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The Mississippi Supreme Court on Friday issued a much-anticipated ruling that strikes down the Medical marijuana program enshrined in the state constitution by voters in November.

The ruling also voids — for now — the state’s ballot initiative process that allows voters to take matters in hand and pass constitutional amendments. The court ruled that the state’s ballot initiative process is “unworkable and inoperative” until lawmakers and voters fix state law and the constitution.

With six of the nine state justices agreeing, the court wrote, “We grant the petition, reverse the Secretary of State’s certification of initiative 65 and hold that any subsequent proceedings on it are void.”

Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler filed a Supreme Court challenge to Initiative 65 just days before voters approved it on Nov. 3. Butler argued that Mississippi’s ballot initiative process is constitutionally flawed and Initiative 65 was not legally before voters. She said a provision requiring an equal number of signatures from Mississippi’s five congressional districts could not be met, because Mississippi has only had four districts for two decades.

Besides derailing the medical marijuana program, the ruling also jeopardizes six pending ballot initiatives, including one to expand Medicaid and others to reinstate the state’s 1890 state flag, allow early voting and to approve recreational marijuana use. The ruling also could open to challenge two constitutional amendments that voters have passed since they were allowed to do so in 1992, one limiting eminent domain powers over government to take private land and one requiring a government-issued ID to vote.

The now-voided constitutional amendment passed by voters would have required Mississippi to have a medical marijuana program up and running by August.

READ MORE: Mississippi Supreme Court medical marijuana case: What you should know

Justice Josiah Coleman, writing for the majority, said, “the loss of congressional districts did, indeed, break (the ballot initiative provision) so that, absent amendment, it no longer functions.”

Both sides in the legal battle had asked the high court to make a ruling based on “plain reading” of the constitutional provision — one side saying the four vs. five districts discrepancy plainly voids it, the other said the constitution plainly gives people the right to amend the constitution and that shouldn’t be thwarted by a technicality.

The court majority ruled that the provision plainly says signatures are to be gathered equally between five districts, one of which no longer exists.

The court said: “Unlike the other two branches of government, the courts may not act proactively to address problems such as the one here … It is our duty to interpret our Constitution when its meaning is put at issue … The Court does not have jurisdiction to review, affirm, or overturn the ‘will of the people’ … The November 2020 results are not before us … The reduction in Mississippi’s congressional representation renders (the ballot initiative provision) unworkable and inoperable on its face.”

READ MORE: Mississippi’s medical marijuana mess

The court noted that the Legislature has been well aware of the congressional district disparity in law and constitutional provisions for years, but has not changed it, even after seven failed attempts.

Justice Robert Chamberlin, in a dissenting opinion wrote that the majority ruling, “does not avoid absurdity, rather, it invites it.”

Concurring in the majority opinion were Chief Justice Michael K. Randolph and Justices Coleman, Leslie King, Dawn Beam, David Ishee and Kenneth Griffis. Justices Chamberlin, James Maxwell II and James Kitchens disagreed, with Maxwell and Chamberlin writing separate dissenting opinions.

Maxwell, in his dissent, noted the majority of the court correctly pointed out that it doesn’t have the authority to amend the state constitution, “Yet the majority does just that — stepping completely outside of Mississippi law — to employ an interpretation that not only amends but judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process.”

Chamberlin wrote that “it stretches the bounds of reason to conclude that the Legislature in 1992, when drafting (the ballot initiative process) would have placed a poison pill within the language of the provision that would allow the provision and the right of the people to amend the constitution through initiative to be eviscerated at the whim of a federal injunction (on congressional districts) of such limited scope.”

The Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association in a statement called the ruling “devastating for not only patients, but voters as a whole.”

“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people of Mississippi,” said association Director Ken Newburger. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end. The Court ignored existing case law and prior decisions. Their reasoning ignores the intent of the constitution and takes away people’s constitutional right. It’s a sad day for Mississippi when the Supreme Court communicates to a vast majority of the voters that their vote doesn’t matter.”

Angie Calhoun, an association member and mother of a son with a rare illness treatable by medical marijuana, said: “In addition to silencing the votes of three-fourths of the state, today the Supreme Court squashed the hope of thousands of patients like my son, who will now not be able to find relief through medical marijuana. As a mother of a patient, I am heartbroken and outraged that this was allowed to happen.”

Butler, in her lawsuit against Secretary of State Michael Watson, argued that the ballot initiative language added to Section 273 of the state constitution in 1992 requires proponents to gather signatures evenly from five Mississippi congressional districts — with no more than 1/5, or 20% coming from any single district. Problem is, Mississippi has had only four congressional districts since the 2000 Census showed it lost population. Therefore, Butler argues, it’s a “mathematical certainty” that of the nearly 106,000 certified voter signatures collected from what are now four districts to put Initiative 65 on the ballot last year, signatures from at least one of the districts surpasses 20%.

Butler’s lawyers also argued that there have been at least seven unsuccessful attempts in the Legislature to address the congressional district issue, and that other parts of the constitution either refer to congressional districts “as now existing” or referring to their makeup at a specific date.

Butler did not respond to requests for comments on Friday.

Kendra James, a spokeswoman for Watson said: “We received a copy of the Supreme Court’s opinion this afternoon and are currently in the process of reviewing it. Once our office has had a chance to digest the opinion, we will issue an official statement.”

After years of inaction by the Legislature despite growing grassroots, bipartisan support, voters in November approved Initiative 65. It’s a constitutional amendment mandating and specifying a state medical marijuana program. But opponents — some who said they support medical marijuana in general — said such a program has no place in the constitution and opposed the program not allowing any legislative oversight or taxation.

State Rep. Robert Johnson, D-Natchez, the House minority leader, questioned why the Supreme Court would take away from the people the initiative process on what he called a technicality.

“It has been like this for 20 years and no one has said a word,” he said. “Now they don’t like the results and they do this after the people have spoken. I can’t say it better than Justice Chamberlin – it is absurd.”

He said expanding Medicaid, an ongoing initiative effort, like legalizing marijuana is popular. He said the action of the Supreme Court takes away the voice of the people to act on popular issues when the Legislature will not.

House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, on Friday said: “If I have said it once, I feel like I’ve said it 1,000 times. The language of Initiative 65 that would have gone into our constitution was not good for the people of Mississippi. I thank our Supreme Court for having the courage to rule according to the law and for protecting our citizens from the unintended consequences of Initiative 65. Now, we should craft a legitimate medical marijuana program that will truly help the people who would benefit from it without all of the unintended consequences that would have come with 65.”

Andy Taggart, an attorney, politico and author who had vocally opposed the Initiative 65 campaign, in a statement on Friday said: “The hardest job an elected Supreme Court ever faces is when it has to apply the law in the face of political opposition. I think the Court reached the correct decision, but no matter how anyone voted in the referendum, we all owe the Court our respect for following the law as it was written.”

Earlier this year, the state Senate passed an “alternative” medical marijuana program that proponents said could serve as a backstop in case the court struck down Initiative 65,but that measure was killed in the House. House Speaker Philip Gunn said lawmakers could consider a medical marijuana program in the event the court voided Initiative 65.

Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, on Friday said, “The senate passed backstop legislation which we anticipate revisiting in January.”

Friday’s ruling marks the second time the state Supreme Court has killed Mississippi’s initiative process. While the current initiative process has been in effect since 1992, in the 1910s, legislators also gave Mississippians the opportunity to vote to enact an initiative process. They voted overwhelmingly to do so, but in the 1920s, because of what the Mississippi Supreme Court justices saw as a problem with the wording in that initiative, they threw it out. Legislators did not enact a new initiative until 70 years later.

Tim Moore, president of the Mississippi Hospital Association and a leader of the move to expand Medicaid through a ballot initiative said the court’s ruling “came as quite a surprise.”

“We’re going to evaluate all of the parameters and go from there,” Moore said. “I don’t have an answer for you right now. We just have a lot of questions. We’re going to meet with the powers that be and determine where we go from there.”

READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s full coverage of the medical marijuana fight

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As Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated, the message from the state’s top health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs is clear: get vaccinated or get COVID-19.

COVID is not gone.

You will likely either 1) get COVID or 2) get the COVID vaccine

Getting vaccinated is the best option by far for every age group and risk category https://t.co/vz3cmdmrFp

— thomas dobbs (@TCBPubHealth) May 13, 2021

“I want us all to really sit back and realize that you’re likely either to get the COVID vaccine, or the COVID virus,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, State Health Officer, said during a Thursday press conference. “And under every circumstance, under every conceivable scenario, you are a thousandfold if not a millionfold better off getting the vaccine than contracting COVID. So please take this opportunity if you’re eligible to go ahead and get yourself or your kids vaccinated.”

The state’s vaccination rate has dropped 65% from its peak in late February. Now nationally and locally, groups are looking for new ways to motivate more people to get vaccinated. On Thursday, the Center for Disease Control released new recommendations saying that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks and maintaining social distance in most indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of size. Part of the motivation behind the move by the CDC is to tantalize the unvaccinated with the opportunity to return to more pre-pandemic activities.

Miracle Temple Church of Deliverance in Jackson is going as far as to offer $35 gas cards to anyone who comes and gets a shot during their vaccination event on Saturday.

Thousands of vaccination appointments are currently available on the MSDH vaccine scheduler, and parents can now schedule appointments for their children ages 12-15. 

MSDH reported on Friday that 985,219 people in Mississippi — about 33% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. More than 855,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.

MAP: Where Mississippians can get the COVID-19 vaccine

Follow our full vaccine coverage, including data on the vaccination progress in Mississippi.

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CLEVELAND — The GRAMMY Museum Mississippi in Cleveland launched its first major exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of MTV, the music video television network that inspired a cultural awakening.

The exhibit, called MTV Turns Forty, shares the role of media executive and Jackson native Bob Pittman, who led the team that created MTV in August 1981. It also features artifacts from music legends like Madonna, Michael Jackson, Run-DMC and Aerosmith.

The exhibit opens to the public on Friday, and it was unveiled during a special reception Thursday evening.

“This is fantastic,” Pittman said on Thursday. “Here I am in the Mississippi Delta, at the Grammy Museum Mississippi. I’m in music. I’m truly proud that here too, in my home state, the MTV Turns 40 exhibition is being showcased. I think this gives anyone into the music heritage of Mississippi, and especially the Blues, such an important place to be, and it’s such an important recognition of the artists.”

MTV Turns Forty will be on display at the museum through summer 2022.

Below is a photo gallery from the exhibit and museum.

Editor’s note: Mississippi Today board of directors member Tom Pittman — Bob Pittman’s brother — is involved in the planning of the MTV Turns Forty exhibit, and Mississippi Today board member Andy Lack is on the Grammy Museum Mississippi’s national advisory board. The Maddox Foundation, which is supporting the exhibit, is a donor of Mississippi Today.

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The use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has opened up to children as young as 12 in Mississippi, offering a way to protect the nation’s adolescents before they head back to school in the fall and paving the way for them to return to more normal activities .

This move opens up vaccination against COVID-19 to 164,619 preteens and teens in Mississippi, according to Mississippi State Department of Health Communications Director, Liz Sharlot.  

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for the Pfizer vaccine’s use in those adolescents on Monday, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee recommended such use on Wednesday. 

It is unclear how many parents across the state will take advantage of the opportunity to get their children vaccinated, but a recent MSDH vaccine confidence survey found that 52.2% of Mississippians plan to vaccinate their children against COVID-19.

While the most severe outcomes most often occur in older patients that contract COVID-19, that does not mean there are no risks for younger people. More than 22,000 kids between the ages of 12 to 17 have been infected thus far in Mississippi. Among that group, 62 have been hospitalized, 20 have developed multi-system inflammatory syndrome and at least one has died. 

“I want us all to really sit back and realize that you’re likely either to get the COVID vaccine, or the COVID virus,” Dr. Thomas Dobbs, State Health Officer, said during a Thursday press conference. “And under every circumstance, under every conceivable scenario, you are a thousandfold if not a millionfold better off getting the vaccine than contracting COVID. So please take this opportunity if you’re eligible to go ahead and get yourself or your kids vaccinated.”

Thousands of vaccination appointments are currently available on the MSDH vaccine scheduler, and parents will be able to schedule appointments for their children in the newly approved age group starting Thursday at 6 p.m.

During Thursday’s press conference, MSDH also announced a new program for schools across the state to offer voluntary asymptomatic COVID-19 screenings. The program is being funded by the CDC, and all school districts in the state have been invited to opt-in to the program. MSDH will be supplying rapid test kits directly each week to the schools that enroll. Dr. Dobbs said that asymptomatic testing is a great method for identifying infections before they can be spread inside the school setting. 

“It’s another tool to keep kids in school safely … we do have some data that shows that it keeps kids in school longer if you do it right. Our objective is to keep kids educated and keep them in those valuable extracurricular activities where we’ve seen a lot of outbreaks,” Dobbs said.

State health officials also addressed the sharp turnabout from federal health officials shortly before the press conference on Thursday, when the CDC advised that Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus may stop wearing masks and maintaining social distance in most indoor and outdoor settings, regardless of size.

The new advice does come with some exceptions. Vaccinated individuals must continue to wear face masks and physically distance in health care settings, when using modes of public transportation and when in other high-risk settings like prisons or homeless shelters.

“We have all longed for this moment,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director, said at a White House news conference Thursday. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.”

The advice from the CDC marks a major moment of the pandemic, and comes as many have grown weary with COVID-related restrictions and masking in public. The topic of masking in particular has caused bitter divides and conflicts across the country, and still represents a deep partisan divide in Mississippi. 

Despite the CDC recommendations, both Dobbs and State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers advised Mississippians, regardless of their vaccination status, to continue masking in public. Especially in populated indoor settings, where one cannot be sure how many unvaccinated individuals they will come into contact with. 

“I think that we just have to kind of think about these situations as they come up and let reason dictate whether or not we need to wear a mask,” Byers said. 

Part of the motivation behind the CDC’s new recommendations for vaccinated people is to act as an incentive for the many Americans who are still declining to take a vaccine. Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation in the share of its population that has been vaccinated, and the state’s vaccination rate has dropped 65% from its peak in late February.

MSDH reported on Thursday that 982,359 people in Mississippi — about 33% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 851,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.

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The Democratic National Committee and Democratic state parties have reached a four-year agreement to guarantee more investment in state political infrastructure, including a “Red State Fund” for GOP-controlled states such as Mississippi.

Mississippi Democratic leaders and candidates have for years decried a lack of investment of money and manpower by the national party in Mississippi races and party infrastructure as the state has grown more solidly Republican up and down the ballot.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Espy, who lost back-to-back Mississippi U.S. Senate races to Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in 2018 and 2020, is one of those candidates. He welcomed Thursday’s announcement from the Democratic National Committee.

“I am thrilled to see this happening,” Espy said. “There is a new day in the national Democratic Party and I think I would attribute some of that to the new chairman (Jaime Harrison) being from South Carolina and just having lost in a red state. We’re friends and have spoken about the need for something like this. I’m thrilled to see that in his first month at the helm something like this is happening. This work means candidates such as I was can focus on having a winning campaign, messaging and outreach and not spend three-fourths of our time raising money and trying to build party infrastructure for the state.”

READ MORE: ‘They’ve failed us’: Inside the battle for control of the Mississippi Democratic Party

In a press release on Thursday, the DNC said the agreement will result in at least $23 million in direct investments to state parties and grassroots infrastructure during the 2022 midterm election cycle. This will include a “seven figure” Red State Fund “to put Republicans on defense” with direct investment and grants to states that meet two of the following: no Democratic senator or governor, less than 25% of the congressional delegation is Democratic and a supermajority of Republicans it the state’s Legislature.

Mississippi meets all these criteria, but no congressional seat appears party competitive in the deep red Magnolia State for 2022. Republicans control all but one congressional seat in Mississippi, and all eight statewide elected offices and both chambers of the state Legislature.

The DNC said the contract with state parties includes a data sharing agreement that will increase investment in down-ticket races, and also looks to the future for turning red states blue.

The agreement includes $15.5 million for the DNC’s State Partnership Program and reestablishing a joint fundraising committee between the DNC and state parties.

“As a former state party chair, I know firsthand how critical it is that we invest in the grassroots to strengthen the Democratic Party as a whole — and we can’t leave a single community behind,” said Harrison, the DNC chair. “With this agreement, the new ‘Red State Fund’ will allow us to take the fight to Republicans as they fight among themselves by providing unprecedented resources to Democrats organizing in in every corner of the country.”

READ MORE: Schumer says Democrats can add a Senate seat in Mississippi

Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Tyree Irving, who took over as chairman last summer amid criticism that the state party lacked leadership and wasn’t supporting candidates, in the past accused the state party of “running away from the national party,” and vowed to work to bring more national Democratic Party support and funding to Mississippi.

Irving on Thursday said, “I commend Chairman Harrison for his foresight, and I don’t have any doubt we can turn Mississippi blue … It’s not going to happen overnight, but this is a four year agreement. It is a modest amount but it certainly will help … But it will never happen if we don’t get started.”

Irving said he is putting together a strategic plan to take advantage of the national help and, “it will be very targeted to increase voter registration and do a better job at messaging.”

“That’s been one of the problems at the Democratic Party from the national level on down, that we long since have been out of the messaging game,” Irving said. “But we’re getting back in.

“… This will take resources, and the DNC recognizes that,” Irving said. “We are not conceding anyting to anybody any more. Historically the Democratic Party ceded the South, but we are not going to do that any more. We are going to make progress. And when you make progress, you get where you’re trying to go eventually.”

Although he vastly outraised Hyde-Smith in last year’s election thanks to an influx of out-of-state campaign donations, Espy has said national party support came too late in the game and he was forced to create his own campaign infrastructure. Espy said the national party should invest money and manpower in red states such as Mississippi between major races, not wait to see if a candidate could be competitive.

“They need to stop overlooking Mississippi,” Espy said Thursday. “They overlook you until you become viable, and it’s hard to become viable when you’re overlooked … My campaigned raised $16 million — enough to win — but the money came very late, and I had to build the data, provide it to the party, finance the infrastructure through personal campaigning. (The national and state parties) have to invest in off years, relieve the burden for candidates.”

Espy said he invested about $4 million of what he raised to the state party, and “donated my donor list — most people actually sell them, but I donated it — with 260,000 donors to the party.”

Espy said he foresees a time “around the corner” when the Democratic Party will again be competitive in state races, and “Mississippi is going purple.”

“I know we are not Georgia, and we are not as urban as Texas and Louisiana, but we will be trending Democratic electorally,” Espy said. “We did well in the urban and suburban areas, and that trend is not going to reverse, it’s going to increase. We’ll see the Black population grow, young people trending more and more Democratic, education levels are increasing and we’ll see more immigration, from Hispanic and Asian people. Look at the trend lines — Mississippi is going purple and it’s going fast. If we can stop outmigration and bring more jobs in like with Amazon — more skills jobs — all those will advance us toward the day when Democrats can win the governor’s seat and the Senate seats. That day is coming. I plan to do all I can as a citizen to help hasten that day.”

READ MORE: Three-part series on how the Mississippi Democratic Party lost so much ground during the pivotal 2019 statewide elections.

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State officials are urging Mississippi residents to refrain from panic buying gasoline after a cyber attack halted operations for the Colonial Pipeline system on Friday.

“The reality is we do not have a fuel shortage in this state… The greatest risk that we face right now is panic buying,” Andy Gipson, Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce, said in a video statement on Monday. 

While some gas stations across the state have reported low or empty fuel inventories, officials say that less than 30% of Mississippi’s fuel supply comes from the Colonial Pipeline.

“So stay calm — buy your normal level of weekly gasoline — and live your life! If everyone takes this approach, this will be behind us with minimal impact,” Gov. Tate Reeves said in a Facebook post.

The 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline system, which runs from Texas to New Jersey and primarily serves the East Coast, came under a ransomware attack on Friday. It delivered nearly half of the fuel for the East Coast. The corporate operator of the pipeline released a statement on Wednesday saying the company had started to resume operations, but it would take “several days” until fuel deliveries return to normal.

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The number of Mississippians enrolling in health care coverage through the healhgare.gov marketplace is surging this year thanks to an expanded enrollment period and the expansion of premium tax credits that make the plans much more affordable. 

The premium tax credit (PTC) is the Affordable Care Act’s main insurance subsidy that radically reduces the premium costs for those eligible to receive it. A provision of the American Rescue Plan, the stimulus package Congress passed earlier this year, increased the tax credit amount for those who are eligible and makes individuals with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty line eligible for the first time. This provision represents the first major expansion of the health care reform law since its passage. 

For those who were eligible for a tax credit prior to the passage of ARP, the share of their income enrollees are expected to pay for premiums on a benchmark silver plan has been cut in half or removed completely.

Expanding the PTC has already had a major impact on the number of enrollees in Mississippi. In 2020, 4,341 Mississippians enrolled in health insurance plans through the marketplace from Feb. 15-April 30. This year saw 14,040 people enroll in the same period — a 223% increase.

“The premium tax credits, they’ve made a big difference in the number of individuals that are willing to accept the plans. The premiums are still extremely high, but those tax credits help to lower those payments to amounts they’re able to pay,” said Antwan Nicholson, a navigator at My Brother’s Keeper, Jackson-based community health organization. 

Navigators like Nicholson help people navigate the complexities of the health insurance marketplace one-on-one. Just last week, as he was helping one woman enroll, her eyes widened when she saw the premium on the plan she selected was $493. Then Nicholson showed her that she was eligible for a PTC that would cover $443 of that premium, bringing her monthly out-of-pocket cost to $50. Though she had just been looking for health insurance, the plan also included dental and vision insurance.

“She purchased it immediately,” Nicholson said. 

The stimulus packaged also created a 16-week special enrollment period (SEP) for people to get health insurance through HealthCare.gov that lasts from April 15-August 15. In previous years, SEPs were available primarily only for qualifying life events, whereas this year the Biden Administration opened an SEP to all Americans in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This week, Biden’s administration announced more than 1 million Americans have signed up for Affordable Care Act health plans during the special enrollment period that began Feb. 15.

“That’s one million more Americans who now have the peace of mind that comes from having health insurance,” Biden said in a statement this week. “One million more Americans who don’t have to lie awake at night worrying about what happens if they or one of their family members gets sick.”

Nicholson and his team had extra navigators for the six-week open enrollment period last year, but they’ve had to push through this new special enrollment period with a small staff. With each application taking between 20-40 minutes, dealing with the surge of enrollees has been a hefty task, he said. but they’ve handled it well.

The PTC expansion is temporary, lasting only through the 2022 plan year. Nicholson thinks it’s a vital lifeline for the uninsured and should be extended.

“I think it would be a great benefit to those that we serve and the citizens of Mississippi that can take advantage of it,” he said. “I think it’s something that we should look to expand. I hope that it is extended, so that we can still have individuals that are able to be covered receive the health care that they need.”

Even though the expanded PTC isn’t guaranteed for the future, that hasn’t deterred the people Nicholson has worked with from enrolling. 

“It’s an ‘I need it now’ situation, ‘so I’m going to take advantage of it and I’ll deal with what happens later,’” Nicholson said.

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