHCs, for violating individuals’ civil rights through its mental health practices. But now the CMHCs are responsible for implementing much of the remedial plan. The federal lawyers could want to talk with them to make sure they’re aware of what the plan entails and to find out what’s going on day to day, Hogge said.

“The CMHCs know who the people are who are receiving the services, and that voice has never been at the table,” Hogge said.

To add another layer of oversight, the legislature created the position of coordinator of mental health accessibility in 2020. The first coordinator, Bill Rosamond, has so far produced two quarterly reports on the CMHCs. 

The most recent report, released in late December, focused on the financially struggling Region 11, which serves nine counties in southwest Mississippi.

Rosamond concluded that “this Region does not have sufficient operational funds to sustain the required mental health services and that the delivery of mental health services is inconsistent in the nine county region.”

In an email to Mississippi Today, DMH communications director Adam Moore said the department doesn’t have information about the Rule 4.2 dispute and referred questions about the ongoing litigation to the attorney general’s office. 

He said the department is continuing to expand community-based services. Its proposal for funding from the American Rescue Plan Act would add 60 beds at crisis stabilization units and fund additional mobile crisis response teams that would work with the 988 system, the new three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, launching this July. 

“DMH is also adding an Office of Utilization Review to be responsible for tracking and analysis of the utilization of behavioral health services for state operated programs and key community-based services,” he wrote. 

Mississippi may file a response to the Justice Department’s motion before the judge issues an order allowing or prohibiting DOJ from communicating with staff at these mental health centers.. 

Williams told Mississippi Today the attorney general’s office is evaluating options for its next steps. 

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Mississippi Today’s Geoff Pender and Bobby Harrison discuss a “crazy” deadline week for the Mississippi Legislature that included a six-hour debate on critical race theory, a stare-down between House and Senate leaders on teacher pay and the constant undercurrent caused by Speaker Philip Gunn’s obsession with eliminating the personal income tax.

Listen to more episodes of The Other Side here.

The post Podcast: Tax cut fight remains top legislative issue appeared first on Mississippi Today.